On 24 October 2019, the annual meeting of EdiCitNet – Edible Cities Network (‘Edible Cities Network’) was held in Sant Feliu del Llobregat. The event brought together experts on NBS and representatives from different cities and universities from all over Europe.

After the exchange of experiences, the members of the EdiCitNet consortium and the event attendes (representatives of the City Council and the city team) visited the referenced projects that integrate edible natural solutions in the municipality of Sant Feliu, the urban and peri-urban gardens of the Parc Agrari of Baix Llobregat and the social gardens nearby the Parc Agrari. This ECS combines the recovery of an urban space for agriculture and labor insertion. The visit was conducted by the director of the Solidarity Foundation of the University of Barcelona, a foundation that launched the social garden project, and a technician of the NGO Tarpuna (project manager).

The Agricultural Park of Baix Llobregat (Parc Agrari) is located in the alluvial plains of the delta and lower valley of the Llobregat river in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. It occupies about 3,000 hectares of agricultural farms that belong to fourteen municipalities, including Sant Feliu de Llobregat. This urban agricultural area produces a great percentage of the fruits and vegetables that are sold in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona markets. The farmers who work the land have acquired the know-how accumulated over the more than 200 years of horticultural tradition in the region.

The initiative of social gardens of Sant Feliu combines the recovery of a space for agriculture with the attention of people needs with difficulties in finding employment. At present, the beneficiaries of the project are long-term unemployment, as well as young people with difficulties in finding a job, who have accessed the project through the Municipal Social Services.  These social gardens contribute to the well-being of people, both in the field of health and food, since the grown products are for personal consumption. The social garden project is an integrative solution for people at risk of social exclusion, as it improves the coexistence and social cohesion of the users, increase personal autonomy and self-esteem, help creating social networks, encouraging collective work, enhance local food and organic farming, as well as promoting healthy lifestyle habits.

The City Council of Sant Feliu wants to take advantage of the momentum of the EdiCitNet project to promote social urban agriculture projects, the creation of more urban gardens areas with different groups in vulnerable situations and the improvement of the water irrigation management, including water reuse.

Article submitted by

Antonina Torrens

Fundació Solidaritat UB

Building greening is becoming more and more important in urban planning. A large area of the city disappears through buildings, regardless of whether the buildings are new or old. Unfortunately, it is often the case that buildings are built cheaply and the roofs remain unused. In Germany, there are now many regulations for roofs and facades to be greened. Every year about 7 – 8 million square meters of new green roof area are added. Unfortunately, in most cases (about 80 percent) the prescribed simple greening, the extensive greening, is installed for cost reasons. On the one hand, it‘s good because extensive greening has a better influence on the environment than bitumen or gravel roofs; on the other hand, these roofs cannot be walked on or used by the public. Only about 19 percent are constructed as intensive green roofs, i.e. as accessible roof areas. And a major part of these are underground garage roofs.

We want to point out that there is usually no thought yet of making the lost area on the ground on the roof “usable” again. There are many examples that show what is possible on the roof. Because if the conditions are right, practically the same thing can be done on the roof as on the ground. Urban farming is then possible in various forms. In the first place, the cities must be active here. The BuGG (SME in EdiCitNet) can help to develop strategies so that “Rooftop Gardens” or “Facade Gardens” will hopefully be standard and not stop at a few examples here and there. A few ideas how the BuGG can support:

Front Runner Cities:
• Planning support for the building greening for Living Labs, especially Urban-Farming-Roofs.
• Development of brochures / working tools (also for private persons) on how urban farming can be implemented on the roof / facade.
• Development of information brochures for “Urban Gardening” on buildings • Development of strategies to promote ECS, especially on buildings, in the city.
• Arrange contacts to companies for green roofs and green facades.
• Arrange Contacts for potential analyses for green roofs by means of aerial photography.

Follower Cities:
• Development of brochures / working tools (also for private persons) on how urban farming can be implemented on the roof / facade.
• Development of strategies to promote ECS, especially on buildings, in the city.

Article submitted by

Felix Mollenhauer
Project Manager
Bundesverband GebäudeGrün e. V. (BuGG)
Germany
felix.mollenhauer@bugg.de

www.gebaeudegruen.info

This Monday, Vic Borrill (Brighton & Hove Food Partnership) and Katrin Bohn (University of Brighton) welcomed visitors from Letchworth Garden City to the City of Brighton & Hove. As part of the Horizon2020 innovation action project EdiCitNet, the Letchworth team came to study community food projects in Brighton many of whom linked to the city’s charity / social enterprise Brighton & Hove Food Partnership. We also engaged in our first joint work meetings on how to masterplan for a better integrated food system provision in Letchworth which is the overall aim of our cooperation funded through Horizon2020. With great interest did the hosts hear, for example, that, whilst many garden city principles were successfully applied in Letchworth since its founding as the world’s first garden city, the food system aspect is the one principle that ‘never quite worked’.

The Letchworth Garden City team was led by Kevin Jones, trustee of the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, and initiated by Dr. Susan Parham, associate professor at the University of Herfordshire and urban food expert. It also included representatives of local food initiatives such as the Best Before Cafe Letchworth and Transition Town Letchworth.

The projects and organisations visited showed the spatial and social potential of engaging local communities in shaping their relationship to food and included the Community Kitchen, run by Brighton&Hove Food Partnership, the Bevy Pub, Great Britain’s first community-run pub, Community Orchards established by the Brighton Permaculture Trust, the Preston Park Demo Garden, run by Brighton&Hove Food Partnership, and the former Edible Campus at the Grand Parade site of the University of Brighton.

Article submitted by

Katrin Bohn
EdiCitNet consortium member
University of Brighton
Great Britain

https://bhfood.org.uk/

 The Science Feast was organized by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research – Directorate General of Scientific Research in partnership with the Tunis Science City (CST) on October 30 and 31, 2019. The feast of science aims to raise awareness among the general public about scientific culture, the valorization of research of the scientific community, the stimulation in young people of their curiosity for science and their interest in scientific careers, the discovery of jobs resulting from research, knowledge sharing and exchanges between researchers and citizens in a festive atmosphere.

The EdiCitNet project was presented during the Tunisian Science Feast at a plenary Conference. Prof Latifa Bousselmi explained the framework of the EdiCitNet project, the partnership and the overall objective of this project. She also presented the planned actions and the expected impacts of the project. Different concepts of some Tunisian “edible city” case studies were also discussed with the audience.

During the TESI days co-organized by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MESRS), the General Directorate Research Technology and Development of the European Commission (DGRTD) and the Delegation of the European Union in Tunisia (DUE) to make the state-of-the-art of the Tunisian-European cooperation on Research and Innovation (R&I), REACT presented in the exhibition area the EdiCitNet project (poster) to the visitors and exchanged with them about the EdiCitNet concepts and their potential application in Tunisia. The exhibition was organised at the City of Science of Tunis.

For further information about the event you can visit this site.

Author:  Latifa Bousselmi, President of REACT

Organisation: La Recherche en Action, REACT

Email: association.react.tn@gmail.com