Urban agriculture in Rosario wins prize for cities
Argentina’s third-biggest city has been recognized by the World Resources Institute for its sustainable and inclusive approach to urban farming.
When Argentina’s economy collapsed in 2001, many residents of Rosario, the country’s thirdlargest city, suddenly found themselves unemployed and without food.
Responding to the crisis, the municipal government worked with 700 farming families growing their own food with help from a local NGO. The city expanded the program by dedicating underutilised land to agriculture and encouraging farmers to sell their produce locally. Two decades later, some 30 hectares of Rosario serve as community parque huertas (orchard parks) alongside some 15 hectares of agricultural family gardens that provide food and jobs for impoverished communities.
On Tuesday, the project was awarded the 2020-2021 Prize for Cities from the World Resources Institute. The organisation, which aims solve “challenges at the intersection of environment and human development,” considered projects that recognised innovative ways to address climate change and inequality. The municipality of Rosario — which competed with initiatives from Nairobi; London; Ahmedabad, India; and Monterrey, Mexico — will get US$250,000 as part of the prize.
UNLIKELY PLACES
The orchards of Rosario’s Urban Agriculture Programme have sprouted from unlikely places: empty municipal plots in the city, former trash dumps and the site of a former brick factory. Since 2015, the project has been broadened to create a “green belt” around the city that designates some 700 hectares of unused land for agroecological production.
“There was an idea of recuperating the land and of understanding that the land had to be cultivated but also protected,” says Pablo Nasi Murua, Rosario’s undersecretary of social development. “We sought to get neighbours to self-sustain through production while also finding a job source.”
Beyond job creation, the programme has also connected outer neighbourhoods with Rosario’s downtown by bringing the farmers to municipal fairs and markets where they can sell their produce. The thousands of Ferias de
Huerteros (“Gardener’s Fairs”) held annually since 2002 have created places for “inclusion, sharing and cooperation,” says Nasi Murua.
Shortly after beginning the Urban Agriculture Programme, the city realised many of the participating farmers and sellers were women who would hand over any money they earned to their husbands. The municipality created the first meeting of the Farmer Women of Rosario in 2003 to empower women and teach them to be financially independent.
The agriculture programme has also sprouted a series of municipal workshops and programs for a burgeoning community of artisanal blacksmiths, carpenters and textile producers that now sell their produce in the fairs and markets. Similarly, other production spaces such as the Biomercado (“Bio-market”) allow indigenous peoples such as the Qom and the Mocovies to sell traditional products, such as squash, yucca and handmade baskets.
ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS
The World Resources Institute recognised the programme’s environmental benefits as well. Before the Urban Agriculture Programme started, soybeans were Rosario’s primary produce, and greenhouse gas emissions skyrocketed as food was imported through a complex supply chain. Nowadays, Rosario is mostly self-sustainable and greener. In fact, in 2019, the Inter-american Development Bank (IDB) named Rosario as the greenest city in Argentina with an average of 12 square metres of green land for every inhabitant. According to a study by the National University of Rosario, local production can cut GHG emissions by 95 percent.
The me has also focused on producing the vegetables organically, without the use of chemicals that could be toxic or harmful for the environment. To avoid overusing the city’s water system, the programme’s technicians built an irrigation network that extracts water from the city’s natural underground reservoir.
And despite existing in urban areas, the park-orchards and land plots tend to remain clean because communities accept these spaces as their own, often using them as parks and places for children to play, Nasi Murua says.
“As a Rosarino, I’m proud that this programme was born out of a tremendous political, economic and social crisis in the country,” he says, “It has lasted through prosperous and lean years, but every time there has been a crisis, it expands.”