Urban Gardens Provide More than Just Food

Gardens around the world:

ARGENTINA:
Urban Gardens Provide More than Just Food
Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 9 (IPS) - The community gardens initially created to help confront the effects of the late 2001 economic collapse in Argentina have now "grown" into a government-run urban agriculture programme, which provides unemployed workers with much more than just food for their families' tables.

Some 7,000 people who were out of work before entering the programme have joined forces to clear the land, plant and harvest vegetables, and sell their produce in street market stalls.

Many of them are also now involved in agricultural development projects aimed at supplying the market with organic produce, grown without chemical fertilisers or pesticides.

They are participants in the Urban Agriculture Programme set up by the city government of Rosario, located on the banks of the Paraná River in the eastern Argentine province of Santa Fe.
The programme encompasses over 600 community gardens created on formerly vacant lots, on both public and privately owned land, as well as a distribution and sales network and projects designed to develop related industries.

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