RUAF Update # 14 | RUAF - Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security

RUAF Update # 14 | RUAF - Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security:


Ten years ago, ETC Foundation initiated a programme named: “Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Forestry” (RUAF). The first four years of the RUAF programme (2000-2004) focused mainly on networking, documentation and sharing of experiences and data, and awareness raising at local, national and international level through establishment of databases, organising regional workshops and e-conferences and realising publications. During these years RUAF developed from a project led by ETC into an international network of 1 global and 7 regional Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security. In 2004 the network obtained independent legal status as the RUAF Foundation. With the start of the "Cities Farming for the Future" programme in 2005, the RUAF partners focused more strongly on capacity development and support to multi-stakeholder policy development and action planning in urban agriculture in 20 cities, involving local authorities, NGO’s and urban producer organisations in 17 countries.

In 2010 the RUAF partners started the “From Seed to Table programme” that focuses on strengthening urban producers organisations and enhancing local capacity in the development of “From Seed to Table” projects with urban producer groups (participatory market analysis to identify consumer demand, group business planning, urban producer field schools, processing / packaging units, direct marketing to consumers interested in ecological products).
The results of these programmes have been carefully monitored and documented (see for example the final report on RUAF-CFF. The RUAF programmes have had important effects on local institutional capacities and focus, enhanced political awareness and important policy change at city and national level.

International recognition of the potential and impacts of urban agriculture for urban food security and nutrition, poverty alleviation, recycling of urban wastes, adaptation to climate change has grown substantially in this decade. In addition over 70 local urban agriculture projects have been implemented improving the livelihoods of around 5700 households.

An overview of main RUAF publications to date can be found at the RUAF website including a number of leading publications like the thematic issues of the Urban Agriculture Magazine (5 languages, 7000 subscribers) and  key publications like: Cities Farming for the Future - Urban Agriculture for Green and Productive Cities; Women Feeding Cities - Mainstreaming gender in urban agriculture and food security; Cities, Food and Agriculture: Challenges and the way forward; and Cities, Poverty and Food; Multi-stakeholder Policy formulation and Action Planning in Urban Agriculture (forthcoming).

At present RUAF Foundation is preparing a new 5 year programme together with 5 other Dutch organisations (ETC, Both Ends, ILEIA, LBI and Heifer) and their counterparts in the South. The group is named the “Sustainable Agriculture Alliance”. The planned programme will focus on enhancing policy recognition for the role small scale agriculture has to play in answering actual challenges like the food and economic crises, climate change, deterioration of natural resources and growing competition for water). The SAA programme will promote the development of sustainable regional food systems involving responsible producers and consumers and other local actors.   

To celebrate this anniversary RUAF will organise a number of activities in 2010, such as activities on World Food Day in October in all the RUAF partner cities, a Special of the Urban Agriculture Magazine and a Photo and short story contest. To find out about upcoming events and announcements please visit the RUAF website.

For the special issue of the UA Magazine (no.25 which will appear in November this year) we welcome your contributions in the form of photos and short stories (max. 250 words) that show the development of urban agriculture in the past 10 years in a certain city or country and its impacts, or that analyse the role urban agriculture can play in answering major challenges in the near future (e.g. urban food security, climate change, productive reuse of wastewater and nutrients,…). Please send us your contributions before July 1 of this year, to ruaf@etcnl.nl