Urban agriculture during economic crisis: Lessons from Cuba, Sri Lanka and Ukraine

The provided examples also show how low-cost measures, like permitting the larger urban community to farm on public spaces, offering seeds and urban waste compost, and capacity building, e.g., in rainwater harvesting or safe greywater use, can help to reduce an urban food crisis.

By Andrew Adam-Bradford, Centre for Development and Emergency Practice, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
Pay Drechsel, Senior Fellow- Advisor – Research Quality Assurance, International Water Management Institute IWMI
CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food SecurityInternational Water Management Institute
May 23, 2023
(Must See. Mike)

Excerpt:

While most agricultural news on Ukraine address European concerns about its breadbasket, more attention should be paid to food security within the country. Blocked roads, lack of fuel and an absence of civilian truck drivers led to the collapse of rural-urban food supply in war-affected areas. Through several public and private initiatives, and support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and in particular Canada, new urban farming activities were initiated. These activities built on existing projects linked to, for example, zero waste and organic food, or were new initiatives.

Vulnerable populations were offered seeds and guidance on how to cultivate vegetable gardens around their homes or on their balconies. A review by the CGIAR Initiative on Resilient Cities found increased attention to urban farming in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava, Lutsk and Vinnytsia, which also highlighted the wider social value of community action in light of the crisis. In the case of Kharkiv (Kharkov), for example, residents cultivated cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini and pumpkins, complementing food packages provided by humanitarian aid agencies. This front-line city is just 30 km from the Russian border. People started cultivating inner yards between large apartment blocks, which also provided some physical security in the face of frequent shelling.

Read the complete report here.