Urban Farming in Copenhagen Grows Relationships in the City
Copenhagen is aiming to be the first carbon neutral capital by 2025.
By Abigail Austin
Grady Newsource
August 21, 2023
Excerpt:
However in Copenhagen, Denmark, urban farming is not only about making produce more accessible, it’s about engaging the community by bringing people together and raising awareness about where their food comes from.
Kristian Laursen, an associate professor in urban agriculture at the University of Copenhagen, says one of the most important parts of urban farming is getting people interested in where their food comes from, which in turn encourages them to engage in sustainable practices, such as cooking more efficiently to avoid food waste and buying and trading locally.
“Community gardening and people getting together producing the food and eating and so on, the social aspect of urban farming is extremely important. And in some parts of the world, I would say it’s much more important than the actual production,” said Laursen.
ØsterGro is a small farm situated on the rooftop of an old car auction house in Copenhagen’s first climate resilient neighborhood, Osterbro, and boasts to be Denmark’s first rooftop farm, opening up in 2014.
The farm is open to the public and welcomes anyone to hang out in the garden as an escape from the bustle of the city below. The rooftop is also home to Gro Spiseri, a communal style restaurant that also functions as a greenhouse.
During the week, farm manager Nanna Jespersen can be seen around the farm, tending to her produce and feeding leftover weeds and food waste from the restaurant to her chickens.
