Urban Horticulture in Review
Urban Agriculture Magazine Solicits Contributions
The December issue will be devoted to the topic "Linking relief, rehabilitation and development: a role for urban agriculture". The deadline for contribution for this issue is 15 Sept. 2008. The Urban Agriculture Magazine facilitates the sharing of information on the impacts of urban agriculture, promotes the analysis and debate on critical issues for the development of the sector, and publishes "goog" practices in urban agriculture. For more information click here.
Conference on Housing, Urban Poverty and Environment
Call for Abstracts - Conference on Housing, Urban Poverty and Environment This is a call for researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers working on housing, urban poverty and environment issues to participate in an upcoming IDRC-sponsored expert meeting to be held in Kampala, Uganda, on December 2-4, 2008. Please click here for further details http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-119638-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html Deadline: April 4, 2008
2d International Conference on Landscape and Urban Horticulture
Call for Abstracts - Scientific contributions are welcome, concerning a wide range of topics: from ecophysiology and plant management in urban environment, through psychological and social aspects of gardening, plant use and garden design - including transversal views where landscape architecture meets functional horticultural management in the cities – to urban agriculture. Contributions dealing with innovative solutions for garden design and management, including ecological engineering and technologies, are warmly welcome. Abstracts should be submitted electronically only, to dista.luh2009@unibo.it before October 13th, 2008. An abstract in English of about 300 words should be presented on a single A4 page (File Word - .doc). Please structure the abstract as follows:
- Topic
- Plants in historical gardens.
- Urban landscape horticulture.
- Green roofs, vertical gardens and living walls.
- Interior landscape.
- Ecophysiology and vegetation management in urban environment.
- Food and flowers production in/for the cities.
- Social and psychological role of horticulture in the urban environment.
- Urban horticulture meets architecture.
- Title
- Author (s) and affiliation
- Corresponding author’s address
- Text of abstract
- Presentation: oral or poster
Visit the Conference website (http://www.luh2009.org/) for instructions
Workshop on Urban Agriculture, Participatory Governance and Social Inclusion, September 24-28, 2007 Bukavu (DR Congo).
This workshop was organized and supported by RUAF, DIOBASS (DR Congo), Institut de la Vie, DGCD, CECODEL and CGRI (Belgium). Participants came from Bukavu, Butembo, Goma, Kinshasa, Kisangani and Lubumbashi (Congo), Ngozi (Burundi), Dakar (Senegal), Yaoundé (Cameroun), and from the mentioned institutes and other international organizations (like GlobalHort, Tanzania). Priorities for the development of regional programmes on urban agriculture in the region were identified as: (1) the development of school gardens, and (2) the strengthening of small urban and peri-urban producers in their production, processing and marketing strategies. A project formulation committee has been put in place and agreements were made to continue promoting urban agriculture development at city, national and regional level. Representatives from Kigali (Rwanda) and FAO, who could not participate due to the countries' general insecurity situation, will also be involved in the workshops' follow up activities.
The report and the paricipant list can be found here.
Comments
Editorial by Pierre Ongala, Directeur du réseau RAUKIN
Resources
FAO Theme in Urban/Peri-Urban Agriculture
IndigenoVeg A network to promote the sustainable production of indigenous vegetables through urban and peri-urban agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa.
International Society for Horticultural Science Commission on Landscape and Urban Horticulture
RUAF Foundation: Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture & Food Security.
The RUAF Foundation is currently constituted by 1 international and 7 regional partners: ETC Foundation (the Netherlands); IPES-Promoción Desarrollo Sostenible (Peru), the International Water Management Institute IWMI (India and Ghana); Institut Africain de Gestion Urbaine IAGU (Senegal); Municipal Development Partnership MDP (Zimbabwe); the Environment and Sustainable Development Unit of the American University of Beirut, AUB/ESDU (Lebanon) and the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences IGSNRR (China). The partners in the RUAF Foundation see as their mission: ‘’to contribute to urban poverty reduction, employment generation and food security and to stimulate participatory city governance and improved urban environmental management, by creating enabling conditions for empowerment of male and female urban and peri-urban farmers, capacity development of local authorities and other stakeholders and by facilitating the integration of urban agriculture in gender-sensitive policies and action programmes of local governments, civic society organisations and private enterprises with active involvement of the urban farmers, livestock keepers and other relevant stakeholders”. RUAF is currently implementing the Cities Farming for the Future programme (2005-2008) through which it is facilitating multi-stakeholder policy formulation and action planning in 21 pilot cities in each of 7 regions.
The Urban Agriculture Network - TUAN
Urban Harvest CGIAR's system-wide initiative to direct and coordinate the collective knowledge and technologies of the Future Harvest Centers towards strengthening urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA).
Urban Agriculture Course Ryerson University
Acta Horticulturae: ISHS Commission on Landscape and Urban Horticulture
Etat des recherches sur l'agriculture périurbaine en France. 2007. Rapport INRA-SAD, UMR 951 Innovation, équipe Innovations Territoriales par B. Sabatier
Urban Agriculture Magazine Published by RUAF. Back issues are available at website.
From the Ground Up: Organic Gardening Fuels a Food Revolution A quiet revolution is pulsing through the huge residential areas spread out on the edges of Cape Town. An AllAfrica special festure, illustrated with video clips and photo galleries, provides coverage on a movement fuelled by vegetables and led by grandmothers