The awards were presented during the 11th AEA annual Environmental dinner on 8 June 2009, in the city of São Paulo, Brazil.

See full story at http://www.aea.org.br

With the grant, Cities Without Hunger will purchase farming equipment to reduce both the cost of and time allocated to soil preparation, thus contributing to enhance and step up production and boost income generation for the beneficiaries of Project Cities Without Hunger/Community Gardens.

Consulate of Japan in São Paulo – www.sp.br.emb-japan.go.jp

Contract signing (from left to right): Adilson Alves dos Santos, president of Organization Cities Without Hunger, and the Consul General of Japan in São Paulo, Mr. Kazuaki Obe.

From left to right: Adilson Alves dos Santos, Hans Dieter Temp of Organization Cities Without Hunger, and the Consul General of Japan in São Paulo, Mr. Kazuaki Obe.

Contract signing ceremony between the Consulate of Japan and Organization Cities Without Hunger.

It is essential to understand the contribution community gardens can make to both aspects of food security : accessibility and quality. Access to food is a food security premise. In today’s world, with a few exceptions (caused by draughts, wars and the imbalances stemming thereof), there is enough food to meet the needs of everyone – in rural and urban areas. Yet, there are no guarantees that every segment of the population will have access to food in sufficient quantity and at the moment needed. Those whose chances of obtaining it are smaller are the poor, the vulnerable and those more isolated members of the society.

Through a number of informal mechanisms and channels of distribution, the greater part of the food produced in urban areas is consumed right there, often by its producers or families close to them. Community gardens provide food at reduced prices, especially during the production cycle’s seasonal peaks. In times of emergency, or when transportation and distribution logistics are disorganized, produce from the community gardens are more than supplements and become the main source of food for urban consumers.

A healthy diet requires an appropriate combination of micro and macro nutrients to meet each family member’s needs, according to their sex, age and health conditions. Two main factors are responsible for preventing urban dwellers from having a healthy diet: poverty and lack of fresh food. Poor families cannot afford, on a regular basis, the expenses incurred in buying perishable food, which contains vital micronutrients for a healthy life, which are extremely important for children. But even not so poor city dwellers may face difficulty finding enough quantities of fruit and vegetables. If the supply channels from the countryside to the city are inadequate, such products may become scarce.

Food produced by community gardens is rich in micronutrients and is, therefore, vital to alleviate malnutrition in poor homes, contributing dramatically to a household’s food security. Producing such food close to the population that needs it makes it more accessible to those consumers. Yet to increase the food security of the communities targeted by the garden projects, it is imperative that the food be produced in a safe and healthy environment. The jobs and the income generated by the gardens also offer the potential to reduce food insecurity. The main purpose of the project is to stimulate groups of producers to seek alternative ways to distribute their production, by adding value to it and thus securing some financial compensation for their labor.

EVIDENCE TO THE IMPACT OF COMMUNITY GARDENS IN THE FOOD AND NUTRITIONAL SECURITY OF HOUSEHOLDS

Community gardens reduce food insecurity as access to food increases –especially of fresh and nutrient-rich food– among the poorest, most affected and vulnerable populations, benefiting children foremost –whether directly by self-provisioning or thanks to the added income brought about by the selling of the production. Since poor families may spend 60 to 80% of their income on food, both options may have an important impact on the well being of the families. In addition to such evidence we have also found out that:

• families who cultivate food are less dependent on basic food basket donation programs;
• a city’s demand for fresh, perishable food is better met by the urban and peri-urban production than by rural production;
• urban producers consume more vegetables than non urban producers and wealthier consumers;
• benefits are higher to a family when there is the participation of women among the producers. Poor families may find in community gardens a useful strategy for their well being in several conditions. To fully reach their farming activities’ productive potential, families need access to basic resources, technological support and, most importantly, a supportive public policy environment. Such environment must contain certain elements: a) land use regulations that protect community garden practitioners; b) identification and facilitation of distribution and commercialization so that the poor have access to the products, both as producers and consumers.

ADVANTAGES COMMUNITY GARDENS CAN BRING TO THE CITY

Income generation for producers, creation of urban jobs, absorption of the migrant rural labor force, absorption of teenage workforce, job opportunities for women, food security, recycling of domestic and urban waste, recycling of rain water, availability of fresh and cheaper food, protein source, improved urban environment, enhanced urban esthetics, creation of agribusinesses (more jobs), pleasure in cultivating, labor/pleasure for the elderly.
POTENTIAL INCOME-GENERATION PROJECTS

• distribution of non processed fresh greens and vegetables;
• production of fresh greens and vegetables for simple pre processing;
• production of vegetables for preserves;
• production jointly planned with restaurants;
• production of flowers and ornamental plants;
• production of seedlings of native species for environmental recovery and urban tree planting;
• production of preserves such as tomato sauce, dried tomatoes and pickles.

The project aims to set up community garden nuclei in the east side of the city of São Paulo, in an effort to improve the living conditions of those more afflicted by the social scourge, involving them in a participatory project through the creation of job opportunities, vocational training for participants and their dependents and the systematic generation of income with the selling of the produce obtained with the project.

Its scope of action is chiefly concentrated in the east side of the city of São Paulo, an area characterized by a high concentration of unemployed, the low schooling levels of its residents, high crime rates and for the lack of job opportunities for youths and teenagers. Income and urban-jobs generation, adding value to the produce of the community gardens and the social integration of the communities with the environment are the project’s main working axes.

Social Aspects
Health: With regard to the population’s health, to the extent that the gardens complement an individual’s basic diet by providing fresh foods of recognized nutritional value containing fibers, vitamins and other indispensable components for an adequate diet, there diminishes the prevalence of diseases, whose occurrence is due primarily to the body’s low resistance caused by an unbalanced diet, not to mention the fact that we provide food to people or families that, situated below the poverty line, simply cannot afford a single meal a day. Naturally the water to be used in the irrigation is to meet top quality sanitary standards, whether it be obtained from deep wells or from setting up water treatment utilities to enable the use of superficial waters.
Occupation: The current joblessness that afflicts some 1.9 million people in the São Paulo metropolitan region constitutes, in the context of extreme poverty in which this population is immersed, a perfect breeding ground for violence, which insidiously creeps in, opportunistically occupying empty institutional spaces, where the public power, for lack of objective policies, has given ground to crime. The mere lack of occupation in densely populated areas is in itself a catalyst for domestic violence, alcoholism and other malaises.

Economic Aspects
The demand for agricultural workers in olericulture is about ten times higher than the state’s average for other main crops. Apart from being highly labor intensive, seasonality in the demand for workers is very low in this sector, with activities being evenly distributed throughout the months of the year, ensuring that both work and production will be practically constant throughout the process. There is thus the generation of labor intensive work and income in a metropolis in which 20.4% of the workforce is unemployed.

One must also consider that the production of food in community gardens can be further improved by tapping into low-cost inputs such as tree trimmings or domestic organic waste, which can be transformed in organic fertilizers, adding economic value to what now accounts for an environmental liability for local governments.

Environmental Aspects
Among the environmental benefits resulting from the implementation of a policy geared toward the development of community gardens one may include:

• Increased soil permeability with the subsequent reduction of drainable rainwater volumes in both the areas defined for the implementation of the projects and its environs;
• Increased subterranean water reserves owing to a greater infiltration of rain water;
• Decreased production of methane gas in sanitary landfills caused by the anaerobic decomposition of organic waste, a gas which is a cause of greenhouse effect;
• Increased green areas;
• Prolonged useful life of sanitary landfills by way of using organic residues to make compost;
• Beautification of urban landscape.