From ggundrey@igc.apc.orgMon Jun 17 22:34:17 1996 Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 15:22:46 -0700 (PDT) From: George Gundrey To: George Gundrey Subject: Urban Gardening a Sign of Hope Resent-Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 15:30:36 -0700 Resent-From: George Gundrey Resent-To: "Moderator of conference bitl.sanet" The following story was produced and distributed by the Pacific News Service (PNS). PNS is a twenty five year old network of writers, scholars, freelance journalists and teenagers who explore the vast new subterranean world of private cultures emerging in the 21st century. Each day PNS transmits a 600-1000 word article to over 100 news media outlets. For more articles, see our Web site at http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/. For information about subscribing, contact PNS at 415-243-4364. COPYRIGHT PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE 450 Mission Street, Room 204 San Francisco, CA 94105 415-243-4364 COMMENTARY-715 WORDS CAN CITIES FEED THEMSELVES? WORLDWIDE TURN TO URBAN GARDENING SIGNALS HOPE EDITOR'S NOTE: While media reports coming out of the Habitat II UN conference paint a grim future for an increasingly urbanized world, many new urban dwellers know that cities harbor vast untapped resources that could be used to grow food. All over the world there is a turn to urban gardening that, combined with technological breakthroughs on the energy front, offers hope for a sustainable future. PNS editor Franz Schurmann, a professor emeritus of history and sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, has traveled widely in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He wrote about urban gardening in China and Uganda for the latest issue of Choices, a magazine published quarterly by the UNDP. PNS stories can also be found on our web page at . BY FRANZ SCHURMANN, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE As the Second UN Conference on Human Settlement (Habitat II) gets underway in Istanbul, lots of data projections are coming out about what everyday life will be like in the next millennium. Most telling is that by 2025, two thirds of humanity will live in cities. The question on many experts' minds is: where will the megatonnage of food come from to feed some five billion urban people? The answer may well be: cities. As we move into the next century, more and more urban dwellers will consume food grown within a mile of their homes as agriculture becomes more and more an urban preoccupation. Throughout the world migrants and refugees who settle in cities share a common insight: life in the wide open rural regions is become increasingly impossible while life in cities -- horrible as it might be -- offers the only hope. These migrants are expressing with their feet the same pessimism about rural areas professional environmentalists have been predicting for two decades. At its core, that pessimism reflects one stark reality: much of the world is overdependent on the large-scale rural agriculture of just five countries -- the U.S., Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil. Yet now, as Business Week recently reported in a cover story, a mushrooming grain crisis in these countries could soon cut the food importing countries off from much of their food imports. Underpinning the migrants' faith in cities is the genius of technology. Within energy technology circles there is growing optimism that the world's energy needs (expected to increase 1.6 times by 2015) can be met without polluting the atmosphere or degrading the globe. The optimists are looking to new finds of vast reserves of non-polluting natural gas and the slow-but-steady comeback of nuclear power. Migrants also know that cities harbor vast unused resources -- mounds of garbage, nutrient-rich wastes flowing unused into the oceans through sewers, and the legendary ingenuity of city people. With these resources megatonnage of food can be grown, and megatonnage of meat and fish harvested within city limits. In a recently published report entitled Urban Agriculture, the UN Development Program documents how urban farming is spreading in every part of the world, both developed and developing. In the U.S., for example, 40 percent of the dollar value of food output in 1990 came from metropolitan urban areas -- up from 30 percent in 1980. In 1990, 65 percent of Moscow's economically struggling families raised their own food, up from 20 percent in 1970. There are 80,000 community gardeners in Berlin with 16,000 on the waiting list. But urban agriculture is an area where the non-Western world excels. China has had a tradition of urban farming for many centuries. In 1960 its government laid down a specific strategy for urban self-reliance in food. Indonesia's small island Java feeds a hundred million people largely with locally grown food. The super-modern island republic of Singapore is entirely self-reliant in meat production, consuming some 140 pounds per person per year. Until recently, Africa had few cities so it has no long tradition of urban farming. Yet it may be largely thanks to city farms, run by women, that Africans have survived the extraordinary political upheavals of the last decades. As foreign investors become aware of Africa's mushrooming revival, urban farming will play an increasingly important role in the continent's development. East Asians have long excelled at urban agriculture for several reasons. First, they are willing to plant every unused square foot of land. Second they are willing to use any and all urban wastes for fertilizer. Third, farming is an ingrained family and community chore, much as it was when people lived in traditional villages. The shared task of raising food has another effect -- it helps keep families and communities together, despite the pressures of modern urban life. Their governments, recognizing the value of these bonds to their economic miracles, are highly supportive of urban farming. The worldwide turn to urban agriculture will only work with state-of-the-art technology and large-scale fail-safe organization. Right now too many governments outside of East Asia have ignored the trend. Habitat II may begin to focus their attention on this hopeful road towards a sustainable urban future. (06031996) **** END **** (c) COPYRIGHT PNS