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India: Urban farms offer a fresh perspective on managing kitchen waste and nurturing a community

Manasvini Tyagi conducting a workshop on urban farming. Photo by Manasvini Tyagi.

Urban farms in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru show how urban spaces like homes and institutions can be used for growing organic vegetables as well as for building a community around them.

By Saumitra Shinde
Mongabay
14 November 2022

Excerpt:

As Indian cities expand, concerns about their rising food demand and the accompanying pressure on the agriculture sector cannot be ignored. Indian agriculture is already under scrutiny for being one of the largest contributors to India’s total greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, it is also vulnerable to the impact of climate change. Efforts are on among the government, research institutions and civil society to find a sustainable solution to safeguard India’s food production.

A transition towards an Alternative Food system (AFS) offers a fresh perspective for authorities and citizens to produce locally grown food with sustainable practices. According to a study published last year, by WU Vienna University of Economics and Business and the University of Bayreuth, AFS focuses on food production at a local level using organic methods. The difference between AFS and the conventional food system is that the latter heavily depends on economic value, while the former focuses on democratic value chains, explains the study.

Concepts like urban or rooftop farms fall in the bracket of AFS, and Indian cities are experimenting with them. These urban farms in cities across India are small examples of how citizens can practice organic farming at homes, institutions and other urban spaces that are not traditionally associated with agriculture.

Read the complete article here.