URBAN GARDENS AND FAMILY GARDENS FOR FOOD SECURITY

By Prof. dr. Willem Van Cotthem

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University of Ghent (Belgium)

ABSRTRACT
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As the food crisis is affecting all developing countries, attention for small-scale gardening is
remarkably growing. Almost every day the important role of family gardens, school gardens and
urban gardens, even guerilla gardening, is described. In Liberia FAO is stimulating the creation
of market gardens, thus helping smallholders not only to food, but also to a growing annual
income. Hope is expressed that more resources will be used to help hungry people to their own
small garden, thus enhancing food security.

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For years we have been promoting family gardens (kitchen gardens) and school gardens, not to
mention hospital gardens, in the debate on alleviation of hunger and poverty. We have always
insisted on the fact that development aid should concentrate on initiatives to boost food security
through family gardens instead of food aid on which the recipients remain dependent. Since the
nineties we have shown that community gardens in rural villages, family gardens in refugee
camps and school gardens, where people and children grow their own produce, are better off
than those who received food from aid organizations at regular intervals.
 2007 - Family garden in Smara refugee camp (S.W. Algeria, Sahara desert), where people
never before got local fresh food to eat

Locally produced fresh vegetables and fruits play a tremendously important role in the daily diet
of all those hungry people in the drylands. Take for instance the possibility of having a daily
portion of vitamins within hand reach. Imagine the effect of fresh food on malnutrition of the
children. Imagine the feelings of all those women having their own kitchen garden close to the
house, with some classical vegetables and a couple of fruit trees.

No wonder that hundreds of publications indicate the success of allotment gardens in periods of
food crisis. See what happened during World War I and II, when so many families were obliged
to produce some food on a piece of land somewhere to stay alive. In those difficult days allotment
gardens were THE solution. They still exist and become more and more appealing in times of
food crisis.
 2008-10-25 - Allotment gardens Slotenkouter (Ghent City, Belgium) at the end of the growing
season

There was no surprise at all to read, since a few years that is, about a new movement in the
cities : guerilla gardening. Sure, different factors intervene in these urban initiatives, be it
environmental factors (embellishing open spaces full of weeds in town) or social ones (poor
people growing vegetables on small pieces of barren land in the cities).

Today, some delightful news was published by IRIN :"Liberia: Urban gardens to boost food
security" :
"MONROVIA, 19 January 2010 (IRIN) - Farmers are turning to urban gardens as a way to boost food
security in Liberia's Montserrado County, where just one percent of residents grow their own produce
today compared to 70 percent before the war.
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The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is targeting 5,000 urban residents of Montserrado,
Bomi, Grand Bassa, Bong and Margibi counties, to encourage them to start market gardens or
increase the amount of fruit and vegetables they grow on their farms. Participants had to have access
to tools and some land. The aim is to improve food security and nutritional status while boosting
incomes, said project coordinator Albert Kpassawah. Participants told IRIN they plant hot peppers,
cabbage, calla, tomatoes, onions, beans and ground nuts. Health and nutrition experts in Liberia say
increasing fruit, vegetables and protein in people's diets is vital to reducing chronic malnutrition,
which currently affects 45 percent of under-fives nationwide.
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FAO assists primarily by providing seeds and training in techniques such as conserving rainwater
and composting. The organization does not provide fertilizer, insecticides or tools - a concern to some
participants. "You cannot grow cabbage without insecticide. It doesn't work," Anthony Nackers told
IRIN. Vermin, insects and poor storage destroy 60 percent of Liberia's annual harvest, according to
FAO. And many of the most vulnerable city-dwellers - those with no access to land - cannot
participate at all, FAO's Kpassawah pointed out. But he said he hopes the project's benefits will
spread beyond immediate participants, since all who take part are encouraged to pass on their
training to relatives, neighbours and friends. And there is ample scope to expand techniques learned
from cities to rural areas, he pointed out. Just one-third of Liberia's 660,000 fertile hectares are being
cultivated, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
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Let us express our sincere hopes that FAO will soon be able to show to all aid organizations that
sufficient food production can be secured by the population of any developing country. What is
possible in urban areas of Liberia can be duplicated in any other country. What can be achieved
in urban gardens, can also be done in rural family gardens. Why should we continue to discuss
the alarming problem of those vulnerable children suffering or even starving from chronic
malnutrition, if school gardens can be a good copy of the successful urban gardens in Liberia?
Don't we underestimate the role container gardening can play in food production (see
<http://containergardening.wordpress.com>) and the pleasure children can find in growing fruit
trees and vegetables in plastic bottles. Pure educational reality !

We count on FAO to take the lead : instead of spending billions on "permanent" food aid, year
after year, it would be an unlimited return on investment if only a smaller part would be
reserved to immediate needs in times of hunger catastrophes, but the major part spent at the
world-wide creation of urban and rural family gardens.
We remain in FAO's save hands. We wonder what keeps United Nations to envisage a "Global
Programme for Food Security" based on the creation of kitchen gardens for the one billion daily
hungry people who know that we have this solution in hand. Let us spend more available
resources on "Defense", the one against hunger and poverty!