PEAS ON THE ROOF? On rooftops, in wilderness, or containers, vegetables are now growing in cities thank to new cultivation techniques. Let us tell you all about urban agriculture...to make you want to go plant cabbage as you please!
Urban agriculture has the wind in its sails
Vegetables growing on roofs, strawberries in containers, decommissioned mushrooms parking lots: in the whole world, cities are becoming greener with the urban agriculture movement. For the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), it would be possible to produce 50kg of vegetables per m2 and per year in an urban area. Recreate a link to nature, participate in depolluting urban air, create jobs and green spaces on top of contributing to the diet of city-dwellers: as many good reasons to take interest into this new agriculture.
FARMS UNLIKE OTHERS
In cities, the #1 problem remains space. Wilderness, abandoned buildings, basements, rooftops: the spaces used are often unexpected.
- On rooftops: the easiest solution to execute. Many individuals are building window boxes or small gardens but increasingly more companies are specialising into roof gardens. Topager (https://www.facebook.com/topager/), Merci Raymond (https://www.facebook.com/collectifmerciraymond/) or Peas and Love (Paris and Bruxelles) are growing zucchinis and carrots. Bruxelles is leading: 37 shops and 45 restaurants are supplying from rooftops of the city center. New housing projects are taking into account these vegetable patches: in Tours, the “Les Jardins Perchés” apartment building (opening in 2019) will bring together 74 ‘low energy consumption’ social housings to a vegetable farm.
- In abandoned parking lots: most adapted to some kinds of farming (herbs, mushrooms, chicory), it is for example the case of the Caverne in Paris (https://www.facebook.com/FermeUrbaine/)
- In wilderness: the rarest in the city!
A NEW TYPE OF FARMING
If some favour wide trays of soil, many technologies allow to grow in those places far from the fields. Hydroponic crops (crops outside of the ground) are associated to the control of crops’ environment thanks to captors and a high-tech monitoring which allow to grow almost anywhere. In France, Agricool containers (https://www.facebook.com/agricool.co/) grow strawberries while in Germany InFarm’s transparent cupboards (https://www.facebook.com/infarm.de/) are growing salads and herbs directly in supermarkets! Finally, some of these farms unite hydroponic crops with fish farming (aquaponie) such as Refarmers in Lyon (https://www.facebook.com/FermeUrbaineRefarmers/)... Very promising new eco-systems.
CLOSER, FRESHER
Growing closest to where we consumer is reducing transport...and the carbon footprint consequently. The less it travelled, the fresher can a vegetable be: it also gains in taste… If on the roofs, we find a many traditional crops as organic, hydroponic crops allow to guarantee 0% pesticides, by controlling growing conditions 100%. And everyone can give it a go: in Detroit, USA, the city now counts 1500 urban farms and gardens.