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Carrot City: Designing for Urban Agriculture

This exhibition will show how the design of cities and buildings is enabling the
production of food in the city. It will explore the role that creative design professionals
have in relation to the food system of cities, and the impact that agricultural
issues will have on the design of urban spaces and buildings as society addresses
the issues of a more sustainable pattern of living. The focus will be on how the
increasing interest in growing food within the city, supplying food locally, and
food security in general is changing urban design and built form.

1940 - Ploughing Land Beside Parliament Building in Northern Ireland - part of ‘Grow
More Food’ Campaign

A tractor ploughing land beside Parliament Building (official residence of the Speaker
of the House of Commons in Northern Ireland) on the Stormont Estate. The Northern
Ireland Government is having the land ploughed as part of the ‘Grow More Food’ campaign.
Landshare in the UK - Linking people who want to grow their own food to space where
they can grow it
With allotment waiting lists massively over-subscribed and people right across the
country keener than ever to grow their own fruit and veg, the aim for Landshare
is to become a UK wide initiative to make British land more productive and fresh
local produce more accessible to all. But all of this depends on people like you
registering their interest now.

Growing Grains in the City - kids learn to make bread

Ian Lai, a chef and urban agriculture consultant, has been teaching children how
to make bread. But what is so unusual and especially in a city, is that all the
grains used to make the bread are grown in the city. Wheat, barley, spelt, flax,
buckwheat, amaranth, and quinoa are grown at the Terra Nova Garden site in Richmond.

The Independent (UK) says - Grow your own: The seeds of change

The nation’s landscape is changing before our eyes. Record numbers of people are
preparing to dig up their manicured lawns and privet hedges. Even the most modish
gardens are sporting freshly dug vegetable beds, sapling fruit trees and nascent
compost heaps.
Fruit and vegetable seed sellers last week reported record sales, with many saying
that they cannot keep up with a sudden rise in demand. Meanwhile, the landscape
gardening industry is in crisis, with many firms laying off staff.

Urban agriculture in Mwanza, Tanzania

Many people living in Mwanza, Tanzania, provision themselves through urban agriculture
- the planting of crops and raising of animals in urban and peri-urban areas, as
well as in the countryside. This article compares Mwanza’s urban farmers with those
in Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ghana. Like Zimbabwe’s urban agriculturalists, more
and more of Mwanza’s are not among the poorest of the poor. Much like Ghana’s urban
farmers, those in Mwanza are often middle and upper-class males with access to scarce
land and inputs. Urban cultivators in Mwanza differ from those in Kenya and Zambia
with regard to gender, socio-economic class and the factors motivating their farming
activities.

The Case for Agricultural Urbanism and Municipal Supported Agriculture

Agricultural Urbanism espouses the full integration of agriculture and the food
system within the planning, design, development and function of our communities.
It is an agri-food system intended to connect urbanites, in real and meaningful
ways, to their environment and a human enterprise undeniably crucial to their well-
being. It is also a way of reducing vulnerability and dependence on an ecologically
unsound and increasingly vulnerable global agri-food system.
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All stories here:
City Farmer News [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102423973208&e=001KRVrGex9aSzsanbR4H-9cn9VJSU6FX4Sod6mLlX2tGjWv2mh_tVRlIDFj3ywmO2mKZGUW1GabNgx2ZyY2xkOewnQ1T5hp6gXVnnG2l0PoagVvO2jp9Y7gA==]

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Michael Levenston
City Farmer - Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture