UEL: For one year, this man is eating only what’s grown at Dubai’s Sustainable City
“I hope this challenge is a catalyst for others to start taking control of where their food is grown, understand local food systems and to explore local production,” he says.
By Giovanni Prati
CNN
January 20, 2021
Excerpt:
Landscape architect Phil Dunn has taken on an ambitious challenge. For one year, he is basing his diet on food grown in his local community, in an effort to highlight the issues of food sustainability and food waste.
A resident of Dubai’s Sustainable City neighborhood, Dunn calls the experiment he began last November “The Sustainable Human Project.” “(It) is a combination between a personal challenge for my 49th birthday and a project exploring food security and urban farming,” he tells CNN.
Dunn — a Canadian national — plans to create a small-scale example of a circular economy — aiming to produce, consume and recycle locally. It’s made much easier by the fact that he lives in a community purpose-built to promote a sustainable lifestyle.
As well as more than 500 houses, the Sustainable City is home to 11 biodome greenhouses, where the community’s management grows up to 1 million pots of leafy produce annually, including chives and chicory. The produce is given to residents or sold at local markets.
Residents can also catch fish at the community tank, breed chickens that provide them with eggs, and rent private plots in communal gardens to grow their own produce. Here, Dunn cultivates cherry tomatoes, lettuces and radishes.
