All city kids know that food does not come from the field, but from the supermarket. However, there is more truth in this anecdote than we all think. Contact with crops and agro-culture with the progress of civilization has blurred like never before. The negative effects of this phenomenon, fortunately, can be minimized.
As part of our #ReportThursday series, we present documents, reports and guides on architecture, cities and local government that are certainly worth publicizing and promoting. This week we look at the report „MOST — Cooperative Farming as a Tool for the Development of the Urban Food Zone and Agroecology,” produced by the CoopTech Hub and the Heinrich Böll Foundation in cooperation with the Board of Urban Greening in Krakow. This is another document developed by CTH, which we present in the series — the first was "Urban Resilience Package."
images by Gosia Zmysłowska from the report
© CoopTech Hub
With increasing urbanization, globalization and the process of closing small rural farms, the role of agriculture is disappearing from our horizon. We see less and less any elements of the agricultural landscape, as well as elements of food production. This disappearance brings with it obvious drawbacks — food insecurity with broken supply chains, undervaluation of the role of food producers or low public awareness of their role.
The solution that the report's authors and contributors propose is a comprehensive new approach to urban farms and urban food zones. Just how to rearrange it all?
The report is available on the CoopTech Hub website.
Sustainable city food system according to the Food Policy of the City of Warsaw.
© CoopTech Hub
urban farms and their advantages
One of the solutions to the deepening negative processes of an unsustainable food system, according to the report's authors, are urban farms. Urban farms bring a number of advantages beyond the basic activity of food production, shortening supply chains and food security.
Among other things, urban farms allow for education about agriculture for the youngest, who will have the opportunity to „dig in the dirt” and learn something about nature while on such a farm. Such a form of activity also allows to support biodiversity and nature or to secure the traditional agricultural landscape. Urban farms, the authors and authors of the report point out, can also carry hortiterapeutic functions — for neurodiverse or elderly people. Importantly, urban farm activities are not intended to replace traditional agriculture, but rather to support so-called urban food zones, i.e. the closest agricultural environs of cities.
ecopolis — a vision of the city of the future
© CoopTech Hub
The report's authors and contributors cite a number of solutions for reinforcing the advantages of urban farms. These include special bazaars and markets that allow for the direct sale of agricultural produce, agriparks in the form of edible parks or high-tech solutions like vertical and hydroponic gardens. All these solutions are supplemented in the report with examples from Poland and Europe.
Each activity in the report is cited along with an example
© CoopTech Hub
An interesting concept referred to by the report's authors and contributors is the retrofuturological vision, in which they point to the past presence of growing plants in cities at every turn. From small balcony and courtyard crops to mass planting of fruit trees and shrubs. Once upon a time, our cities were drowning in fruit from the immediate environment.
Gosia Zmyslowska's images from the report
© CoopTech Hub
what to do and how to get started?
Of course, urban agriculture as an element that strengthens our social resilience and adds value sounds good in theory, but what to do next? There is a very elaborate answer to this question in the document as well.
The report includes an entire chapter on how local governments can support urban agriculture solutions. From leasing land, appropriate regulations, educational formulas or building urban strategies and policies. The primary barrier turns out to be not resources, but political will.
Again, the issue of cooperatives returns to the occasion — in one of the chapters we find step-by-step instructions on how to start such a cooperative. The authors and authors of the report again, as on the occasion of the „Urban Resilience Package,” recall the paths of development cooperatives — built from the bottom up, as well as with the help of public institutions. Both models are shown on the example of two projects: „Cooperative Urban Farm MOST” in Warsaw and the „Edible Cracow” project.
cooperative development model
© CoopTech Hub
more democratic
Urban farms will not feed us. This trite statement should not discourage us from setting them up. The CoopTech Hub study can help, those who would very much like to take the first steps in building farms in their city. It is also a great compendium of ideas and solutions that go beyond classic urban farming, as exemplified by „agriparks.” Solutions for bringing food to our streets are worth exploring.
The report is available on the CoopTech Hub website.
