City Farming: The future of food?
Author: Elfie Tromp
Friday, 15. April 2011 07:16
Farming is no longer something for backwards villages in the country: City farming is local, green and fun!
Being part of the agenda of Rotterdam’s vice-mayor of sustainability, Mrs. van Huffelen, city farming can be used as a strategy to give the city a ‘green character’, improve the air quality and make sufficient use of drainage water.
City farming: a mirage or up-and-coming?
A social component
City farming also combines entrepeneurship, a healthy lifestyle (good food and exercise) and an opportunity for the city’s inhabitants to mingle. When each neighbourhood would have its own foodgarden, their would be a significant increase in social cohesion. Safety and standard of living would go up, states the manifest of Eetbaar Rotterdam (Eatable Rotterdam), a website that links all green organisations, local and internationally and keeps a neat agenda of upcoming green plans and events.
Temporary spatial design
Rotterdam is a city that is always building. Walking across the city centre, you are confronted with bald patches of construction sites or future building sites. These tend to make the surrounding inhabitants and visitors feel a little unheimlich. That problem is easily solved: make it a green haven and everyone feels welcome!
Getting all parties involved
Their are, however, enough problems to be solved, before we can say goodbye to our imported tomatoes from Spain and replace them with local ones. Professional farmers have good contracts with big multinationals, like Unilever. Are they willing to give that up to try and make it work for a smaller contractor like a city? Are city farmers able to produce enough food on a large scale?
The city’s green taskforce seems confident about it and lots of local initiatives have started since then.
Although precise numbers and percentages of how many city farms they plan to create, are carefully avoided from the city council’s plans, the tone is mildly optimistic: ‘Aim is to have part of our daily food produced locally and there will be a significant increase of city farms over the next few years.’
Related blog:
* Activating spaces – FARM:Shop
* De Groene Passage: Rotterdam's eco-friendly heart
Related video:
* Emscherkunst.2010: New green lung enrichted with artificial oxygen
* Walking house roams the Emscher Island
Go to channel:
* Creative City Rotterdam
