Food Sovereignty: A Nirvana Concept for Swiss Urban Agriculture?

The North Central Community Gardens, an urban agriculture initiative of the North Central Community Association in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, introduced the Branch Out Project in the summer of 2020. The project’s purpose was to expand the North Central Community Gardens, which already consisted of three locations, onto additional schoolyard and backyard land. Despite—or perhaps because of—the COVID-19 pandemic, the first season of the project resulted in the construction of eight new gardens and has positively impacted food access, community engagement, and knowledge development and exchange. The goals of this commentary are two-fold: (1) to provide insight into the process of community garden expansion, with the hopes of benefiting other practitioners; and (2) to contribute to an understanding of the possibilities, challenges, and impacts of community gardens in general, and community garden expansion in particular, as a counter-neoliberal food sovereignty practice.

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Cuban Urban Agriculture as a Strategy for Food Sovereignty

Monthly Review ◽

10.14452/mr-064-10-2013-03_6 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 64 (10) ◽

pp. 46 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Christina Ergas

Keyword(s):

Urban Agriculture ◽

Food Sovereignty

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Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture as A Pathway to Food Security: A Review Mapping the Use of Food Sovereignty

Challenges ◽

10.3390/challe10010006 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 6 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michelle Chihambakwe ◽

Paramu Mafongoya ◽

Obert Jiri

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Food Insecurity ◽

Urban Agriculture ◽

Food Production ◽

Urban Landscape ◽

Food Sovereignty ◽

Urban Spaces ◽

Agricultural Practice ◽

Conventional Agriculture ◽

Agriculture And Food

Renewed interest in the nexus between sustainability and food security has led to growing discussions on the use of food sovereignty principles in agricultural practice. As a result of the transfiguration of the urban and socioeconomic landscape in the global South, urban and peri-urban agriculture has been touted as a potential response to increasing food insecurity in cities. Yet, both urban and peri-urban agriculture and food sovereignty have attracted cursory scholarship and programming in Zimbabwe due to fixation on more dominant rural and conventional agriculture. Beyond the rudimentary idea that the urban landscape is unfit for food production, literature has demonstrated that urban households have ingrained urban and peri-urban agriculture into their livelihoods. Regardless, institutional arrangements governing the practice remain ambivalent towards the practice, bringing to question the ability of households to fully exploit the benefits of the practice. This review underscores that failure to involve of all stakeholders undermines urban and peri-urban agriculture, consequently leading to heightened food insecurity and use of unsustainable practices. By delving into the political economy of food, we hope to stimulate discussion centered on food sovereignty within and urban spaces and beyond.

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Growing Resistance to Systems of Oppression: An Exploration of the Transformative Power of Urban Agriculture

Open Philosophy ◽

10.1515/opphil-2020-0110 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 566-577

Author(s):

Samantha Noll

Keyword(s):

Urban Agriculture ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Food Systems ◽

Food Sovereignty ◽

Food Justice ◽

System Level ◽

Transformative Power ◽

Regulatory Barriers ◽

Production Practices ◽

The Relationship

AbstractToday the relationship between food and cities is revitalizing urban areas, as food production practices transform locales one block and one neighborhood at a time. The key catalysts of this transformation include the commitment to address the root causes of inequalities within food systems and the desire to increase local control over food systems that have been increasingly industrialized and globalized. These goals, encapsulated by the terms “food justice” and “food sovereignty,” play major roles in guiding local food initiatives in cities today. This study explores how justice-oriented urban agriculture projects transform city contexts in ways that reduce regulatory barriers – barriers that, when left in place, could perpetuate systems of oppression. The study ends with the argument that, by removing regulatory barriers, urban agriculture projects are transforming cityscapes in ways that cultivate justice at the system level.

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The Unwanted Heritage of Prefabricated Wartime Air Raid Shelters—Underground Space Regeneration Feasibility for Urban Agriculture to Enhance Neighbourhood Community Engagement

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su132112238 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (21) ◽

pp. 12238

Author(s):

Paweł Matacz ◽

Leszek Świątek

Keyword(s):

Urban Agriculture ◽

Local Community ◽

Food Sovereignty ◽

Underground Space ◽

Positive System ◽

Port City ◽

Underground Structures ◽

Material Resources ◽

The Baltic ◽

The City

The article deals with the problematic heritage associated with the system of Nazi German underground air raid shelters currently located within the Polish state, in the Baltic port city of Szczecin. The unwanted heritage has been inventoried, archival materials collected, and comparative analyses made of ways in which the underground space can be revitalised. An attempt was made to develop a typology of existing shelters and their locations. In order to overcome the negative associations with the warlike military space, positive system solutions were sought for the productive use of existing concrete structures located underground in central, easily accessible areas of the city districts. A process of upcycling the space was used to make ecologically efficient use of the material resources contained in the shelters. In order to activate the local community, a modular, hydroponic plant-growing system, adapted to the prefabricated spaces of the historical air raid shelters, was proposed. In this way, the central location of the underground structures within the boundaries of residential neighbourhoods was exploited. Such action strengthens the food sovereignty of the inhabitants, initiates bottom-up activity within the boundaries of the neighbourhood unit, and builds social ties in the spirit of a regenerative economy and positive sustainability.

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