permaculture

[Ute Bohnsack <sustag@eircom.net>]

Hi Marco,
have you looked at the City Farms in London (UK)? I don't have any URLs at 
hand
but I'm sure that a websearch would yield good results. I think the emphasis 
was
more on education than on actual production. But then there are also the
allotments in Britain, small gardens on unused urban lands in the city for 
flat
dwellers. I believe Graham Burnett on this list has such an allotment. Germany
has a similar system ('Schrebergärten'). These tend to be very tidy and very
much poisoned with agrochemicals and not necessarily used for food production
but things do change and there are more people now who want to use their 
little
plots to produce veg and fruit etc. organically.
Another aspect you could look at would be historical: urban food production in
post-war Europe. I have heard accounts of poultry and pigs kept in backyards 
in
the cities in Germany. I grew up in the 60s/70s and even then our elderly
neighbours in suburbia had a large vegetable garden, a lot of fruit trees and
bushes and raised poultry and rabbits for food. They had lived through two 
wars
and valued their (partial) self-sufficiency in food. The sustainability aspect
would be another story though...

Have you had any contact with Declan and Margit Kennedy? They are architects
living in Germany (he is Irish, she is German) and have played a major role in
promoting Permaculture in Europe. They have had a lot of involvement with
sustainable town planning and integrating pc designs into urban situations 
over
the past 20 odd years including major international fairs such as the
'Internationale Bauaustellung Berlin' in the 90s. They are on a lecture tour
until March but you can contact them at declan@telda.net. Important:they have
asked that messages to them be kept to max 5 sentences (I presume they access
messages on a mobile phone) during this time.

Jeff, do you still have that lovely farmer's market at the capitol in Madison?

Slán,
Ute in Ireland

Foss _ wrote:
> 
> Hello Marco,
> 
> Just recently, here in Madison Wisconsin, a group has purchased 5 acres
> within the city limits.  They intend on producing vegetables to supply 25
> member CSA, production starting next year.  I not sure how sustainable they
> plan on being, but at least I believe it will be using orgainic growing
> methods.  I havn't been following the developments quite as closly as I
> should have. I have heard some parts of the garden will also be designated
> for children's plot and another plot be for the Loatian/Vietmaniese farming
> community. I will be getting more involved now since my market season has
> ended and can send some more specifics at a later day or if you would like
> some contact names please let me know, I can get them to you.
> 
> Good luck,
> Jeff
> 
> Greetings,
> 
>      Does anybody have some good leads for national/international projects
> of urban agriculture and sustainable urban food systems?
>       I am doing my Master of City Planning thesis at UC Berkeley on the
> subject, and most immediately, I am writing a term paper surveying good
> examples of sustainable urban food systems to reinforce, substantiate and
> direct Berkeley's recently established Food and Nutrition Policy (which is
> good in writing, but has little substance as far as action goes).  I am
> looking for specific case studies, hopefully with lots of photos, graphs,
> statistics, etc. Thanks for helping to make Berkeley's food system a
> success...
> 
> Best regards,
> Marco Barrantes
> marco@urbangardens.org
> 
*********************************************************************************
Dipl.-Ing. TU Landschafts- und Freiraumplanung
Ute Bohnsack
Sailchearnach, Clogher, Kilfenora, Co. Clare, Ireland
mailto:sustag@eircom.net
Agri-Environmental Consultancy and Translation Services 
(English-German-English)
http://homepage.eircom.net/~merlyn/index.html
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