Santa Cruz, CA, USA
Turning strawberry monocultures into sustainable food and farming systems through a 30-year farmer-researcher partnership
Veracruz, Mexico
Breaking away from industrial commodity production in Central American coffee-growing communities
Detroit, MI, USA
Detroit's Urban Agriculture Ordinance
Cuba
Turning economic isolation into an opportunity for agroecological transition
San Ramon, Nicaragua
Breaking away from industrial commodity production in Central American coffee-growing communities
Golden Horseshoe Region, Canada
The Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Action Plan
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Belo Horizonte's approach to food security
Comarca de la Vega, Spain
Sustaining transition through changing political winds
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Amsterdam's Healthy Weight Program
Drôme Valley, France
Making the radical mainstream and the mainstream radical to build Europe’s rst organic region
Chololo, Tanzania
Rethinking food, farming, forestry and resource management to build a climate-resilient ‘Ecovillage’
Nairobi, Kenya
Nairobi’s Urban Agriculture Promotion and Regulation Act
Puhan Rural Community, Shanxi, China
Rebuilding community ties as a pathway to cooperative-led local food systems
EU | Regional projects
WEST AFRICA | Regional projects
UNITED STATES | Regional projects
Santa Cruz, CA, USA
Turning strawberry monocultures into sustainable food and farming systems through a 30-year farmer-researcher partnership

"In the early 1980s, after years of farming with agro-chemicals, Jim Cochran of Swanton Berry Farm in Santa Cruz, California, decided to try farming strawberries organically. At the same time, at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC), agroecologist Steve Gliessman founded the UCSC Agroecology Program with a focus on researching alternative farming systems. The collaborative, multifaceted research project that followed over the next 30 years demonstrated that organic strawberries could be grown successfully, ultimately providing impetus for the strawberry industry to shift a signifcant portion of its production to organic management."

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Veracruz, Mexico
Breaking away from industrial commodity production in Central American coffee-growing communities

"In the late 1990s, with cofee prices plummeting and a handful of multinational buyers able to set prices, cofee growers around the world found themselves in crisis. In many regions, farmers planted more cofee in an attempt to increase their incomes, reducing or eliminating the crops that previously provided local food security.

It was into this environment that researchers from the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) established a new non-proft organization: the Community Agroecology Network (CAN).19 In 2011, the NGO joined forces with local organizations in smallholder cofee-growing communities in San Ramón, Nicaragua, and Veracruz, Mexico. Together they launched a project to accompany the communities through a transition to reduce dependency on export-oriented industrial commodity production."

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Detroit, MI, USA
Detroit's Urban Agriculture Ordinance

"Within the context of long-term social and economic struggle, a community farming movement has taken root in the Detroit’s neglected, mainly African-American, neighbourhoods, and proliferated since the early 2000s. The movement has aimed to use farming as a means to improve the urban environment, foster social cohesion, and increase access to healthy food. With 35 square miles of vacant city-owned land, there is huge potential for food production projects of all kinds and sizes."

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Cuba
Turning economic isolation into an opportunity for agroecological transition

"From the 1960s to the beginning of the 1990s, Cuban agriculture was focused on highly-mechanized, large-scale monocultures of export commodities, and dependent on large quanti- ties of imported chemicals and fertilizers – in other words, emblematic of the Green Revolution. In response to this crisis, the small-scale agricultural sector in Cuba underwent what has been referred to as an “agroecological revolution”. The Cuban peasantry was able to increase production despite a severe reduction in external inputs, while large-scale plantations of sugarcane and other commodity crops continued to struggle. The transition accelerat- ed through the 1990s building on a burgeoning campesino-a-campesino (farmer-to-farmer) movement."

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San Ramon, Nicaragua
Breaking away from industrial commodity production in Central American coffee-growing communities

"In the late 1990s, with cofee prices plummeting and a handful of multinational buyers able to set prices, cofee growers around the world found themselves in crisis. In many regions, farmers planted more cofee in an attempt to increase their incomes, reducing or eliminating the crops that previously provided local food security.

It was into this environment that researchers from the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) established a new non-proft organization: the Community Agroecology Network (CAN).19 In 2011, the NGO joined forces with local organizations in smallholder cofee-growing communities in San Ramón, Nicaragua, and Veracruz, Mexico. Together they launched a project to accompany the communities through a transition to reduce dependency on export-oriented industrial commodity production."

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Golden Horseshoe Region, Canada
The Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Action Plan

'The Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Plan involves the establishment of an innovative governance body to promote collaboration between several local governments within a city region, as well as a range of organizations with an interest in the food and farming economy - including large-scale farmers. It underlines the value of establishing clear terms of reference and mediation tools, and forging innovative governance structures to manage the complexities of food system planning at the urban-rural interface."

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Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Belo Horizonte's approach to food security

"Belo Horizonte is a pioneer in integrated urban policy to address food insecurity. The city's approach has endured for over 20 years, with its core principal intact. Its longevity is due largely to institutionalization within city government (in a dedicatd municipal agency known as SMASAN), a dedicated cadre of civil servants, and institutionalization of the Right to Food at the federal level, leading to supportive federal policy frameworks. Read the full case study."

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Comarca de la Vega, Spain
Sustaining transition through changing political winds

"The comarca of the Vega is located in the southeast of Spain, around the city of Granada. In the early 2000s, it developed the Vega de Granada Organic Farming Plan – an ambitious agenda for agroecological redesign of the district’s production and marketing systems. The plan was based on local provisioning of all inputs, the development of direct sales initiatives (bio- fairs, shops of producers’ associations, etc.) and organic public procurement – referred to as ‘social consumption’ schemes. Education- al programmes were also developed to build awareness of sustainability in the district with the support of local farmers."

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Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Amsterdam's Healthy Weight Program

"In 2012, Amsterdam set its sights on eradicating overweight and obesity in the city by the year 2033. Introduced the following year, the Amsterdam Healthy Weight Programme (AAGG) is aimed at all children under the age of 19 and their parents, care-givers and teachers, but there is a particular focus on children who are already obese and those from high risk social groups (City of Amsterdam, 2013; City of Amsterdam, 2015; City of Amsterdam, 2014)."

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Drôme Valley, France
Making the radical mainstream and the mainstream radical to build Europe’s rst organic region

"Organic production in the Drôme Valley emerged as early as the 1970s, driven by peer-to-peer knowledge sharing networks, alternative extension agents promoting organic inputs, and the arrival of migrants from urban areas seeking to reconnect with the land and pursue organic practices. In the early 1990s, a network of cooperatives in the upper valley established a program to develop organic supply chains with a view to accessing higher-value markets. The Valley’s transition provides insights into how norms can be shifted over time. Ongoing interaction between main- stream and alternative actors has allowed for rapid upscaling, access to resources, and legitimization of the transition process. The transition has also been advanced through various forms of institutionalization. "

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Chololo, Tanzania
Rethinking food, farming, forestry and resource management to build a climate-resilient ‘Ecovillage’

"Chololo village, a 5,500-strong community located in the semi-arid drylands of Central Tanzania, faces challenges typical to this agro-pastoralist region: recurrent drought, food insecurity, and vulnerability to climate change. When a participatory climate vulnerability and capacity analysis was carried out in Chololo, key issues identified by residents and the village committee ranged from increased drought frequency, deforestation, flooding and strong winds, to human diseases, livestock diseases, crop pests, and inadequate ground water recharge."

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Nairobi, Kenya
Nairobi’s Urban Agriculture Promotion and Regulation Act

"The Nairobi Urban Agriculture Promotion and Regulation Act 2015 represents a major U-turn in attitudes to urban food production at the city level. It came on the back of sustained civil society efforts to unify and amplify the voices of urban farmers and to build supportive relationships with national civil servants. Institutional change following the adoption of Kenya's Constitution in 2010 led to the devolution of agriculture and reassignment of civil servants who were supportive of and knowledgeable about urban agriculture to the Nairoby City County Government."

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Puhan Rural Community, Shanxi, China
Rebuilding community ties as a pathway to cooperative-led local food systems

"The agroecology and eco-agriculture movement in China has been gaining momentum. There is growing consensus that Chinese agriculture must transition towards agroecological practices to ensure food security while providing sustainable livelihoods for farmers and minimising environmental risks. The transition under way in Puhan Rural Community in Shanxi province has taken up this challenge. Initially established as a farmer training service, Puhan is now a multifunctional cooperative made up of 3,865 households from 43 villages in the Puzhou and Hanyang townships (58% of the local population), cultivating on some 5,300ha of farmland."

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