Urban Agriculture
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Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating food in and around cities. It has a long history, including techniques used by ancient Mesoamerican civilizations like the Chinampa and terraced agriculture in Machu Picchu. Modern urban agriculture has objectives like increasing food security and quality while being environmentally sustainable. It takes various forms like urban farming, rooftop gardens, vertical gardens, aquaculture, and vermicomposting. Mexico has implemented several urban agriculture projects and organizations that promote techniques like rooftop gardens, aquaponics, and vermicomposting to improve sustainable local food production.
Urban Agriculture
- 1. Urban Agriculture mariomgck Stephanie Dunbar1 1 English teacher May 21, 2013 Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas, A.C.
- 2. Denition Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around a village, town, or city. Urban agriculture can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture, agroforestry, and horticulture. These activities also occur in peri-urban areas as well. Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 2/16
- 3. History Chinampa is a method of ancient Mesoamerican agriculture which used small, rectangle-shaped areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 3/16
- 4. History In Machu Picchu, water was conserved and reused as part of the stepped architecture of the city, and vegetable beds were designed to gather sun in order to prolong the growing season. Figure: Machu Picchu terrace (agriculture). Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 4/16
- 5. Objectives Food security. Increase the amount of food available to people living in cities. Food quality. Provide to urban consumers fresh vegetables, fruits, and meat products free of pesticides, hormones, growth promoters, antibiotics, etc. Sustainable agriculture. Make the most ecient use of non-renewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls. Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 5/16
- 6. Advantages Scalability. The systems could be designed on a small or medium scale, adapting their production to dierent conditions of availability of space. Health Quality. Enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole. Recreativity. Family recreation and relaxation in a natural aesthetics space. Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 6/16
- 7. Modalities (a) Urban Farming (b) Roof gardens (c) Vertical gardens (d) Recreativity Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 7/16
- 8. Modalities (e) Aquaculture of tilapia (f) Aquaponics (g) Urban Worm Compost- ing (Vermicompost) Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 8/16
- 9. Roof garden in Mexico The supermarket Superama Horacio, Polanco, in Mexico city has a system for capturing rainwater, which is used in its daily operations, reducing potable water consumption. Its desing permits the use of the same water to irrigate the roof. Figure: Superama Roof garden. Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 9/16
- 10. Aquaculture of tilapia Tilapia has become the third most important sh in aquaculture after carp and salmon. Tilapia sheries originated in Africa and currently worldwide production exceeded 3,497,391 metric tons in 2010 and increases annually. Figure: Floating surface cages. Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 10/16
- 11. Aquaponics Aquaponics is a sustainable food production system that combines a traditional aquaculture with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. México began research in this area seven years ago. The aquaculture department of CICESE has designed a system that combines strawberry production and tilapia. Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 11/16
- 12. Vermicompost Vermicompost is the product or process of composting using various worms, usually red wigglers, white worms, and other earthworms to create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste, bedding materials. Figure: Mexican vermicompost. Ivonne Escobedo, Mayra López y Deyanira Escobedo, asociación civil Organización para la Atención Ciudadana. Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 12/16
- 13. Mexican projects The Government of Mexico city signed a trade agrement in 2010 with the agriculture department (SAGARPA), which includes an investment of 105 million pesos to boost farm production projects, farmers and small industrial city dwellers. Figure: Urban Farming. Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 13/16
- 14. Organizations Sembradores Urbanos is a civil organization based in Mexico City, Mexico, which promotes urban agriculture, oering materials, seeds, and training workshops. It has a demonstration center, the Center for Urban Agriculture Romita, which opened in 2007 as the rst urban agricultural community space in Mexico. Click into the picture to watch the video in youtube. Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas 14/16