Ambercrombie_2010_Food and the City_Glasgow and Cuba

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Scott Abercrombie. 200521348.

University of Strathclyde / Department of ArchitectureBsc (Hons) Architectural Studies / 16.03.2010

Food & The City Can Glasgow’s FutureBe Inuenced ByCuba’s Past



Food + The City

Department of Architecture

University of Strathclyde

Dissertation

AB 420 BSc (Architectural Studies), BSc (Architectural Studies with European Studies), Pg

Diploma in Architectural Studies

Declaration

“I hereby declare that this dissertation submission is my own work and has been composed

by myself. It contains no unacknowledged text and has not been submitted in any previous

context. All quotations have been distinguished by quotation marks and all sources of information, text, illustration, tables, images etc. have been specically acknowledged.

I accept that if having signed this Declaration my work should be found at Examination

to show evidence of academic dishonesty the work will fail and I will be liable to face the

University Senate Discipline Committee.”

Name: Scott Abercrombie

Signed:

Date: 16.03.2010

declaration

i.



Food + The City

contents Abstract

Introduction

Chapter 1: Reasons For Change

Chapter 2: Cuba’s Agricultural Revolution

Chapter 3: Urban Agriculture In Havana

Chapter 4: The Case For Change In Glasgow

Chapter 5: Towards A Greener Glasgow

Conclusion

Bibliography

Image Bibliography

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3.

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24.

31.

48.

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59.

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Food + The City

list of illustrationsFig 1. An urban farm in Havana. P.2

Fig 2. Thousands of mothers with malnourished children gather outside a feeding centre in

Niger. P.4

Fig 3. Cattle are reared at a factory farm in the United States. P.4

Fig 4. Graph of world population. P.5

Fig 5. Markham suburbs, Ontario. P.6

Fig 6. Safeway poster from the 1950’s. P.6

Fig 7. October 2006: Production Forecasts and EIA Oil Production Numbers P.7

Fig 8. Cattle graze on recently cleared land in Brazil. P.9

Fig 9. Novo Progreso, Brazil: An aerial view of deforestation caused by soybean farmers. P.10

Fig 10. Dust plumes of Western Africa. P.11

Fig 11. A street in Havana in 1958 showing the presence of American corporations. P.13

Fig 12. Guerrillero Heroico. P.14

Fig 13. A 1963 Soviet Propaganda poster that reads: “Long live everlasting, indestructible

friendship and cooperation between Soviet and Cuban nations!” P.14

Fig 14. John F Kennedy signs an order in 1962 resulting in a naval blockade of Cuba. P.15

Fig 15. Urban farms in Havana. P.18

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Food + The City

Fig 16. A Cuban community garden. P.19

Fig 17. Organopónico Alamar, Havana. P.19

Fig 18. A state farm on the outskirts of Havana. P.20

Fig 19. Graph indicating the growth in yields for the various forms of production. P.21

Fig 20. Graph charting vegetable production in Havana. P.21

Fig 21. A Cuban tends to oxen in Havana. P.22

Fig 22. Help Scotland’s Harvest: World War II recruitment poster. P.23

Fig 23. A vegetable garden is created in a bomb crater within a school playground near

Westminster Catherdral, 1940. P.24

Fig 24. The land in front of the Reichstag is used for potato farming in 1946. P.25

Fig 25. The land in front of the Reichstag as it is now. P.25

Fig 26. Old poster from the Dewar’s world of whisky centre at the Aberfeldy distillery in

Perthshire. P.26

Fig 27. Tesco’s new 1million square foot distribution centre in Livingston. P.27

Fig 28. Work Architects ‘Public Farm One’ installation in New York. P.28

Fig 29. View north towards Glasgow city centre. P.29

Fig 30. Diagram illustrating methods of production and their escalating costs / rates of

production. P.31

Fig 31. Aerial view of Glasgow city centre. P.32

Fig 32. The roof of Chicago’s City Hall. P.32

Fig 33. The roof of True Nature Foods in Chicago. P.33

Fig 34. A sign inside True Nature Foods. P.34

Fig 35. What Glasgow’s rooftops could look like. P.34

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Food + The City

Fig 36. The West End. P.35

Fig 37. An aerial photograph illustrating the layout of tenements. P.35

Fig 38. One of the many ways a tenement backcourt could be used for Urban Agriculture.

P.36

Fig 39. The South Side. P.37

Fig 40. A group of four tower blocks. P.37

Fig 41. The potential for productive land to surround tower blocks. P.38

Fig 42. Urban sprawl in the East End of Glasgow. P.39

Fig 43. A woman tends a vegetable patch in her back garden. Edinburgh, circa 1950. P.39

Fig 44. An engraving of Glasgow Green in 1850 complete with cows. P.40

Fig 45. Queens Park Allotments in Glasgow. P.41

Fig 46. The potential of derelict land between the Gorbals and Govanhill. P.42

Fig 47. Atelier SOA’s Vertical Farm Proposal. P.43

Fig 48. Computer controlled farming at Paignton Zoo. P.44

Fig 49. Pig City. P.44

Fig 50. Patrick Blanc’s Green Wall at The Caixa Forum Museum, Madrid. P.44

Fig 51. Table indicating potential yields. P.46

Fig 52. Graph comparing the three estimates. P.46

Fig 54. A vision of a greener Glasgow. P.47

Fig 53. Graph suggesting that the three production estimates would relate to stages two,

three and four. P.49

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Food + The City

abbreviationsEIA United States Energy Information Administration

FAO United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation

GCC Glasgow City Council

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IRRI International Rice Research Institute

SAGS Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society

SG Scottish Government

UA Urban Agriculture

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientic and Cultural Organisation

UNFPF United Nations Population Fund

UNU United Nations University

UPA Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture

US DoE United States Department of Energy

WHO World Health Organisation

WRAP Waste and Resources Action Programme

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Food + The City

abstract This dissertation advocates the need for the preemptive re-localisation of food production

throughout the world as an attempt to ensure food stability in a world without cheap oil. The

widespread adoption of urban farming in Cuba during the 1990s will be considered as a

successful model for the swift implementation of localised food production and the methods

used there will be closely examined. We will then look at the potential for these techniques to

be exported elsewhere, with particular comparison being drawn between Cuba’s capital city,

Havana, and Scotland’s most populous city, Glasgow. Scotland’s current agricultural model is

comparable to Cuba’s prior to the 1990’s and both Glasgow and Havana have a very similar

proportion of area available per capita making them ideal for comparison.

There is an immediate need for considerable urban and social reform to combat the ever-

growing demand food production places on the planet’s dwindling resources. Currently there

are over 1 billion people on our planet who suffer from chronic hunger, a number that hasgrown by 10% in the last year. With the population of the planet continuing to rise and our

ability to produce food through industrial methods of agriculture set to dramatically drop,

alternative methods will have to be adopted.

In the 1990s the collapse of the Soviet Union had massive implications on Cuba and its

supply of food, the loss of its primary source of trade left the country with the huge problem

of becoming as self-sufcient as possible in a very short space of time. The Cubans

responded with extensive land reforms and the widespread adoption of urban agriculture,resulting in thousands of small plots in cities being converted into urban market gardens. This

was supported by the government through the provision of parcels of land to anyone willing

to cultivate them and experts from universities to educate the citizens about agriculture. As a

result, yields within Cuba’s cities are steadily increasing and there are now more vegetables

available to Cubans than there were before the crisis.

Whilst there are obvious differences between Havana and Glasgow - from socioeconomic

factors and the political environment through to climate - the principles remain the same.

As the impacts of climate change, industrial farming methods, soil erosion, global water

shortages and the peak of cheap oil production occur it is almost a certainty that cities will

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Food + The City

have to adopt a new agricultural model in order to sustain their inhabitants. With the people

of Havana now producing around 90% of their fruit and vegetables from over 200 gardens in

the city, could such an approach be adopted in Glasgow and how successful would it be?

2.

Fig 1. An urban farm in Havana



Food + The City

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have

much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” Franklin D Roosevelt

(BBC News, 2005)

For every living thing on this planet one of the major concerns is the provision of food. Food

has always inuenced the way we live our lives and one of the most prominent examples of

this is the urban landscape of our planet. The form of our cities from the very rst examples

in Mesopotamia through to present day, has at least in part, been dictated by food. This

relationship used to be a delicate balance between the scale of a city and the ability of its

hinterland to provide adequate sustenance, a relationship that has been eroded over time

by trade, the discovery of oil, the birth of the combustion engine, an ever increasing ability to

store food, consumer demand and the rise of the corporation. These inuences combined

have led us to the point that global food production has become unsustainable.

The production of meat alone is currently responsible for a fth of global Greenhouse Gas

Emissions (FAO, 2006). Meanwhile the way we purchase food, where we grow it, and an

ever-growing lack of knowledge about food has led to around a third of the food purchased

in the UK being thrown away (WRAP, 2007:1). All the more terrible when you consider that

the UN predicts that 1.02 billion people will go hungry this year, an increase of 100 million on

last year (FAO, 2009b:4). With the US Census Bureau (2009a) expecting world population

to grow to 9 billion by 2043, one of the largest questions we face as a species is how weprovide for the predicted extra 2 billion people, whilst nding food for the 1 billion we are

currently not feeding and simultaneously making the entire process more environmentally

friendly?

The answer to this, unfortunately, seems to be that the current methods of agriculture will no

longer sufce. Instead of getting the increase in production we require in the coming decades

we could potentially see a reduction, the main causes for this being a lack of a cheap oil

supply, impending global water shortages, soil erosion and shifts in global climate. The

impacts of each of these factors could be disastrous on their own, but it seems that we will

have to deal with all of them in the very near future, so what could potentially occur?

introduction

3.



Fig 2. Thousands of mothers with malnourished children gather outside a feeding centre inNiger. 90% of Africa’s exports of fruit and vegetables go to the UK (Defra, 2007)

Fig 3. Cattle are reared at a factory farm in the United States

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Food + The City

chapter 1reasons for change

“We have allowed oil to become vital to virtually everything we do. Ninety per cent of all our

transportation, whether by land, air or sea, is fuelled by oil. Ninety-ve per cent of all goods in

shops involve the use of oil. Ninety-ve per cent of all our food products require oil use. Just

to farm a single cow and deliver it to market requires six barrels of oil, enough to drive a car

from New York to Los Angeles.” (Leggett, 2006)

The above graph of world population shows that human population remained relatively

stable until the mid 1300’s when it began to steadily grow, the rate increased again around

1800 and from then on human population has consistently increased year on year. When

you compare these shifts in population growth with technological advancements we can

see a clear correlation emerge. The most signicant of which relates to the invention of the

automobile and its mass production, with Henry Ford producing the rst widely affordable

automobile in 1908. As a result American production of oil grew even more dramatically than

population, illustrated by the 2000 barrels produced in 1859 growing to 9.64million barrels

per day when US production peaked in 1970 (EIA, 2009), less than half the 19.5million

barrels now consumed every day in the United States (CIA, 2008). Technology has since

improved exponentially and been proliferated throughout the world against a backdrop of

universally cheap oil. This rapid industrialisation has meant that for a sustained period the

world has been able to produce more, faster and it could distribute this produce rapidly

across the globe, resulting in the carrying capacity of the earth being temporarily expanded.

Fig 4. Graph of world population

5.



Fig 5. “Just a prison with the cells all in a row. A line of semi-detached torture chamberswhere the poor little ve-to-ten- pound-a-weekers quake and shiver” (Orwell, 1939:16)

Fig 6. Widespread access to cars led to a mass migration to the suburbs in the westernworld and the proigate use of oil that is inherent in urban sprawl, it also heralded the birth

of the out of town supermarket, dramatically changing the way much of the world interactedwith food.

6.



Food + The City

However, the oil that this way of life is based upon is, like all other fossil fuels, a nite

resource. The world is approaching, or has perhaps already passed, the point of Peak Oil,

which is regarded as the moment the worlds cheap oil supply peaks and subsequently goes

into decline. As the availability of cheap oil deteriorates the price will rise and as a result food

prices, along with almost all other products, will rise. This theory is also known as Hubbert’sPeak, after Marion King Hubbert who originally used his models to correctly predict that

American oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. In 1974 Hubbert then adopted

this model to predict the peak of world oil, which he believed would occur in 1995 (Grove,

1974:792-825). A number of contemporary scientists have updated this model in an attempt

to provide an accurate timescale, resulting in a variety of estimates that indicate a peak

occurring between 2005 and 2015 (Foucher, 2006).

“When the energy cost of recovering a barrel of oil becomes greater than the energy content

of the oil, production will cease no matter what the monetary price may be” Marion King

Hubbard (US DoE, 2006:2)

Agriculture is an incredibly oil intensive process, the entire process of industrial farming relies

on oil, from the planting and harvesting of the crop, creation of fertiliser, food processing,through to distribution and packaging. At present over 4 barrels of oil are used in the process

Fig 7. Graph of peak oil estimates

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Food + The City

of feeding the average person in the UK each year, whilst in America it is estimated that for

every calorie of food that is produced 10 calories of fossil fuel energy have to be invested

(Heinberg, 2007).

It is only the highly concentrated energy in fossil fuels that has allowed the explosion in worldpopulation and production, but our relationship with this nite resource is an unhealthy one.

We have taken a commodity that takes hundreds of thousands of years to form and used

half of it in just over 100 years. However, this isn’t the only reason that we have to move away

from our reliance on fossil fuels; our reckless overuse continually adds carbon dioxide to the

atmosphere that is contributing to the destabilisation of our already fragile climate.

The IPCC conrmed in 2007 that warming of the planet is taking place with a report stating

that they were more than 90% sure that this warming had been caused by human activity

since 1750 (Black,2007). We continue to work the Earth’s resources harder and harder

pushing ourselves toward a point of global climatic and economic collapse, and we can

already see the effects of this on the precious commodities we rely on to feed the world.

“The threat of nuclear weapons and man’s ability to destroy the environment are really

alarming. And yet there are other almost imperceptible changes - I am thinking of the

exhaustion of our natural resources, and especially of soil erosion - and these are perhaps

more dangerous still, because once we begin to feel their repercussions it will be too late.”

The Dalai Lama (Dalai Lama, 2002:144)

Despite the fact that approximately two-thirds of our planet is covered in water, the vast

majority is of little use to us, in fact only 0.8% of our planet’s water is actually a viable

resource. Agriculture currently accounts for around 70% of freshwater withdrawals, reaching

up to 90% in some developing countries (UNESCO, 2009a:99), and were it not to be

optimised could be responsible for around 90% globally by 2050 (UNESCO, 2009b). But this

limited water resource is shrinking, due in part to pollution and also to the growing reliance

and overuse of groundwater (Kirby, 2000).

Agriculture is generally a very water intensive process, but certain foods require more than

others, the main culprit being meat. A kilogram of beef takes on average 9,680 litres of water

to produce, compared to an average of 1,790 litres per kilogram of wheat (Vidal, 2004).

Meat consumption has increased signicantly in the last century; the average UK resident

has gone from consuming 25kg of meat per year to 80kg (FAO, 2009b), though this pales

in comparison to the average of consumption in the USA of 125kg per person (UNESCO,

2009b). These unhealthy trends can be seen continuing within emerging nations that are nowconsuming more meat and dairy than ever, in China consumption of meat rose from 3kg per

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Food + The City

person in 1961 to 54kg in 2003 (FAO, 2009a).

China is a country that is now relying more and more heavily on imports, a worrying statistic

given that despite much of its landmass being covered by both mountains and deserts it had

managed to be self-sufcient in most food products until around 20 years ago. Since thenit is has struggled to produce enough food for its population to the point where it is now the

world’s biggest importer of both grain and soya. Between 1995 and 2005 we can see an

interesting relationship play out, in those 10 years China lost 6 million hectares of arable land

to urbanisation and desertication, whilst China’s imports of Brazilian soya beans grew by an

incredible 10,685%. To facilitate this a substantial amount of deforestation had to take place

and as a result the Amazon lost an average of 1.7million hectares per year (Steel, 2009).

This has its own serious effects on the climate out with the obvious destruction of

irreplaceable ecological systems. According to Peter Melchett, previously a Labour minister

and Executive Director of Greenpeace:

“Historically, 50% of the total increase in carbon dioxide from 1850-1990 is from land use

change, mainly because of farming.” (Melchett, 2007)

Fig 8. Cattle graze on recently cleared land in Brazil

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Food + The City

Soil erosion and the problems caused by monoculture and intensive industrialised farming

are affecting yields across the globe, but although scientists regard this to be just as big aproblem as global warming it seems very little is being done to combat it. Over 99% of food

is grown in soil, yet each year over 10million hectares of arable land is either degraded or lost

(Radford, 2004). In 2004 The Guardian reported that:

“An area big enough to feed Europe - 300m hectares, about 10 times the size of the UK - has

been so severely degraded it cannot produce food, according to UN gures.” (Radford, 2004)

Soil erosion is generally caused by soil being displaced by natural forces like wind and rain,and as such is a natural and healthy process. The main problem is the growing rate of soil

erosion, which in most cases is facilitated by increased use of land by humans. Deforestation,

overgrazing and ploughing all disrupt the structure of the soil and as a result make it

more susceptible to erosion. The affect of this is being felt everywhere, but more so in the

developing world where either necessity or corporate inuence greatly exacerbates the issue.

Karl Harmsen, Director of the United Nations University’s Institute for Natural Resources in

Africa Director, said that estimates now suggested if the decline of soils in Africa continues,

by 2025 it would be capable of feeding only 25% of its population (UNU, 2006:3).

Fig 9. An example of deforestation by soybean farmers in the Amazon

10.



Fig 10. A satellite image showing the affect of soil erosion on the coast of Africa

11.



Food + The City

“The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt (Jones, 2009)

The effects of soil degradation, if they were to continue at the current rate would have

a considerable impact upon food security in the future, but its effects could be further

inuenced by climate change. Studies have shown that increased precipitation leads toincreased erosion and one of the main accepted results of global warming is increased

intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change predicts that a one-metre rise in sea levels would leave nearly 1/3 of the world’s crop

growing land ooded (Smith and Edwards, 2008). They also suggested global temperature

could rise by between 1.8°C and 4°C by the end of the century, concluding that it may even

rise as far as 6.4°C (IPCC, 2007:13). With the International Rice Research Institute (2004)

predicting that with every degree of warming there would be a 15% reduction in rice yields

this would have a massive impact, particularly in Asia where over 2 billion people rely on rice

for between 60-70% of their calories.

With the many threats to food security in the developed world accompanied by a continually

worsening situation in the developing world, signicant changes have to be made to

our current methods to sustainably feed everyone on this planet. As the world becomes

increasingly urbanised it becomes clear that the biggest problem we face is creating

sustainable cities.

“Cities have become parasites on the landscape – huge organisms draining the world for their

sustenance and energy: relentless consumers, relentless polluters.” Richard Rogers (Rogers,

1997:27)

Currently over 50% of the world’s population lives in cities, although this is set to grow

to almost 5 billion by 2030 (UNFPF, 2007). However it is only relatively recently that this

migration to urban centres has occurred - the cities of the world housed only 200 million

people in 1950 – and it is feeding these cities that offers the biggest problem (Rogers,

1997:27). Tokyo has an estimated population of just under 32.5 million people, meaning thatwere everyone to eat 3 meals a day over 95 million meals would have to be produced for

Tokyo alone. The fact that such a city survives would have been considered miraculous in

centuries past, but our generation barely notices it, and as such it is obvious that we have

become divorced from the process it takes to feed ourselves. But in Cuba’s capital city,

Havana, over 90% of the fruit and vegetables consumed in the city are produced in and

around the city (Lotter, 2003).

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Food + The City

chapter 2cuba’s agricultural revolution

In the early 1990’s Cuba faced the immense task of becoming almost entirely self sufcient

in as short a space of time as possible. This situation was forced upon them by the collapse

of the Soviet Union in 1990, which had been Cuba’s primary source of trade since the

imposition of an embargo by the US in 1960 (BBC News, 2008). The sheer scale of the

problems faced by the Cuban people in the 1990’s was greatly exacerbated by the way that

Cuba’s agricultural system was operating up until that point. Cuba produced a signicant

amount of the world’s sugar, and as a result the majority of the islands productive landscape

was taken over by export plantations (Schwab, 1998).

From 1898 through to the Revolution in 1959, the United States had a massive inuence

within Cuba, from the US government supporting corrupt leaders and approving military

interventions, to the corporations who controlled much of the Cuban land and economy. This

lasted until Fidel Castro and his revolutionary forces removed the US-supported, unpopularregime of Fulgencio Batista and promised to take back the land for the Cuban people

(Schwab, 1998).

Fig 11. A street in Havana in 1958 showing the presence of American corporations

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Food + The City

The rst step towards this was taken in May of 1959, when Cuba sought to counteract

American control by enacting Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s Agrarian Reform Law. This restricted

the size of farms to a maximum of 3,333 acres, with anything larger being expropriated and

either distributed to peasants or retained by the government. A provision was also included

that prevented any external party owning Cuban land, resulting in the forced sale of an

estimated 480’000 acres of US owned land (Kellner, 1989). In response the US government

signicantly reduced the amount of sugar they would import, and with Cuba being so

dependent on trade they had to look elsewhere for a buyer; they found one in the Soviet

Union.

Fig 12. ‘Che’ Guevara

Fig 13. A 1963 Soviet Propaganda poster that reads: “Long live everlasting, indestructiblefriendship and cooperation between Soviet and Cuban nations!”

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Food + The City

Fig 14. John F Kennedy signs an order in 1962 resulting in a naval blockade of Cuba

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Food + The City

The new alliance caused relations between the US and Cuba to deteriorate further. After

assassination attempts by the CIA on Castro and the eventual failed, US-sponsored, Bay

of Pigs invasion, Cuba turned to the Soviets for military assistance, who in 1962 responded

by placing nuclear weapons on Cuba. It was then that John F. Kennedy signed a full and

permanent trade embargo against Cuba into power, banning the import of any Cubanproduce, along with preventing the export of goods - eventually including food and medicines

- by US companies or their subsidiaries, to Cuba (Schwab, 1998).

“Key foodstuff imports by Cuba prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union included 100 percent

of its wheat, 50 percent of its rice, 38 percent of its milk and dairy, 99 percent of its beans,

44 percent of its sh, 22 percent of its poultry, 21 percent of its meat, 94 percent of its oil and

lard and 64 percent of its butter. Of the population’s total calories in diet 57 percent came

from imported food items.” (Schwab, 1998:73)

Cuba’s ability to produce on its own was also severely impacted by a reduction of its

petroleum supplies by 98% (Schwab, 1998:73). The lack of fuel, machinery and spare parts

hindered any kind of large-scale agricultural endeavor and the subsequent transport of any

gains from rural areas. This also contributed to a much-reduced ability to generate energy

and as a result the capacity of food that could be stored dropped (Viljoen, ed. 2005:137).

As these factors took hold Castro declared ‘The Special Period in the Time of Peace’,

representative of the decline of the economy and the breakdown of the agricultural, industrial

and transportation infrastructure. During this period organic agriculture began to take hold

throughout the country, and with around 70% of the population living in an urban environment

much of this development took place in the city (Rosset and Benjamin, 1994:10). As the

average intake of calories dropped and rationing was increased the Cuban people took the

situation into their own hands and started producing food everywhere they could, and as a

result Cuba’s urban landscape began to change (Rosset and Benjamin, 1994:10; Schwab,

1998:84).

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Food + The City

chapter 3urban agriculture in havana

“When the socialist camp and the USSR disappeared, our people, in spite of abruptly losing

70 percent of their imported goods and all military cooperation, didn’t hesitate for a second,

but went ahead to defend, at all cost, their independence.” Fidel Castro (Castro, 1995)

The Cuban government had realised before the collapse of trading relations with the Soviet

Union, that their heavy reliance on outside sources put them in a precarious position. Their

rst effort at tackling this was the National Food Program, described by Castro as attempting

the “rectication of errors and negative tendencies”, which had its beginnings in 1986 (Deere,

1993:35). The central aim of this was to improve food security by increasing domestic

production, with one of the approaches adopted being to try and move production towards

urban areas. Havana was seen as the primary concern as over 30% of the population

lived there and the city relied heavily on imports and other areas within Cuba (Rosset and

Benjamin, 1994:26).

Analysis of the Cuban agricultural landscape indicated that in early 1993 state farms held

around 80% of the arable land whilst cooperatives and individual farmers cultivated the

remaining 20%, with this 20% being responsible for over 35% of Cuba’s agricultural output

(Levins, 1993:55; Martín, 2001:58). The government reacted quickly to these results by

instituting a widespread shift towards this highly productive non-state agriculture.

As Cuba was parceling off land to private owners in the countryside the popularity of urbanagriculture was also growing. The government eventually recognised how much it could

contribute to the goals set out by the National Food Program and began to support its

growth through a variety of methods including providing vacant urban spaces to anyone

wiling to cultivate them, allowing people to sell their produce at markets and by setting up the

Department for Urban Agriculture.

By 1995 Havana was home to over 25’000 allotments belonging to families and small

cooperatives as well as a number of larger market gardens and in 2002 any settlement

of more than 15 houses had its own food production facility (Ewing, 2008; Kisner, 2008).

The availability of organic produce was growing exponentially due to the rising number

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Food + The City

of gardens, rened techniques and the increasing level of experience among the farmers,

resulting in around 8% of the land in Havana being utilised for urban farming by 2008.

Havana’s Urban Agriculture developed into many different typologies, but these can be

reduced to four main categories:

1. Huertos Privados take into account people using their own property for farming, for

example those growing on their rooftops or in their gardens. It was estimated in 2003 that

over 300,000 back gardens had been turned into productive spaces, although due to their

nature there is no indication of much they produce (Kisner, 2008). These gardens, throughtheir locations and innovative use of space embody the grassroots of the urban agriculture

movement in Cuba and as well as being used to grow diet staples they are also utilised by

many to raise rabbits or poultry.

2. Huertos Populares are community gardens located within an urban or peri-urban

environment. These community gardens can be dissected into two subheadings: plots and

intensive cultivation gardens, with plots typically occupying an area of less than 1000m²,

whilst intensive gardens are usually between 1000m² and 3000m². They can be farmed by

anyone from individuals through to a cooperatives and in 2000 they produced an average of

around 8-12kg per m² for the year (Viljoen, ed. 2005:148-149).

Fig 15. Urban farms in Havana

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Food + The City

Fig 16. A Cuban community garden

Fig 17. Organopónico Alamar, Havana

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Food + The City

3. Organopónicos are the most publicised component of Cuba’s urban agriculture, most

likely due to their highly impressive rates of production. They can be distinguished from

Huertos Populares by the method of farming that is used. Organopónicos traditionally consist

of containers - typically low concrete walls - that contain a mixture of organic materials like

manure, soil and compost. Raising the bed in this manner provides the ability to grow on sitesthat would otherwise have been unsuitable. They can also be separated into two typologies:

community gardens and high yield gardens. The community gardens are usually between

2000m² and 5000m² in size with the high yield gardens typically being hectare or more. In

2000 they produced 20kg/m².yr and 25kg/m².yr respectively, around double the production

rates of the Huertos Populares (Viljoen, ed. 2005:148-149).

4. Autoconsumos Estatales are generally located in peri-urban sites and are usually around a

hectare in size. These are for state production and are farmed by volunteers, but despite their

more favorable position on the outskirts of the city they produce considerably less than the

Huertos and Organopónicos averaging only 0.6kg/m².yr (Viljoen, ed. 2005:148-149).

These innovative solutions saw Cuba through one of the most difcult periods in its history

and many thought that as the economy recovered there would be a transition to a more

Fig 18. A state farm on the outskirts of Havana

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industrialised form of agriculture. However, while some reports suggest that their has been a

reduction in the number of farms and farmers - with money now being available for building

projects and with people being able to return to their primary profession - it appears the

efciency of the remaining urban farms continues to improve.

Fig 19. Graph indicating the growth in yields for the various forms of production

Fig 20. Graph charting vegetable production in Havana

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What makes these achievements so important is that the production methods are as organic

as possible; tractors are replaced with oxen, highly nutritious compost created throughvermiculture takes the place of fertiliser and instead of constantly spraying pesticides,

marigolds are planted to attract insects that will protect the crops.

What started out as a desperate response to dire circumstances has now developed into

the most revered organic agricultural experiment in the world. It is now less expensive for the

residents of Havana to buy produce from the Urban Farms within the city than to buy food

that has been brought in from the countryside, making organic produce the cheapest option

(Viljoen, ed. 2005:143). The average calorie consumption in Cuba is now just slightly lessthan that of a typical person in the UK, but the Cuban diet is much healthier due to the typical

western diet containing three times as much meat and dairy produce.

But the benets extend beyond the availability of food, the creation of the larger farms has

provided thousands of jobs within Havana and throughout Cuba. In 2003 22% of new jobs

created were in the Urban Agriculture sector (Kisner, 2008). The Cuban economy still relies

heavily on the export of agricultural produce like sugar, tobacco and citrus, but the creation

of this productive agricultural land within the city means that much of the countryside can

remain dedicated to cash crops. The urban landscape of Havana has been beautied by the

conversion of rubbish tips and collapsed buildings into gardens, creating a variety of green

Fig 21. Oxen help to ght against soil erosion by compacting the soil much less than a tractorwould

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Fig 22. Scottish World War II recruitment poster

spaces spread throughout the city that can also absorb CO2, improving air quality. Their

positioning throughout the city and stalls at the farm gates dramatically reduces much of the

fuel use that can be associated with transporting food, whilst waste is diminished as food

can be picked as people request it (Jason, 2007). There are also 200 or so research centres

spread throughout Havana where researchers have pioneered a variety of techniques thatallow Cuba to export organic methods to other countries. Not to mention the immeasurable

benets, namely the community spirit that has been generated by an entire country having to

pull together to provide for itself.

Clearly the Urban Farms have been an exceptional addition to the urban landscape and

their role in Cuban society has been compounded by their inclusion, for the rst time, in the

masterplan for Havana and the insertion of an Urban Agriculture class within the curriculum

intended to train a new generation of Urban Farmers. Cuba looks set to be at the forefront of

large-scale organic Urban Agriculture for the foreseeable future, but with the unpredictable

future of the planets climate and the end of the age of oil approaching is it possible to have

farming in the heart of a city like Glasgow.

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chapter 4 the case for urbanagriculture in glasgow

“Urban Agriculture has been overlooked, underestimated and underreported.” (UNDP, 1996)

Although this dissertation has focused on Havana, Urban Agriculture is a key part of urban

life for a huge amount of people and has been throughout history. In 1999 the FAO reported

that “ndings of national censuses, household surveys and research projects suggest that

up to two-thirds of urban and peri-urban households are involved in agriculture.” (FAO,1999)

Yet in the U.K. only 1.5% of the population is employed in agriculture with the gure dropping

even further in Scotland to 1.2% (Girardet, 2008:256; SG, 2009a; General Register Ofce for

Scotland, 2009).

Urban agriculture is often regarded as something that is turned to in times of desperation,

both through the fact that most substantial current examples are within developing nations

throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America and in Britain’s most notable experiment withUrban Agriculture, the victory gardens of World War II. These urban farms that sprung up

throughout Britain, America and the rest of Europe offer proof that urban agriculture can be

as successful here as it is in other climates.

Fig 23. A vegetable garden is created in a bomb crater within a school playground nearWestminster Catherdral (October 1940)

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Fig 24. The land in front of the Reichstag is used for potato farming in 1946

Fig 25. The land outside the Reichstag now

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Food + The City

Disappointingly there seems to be a tendency for Urban Agriculture to be scaled down or

stopped completely once a crisis is over or after a nations economy strengthens. There

seems to be a complacency throughout the developed world in relation to food security

and this could leave nations exposed to a crisis comparable with what Cuba has already

experienced. For example, Scotland’s current agricultural model is not entirely dissimilar toCuba’s prior to the reforms of the 90’s. In 2003, it was estimated that around 50% of the

arable land in Scotland was owned by just 350 people (Flower, 2006). The Scottish economy

relies heavily on its food and drink industry with exports being worth around £5 billion per

year; leading to Scotland being ranked as the worlds 5th largest producer of premium

food and drink (SG, 2009d; SG, 2009e). Yet the recently published, ‘Recipe for Success:

Scotland’s National Food and Drink Policy’ stated:

“Scotland has long been dependent on imports to complement domestic production in

meeting our food needs. The supply of food and drink is highly reliant on highly complex

domestic and global food chains. These may be vulnerable to both short and longer term

emergency situations which could disrupt this supply.” (SG, 2009e)

But despite this realisation exports continue to grow, with exports outside the UK being 16%

higher in the rst quarter of 2009 than they were in 2007 (SG, 2009e).

Fig 26. Poster for Dewar’s whisky

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Food + The City

Comparable to Cuba is the signicance oil has in feeding the Scottish people. A government

report providing ‘Mapping and Analysis of the Resilience of the Food Supply Chain in

Scotland’ emphasises the reliance on road transport for food as being a vulnerable link in the

food supply chain:

“Recent nationwide fuel protests, industrial action at Grangemouth and conict in oil

producing regions has demonstrated that there is a signicant likelihood and severe

consequence to interruption of the petroleum supply network. As all logistic links in the

food supply chain are almost exclusively dependent on road haulage, the diesel supply

infrastructure is critical to its continued operation.” (SG, 2009d)

Scotland could also benet from a transition to healthier consumption patterns, particularly

in Glasgow where the instances of severe illnesses are almost the highest in Europe, many

of which can be attributed to a poor diet (Fotheringham, 2010). Currently around 61.8% of

women and 68.5% of men are overweight or obese; children are affected too with 34.9% of

Primary 1 students being overweight or worse, rising to 64.7% at 11-12 years old, 11.2%

of whom were considered severely obese (SG, 2009e; SG, 2006). The typical Scots person

consumes more meat, more alcohol and less fruit and vegetables than the average English

person, resulting in a diet that is now so bad the only country in the developed world withworse levels of obesity in adults is America (SG, 2009c; Devlin, 2007).

Fig 27. Tesco’s new 1million square foot distribution centre in Livingston

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Food + The City

These levels have to be addressed if we are to combat Scotland’s worsening health record

as a bad diet can be the root of a variety of deadly conditions such as coronary heart

disease, cancer, strokes and diabetes, for example 500’000 of Scotland’s recorded cases of

cardiovascular hypertension can be attributed to obesity (SG, 2006; SG, 2009b; SG, 2008).

Glasgow’s health problems are further compounded by the fact that a third of its populationare smokers and 48% of men and 29% of women drink more than the recommended weekly

amount (Fotheringham, 2010). There are also problems in levels of employment with over

200,000 people in Scotland unemployed, a perceived lack of community spirit throughout the

UK and the stress that has long been associated with living in a modern city (Gunn, 2010).

To suggest that Urban Agriculture could resolve all these problems would be inaccurate,

but it could contribute substantially across all of these factors as we have already seen in

Cuba. This is slowly being recognised and cities in developed nations are once again turning

to Urban Agriculture in a time of crisis, although this time war has been replaced with an

economic crash.

Fig 28. Work Architects ‘Public Farm One’ installation in New York

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Food + The City

There has been a surge in the popularity of Urban Agriculture in North America, particularly in

post-industrial cities such as Detroit where there is a variety of abandoned urban spaces, but

also in cosmopolitan cities like San Francisco and New York, where there has always been a

fondness for Urban Gardens. Across the world there is a growing understanding that we can

no longer continue down the paths of mass consumption that we are currently on, but thesteps that are being taken are too small. There is an opportunity now to make a transition to

sustainable agriculture whilst the existing infrastructure still exists instead of being forced into

it when the food supply chain has collapsed. Dr Gerry McCartney and Professor Phil Hanlon

acknowledged this in their commentary for the Scottish Public Health Organisation’s ‘Obesity

in Scotland’ report

“Unfortunately nations that make a change to sustainability only when forced, when

unsustainable practices and consumption patterns collapse, will be in a far more difcult

position where there are no resources to invest in radical change. […] The public health

community should therefore see the sustainability agenda as a potential lever for health

improvement in addition to the need for sustainability for its own sake.” (McCartney and

Hanlon, 2007:3)

It is clear that industrial agriculture in its current form is inefcient and unsuccessful, in

learning from Cuba’s example Glasgow should implement an organic and re-localised food

production system that reduces the use of fertilisers, the distance food has to travel, as well

as diminishing the need for other oil intensive processes such as packaging and refrigeration;

but how might something like this manifest itself within Glasgow?

Fig 29. View looking north towards Glasgow’s City Centre

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Food + The City

Fig 31. Aerial view of Glasgow’s City Centre

Fig 32. The roof of Chicago’s City Hall

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Food + The City

The City Centre

Unlike the city centre of Havana there are very few gap sites within the heart of Glasgow, this

is due to fact that many of the vacant lots in Havana were created as the city decayed in its

post-oil period. Assuming that Glasgow makes the decision to farm within the city before

the impact of an oil crisis then the urban fabric would remain as it is, but this does not meanthere aren’t opportunities for Urban Farming.

As can be seen by looking at Figure 31 many of the rooftops within Glasgow’s city centre are

at and could potentially be turned into farms, supplying restaurants or shops below. Roof

gardens are a popular solution in cities where space is at a premium. In Chicago there were

more than 200 roof gardens that covered 2.5million square feet in place in 2006. The original

imperative was to reduce the impact of the urban heat island effect but True Nature Foods, a

recipient of a grant from the City of Chicago, took the opportunity to supplement their stock

by growing vegetables and herbs on their roof (Pilloton, 2006).

This idea of taking the landscape and lifting it on top of the buildings is becoming more and

more common both in new buildings and in existing cities. The Chinese government has

Fig 33. The roof of True Nature Foods in Chicago

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Food + The City

been working towards greening rooftops in

Beijing, with the United Nations Environment

Program estimating that were 70% of the roofs

to be covered that there would be around

an 80% reduction in carbon dioxide levels(McIntire-Strasburg, 2006). Much like the Hotel

Nacional in Havana grows the mint for its world

famous Mojitos on its roof, the restaurants

and bars of Glasgow could nurture a variety

of herbs and hard wearing vegetables several

storys above where they are being served.

Fig 35. What Glasgow’s rooftops could look like

Fig 34. A sign inside True Nature Foods

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Fig 36. Glasgow’s West End

Fig 37. An aerial photograph illustrating the layout of tenements

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Food + The City

The West End

Tenements can be found throughout almost all of Glasgow, but are most prominent in the

city’s West End. With regards to urban food production they are suited to a much more

traditional method of farming. Each tenement block usually has a small front garden that

belongs to the ground oor at and a much larger shared backcourt. The backcourts thatwere once used for drying clothes are now no longer the social spaces they once were and

would serve as an ideal space for communal Urban Agriculture.

By farming in these spaces they could once again become hubs of social activity as

residents come together to grow a variety of produce whilst at the same time beautifying their

backcourts. Or in another situation, the residents of the many tenement blocks that have

retail units within the ground oor could rent the garden to a shop or restaurant within the

building.

Fig 38. One of the many ways a tenement backcourt could be used for Urban Agriculture

36.



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Fig 39. The South Side of Glasgow

Fig 40. A group of four tower blocks

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Food + The City

The South Side

Between the 1950’s and 1970’s a trend emerged for demolishing tenements to make way for

tower blocks, which appear sporadically throughout the city, nowhere was this more prevalent

than in the South Side of Glasgow. When replacing the tenements most tower blocks tried to

provide the same facilities the residents had been used to, including somewhere you couldhang out your clothes to dry. In the case of the tower blocks this generally took to form of

an accessible roof. Similar to the at roofed buildings of the city centre these would also be

suitable for a raised bed form of agriculture. Growing on the roofs of high rise buildings is

not a new idea, in Fustat, the capital of Egypt prior to Cairo, there were buildings rising up to

14 stories in height as early as the 10th century that accommodated roof gardens that were

irrigated by oxen drawn water wheels (Behrens-Abouseif, 1992:6).

Inexplicably, several of the tower blocks in Glasgow have open balconies or exposed

circulation areas that could be used for small scale planting as is seen in the balconies of

Havana. Also due to the overshadowing caused by these towers many are surrounded

by green space, as can be seen in Figure 40. This could be adopted as arable land for

direct cultivation in the style of the ‘Huertos Populares’ or could even be used for pasturing

livestock.

Fig 41. The potential for productive land to surround tower blocks

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Fig 42. Urban sprawl in the East End of Glasgow

The Urban Sprawl

As you travel further out from the city centre,particularly towards the North and the East

End, the block form of the city is broken

down and as the density decreases the

urban fabric is replaced by a more suburban

layout.

This diagram of houses with substantial

front and back gardens are again suitedto traditional planting and are also large

enough to also keep poultry or bees in a

similar fashion to the recommended design

for war gardens.

With the average garden size in Britain

estimated to be 190m² and 87% of

households considered to have access to a

garden these spaces potentially have a lot to

offer (Davies et al., 2009).Fig 43. A woman tends a vegtable patch in

her back garden. (1950)39.



Food + The City

Other Spaces Within The City

The previous solutions described potential for an Urban Agriculture suited to supplying

individual homes, as well as small co-operatives and businesses. Within the city there are a

variety of institutions like schools and hospitals as well as commercial or government funded

UA that would require a larger, more easily accessible space.

Glasgow is home to over 90 parks of varying sizes throughout the city that could prove

incredibly productive spaces. The most signicant green space in the city centre is Glasgow

Green, which has a history of being used for agriculture. Throughout the 18th and 19th

centuries the Green was used to graze cattle and sheep, the southern most edge was given

over to allotments for people from the Gorbals and Calton area and an area was provided for

dry shing nets (GCC, 2007; GCC, 2010).

Parks are valuable public places within a city and it wouldn’t be advisable to completely

eradicate all usable public green space in favour of arable land, but when you consider that

Glasgow has an estimated 5,000 hectares of green space, 3,975 of which is managed by

Glasgow City Council, then setting aside a portion of this for production is justiable (McCue,

2010).

Fig 44. An engraving of Glasgow Green in 1850 complete with cows

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Food + The City

Several parks already devote area to allotments with 99% of allotments in Scotland being

part of a larger green space (SAGS, 2007). Glasgow currently has 25 different allotment sites,

containing a total of 1,320 plots, this amounts to an area of 22 hectares or 0.04% of the

current available green space (SAGS, 2007; CEiS, 2009).

There is consistent demand for more allotments with over 650 people on a waiting list in

2007 to pay to grow on them, surely with such a huge amount of space available we should

be integrating these into the cities parks to not only satisfy the people who want to cultivatethem but for them to contribute towards food security as they did during World War II,

when there were over 70,000 in Scotland (SAGS, 2007). There is also a law in place at the

moment that prevents produce grown on city council allotments from being sold Were this

law to be removed then demand would potentially increase further as they could be used for

commercial gain.

But the greatest potential lies in the available open space that is either derelict or vacant

within the city; after all it was this type of plot that proved to be most productive in Cuba.

The Scottish Derelict and Vacant Land Survey 2009 has indicated that within Glasgow City

Council there is 712ha of derelict land and 633ha of vacant urban land giving a total of

Fig 45. Queens Park Allotments, Glasgow

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Food + The City

1,344ha of available land over 922 sites. 66% of the total is located in land that is regarded

as being within the 15% most deprived zones, traditionally the area where urban agriculture

contributes the most to the community (SG, 2010).

If we crudely calculate the average size of each plot we get an average area of just over14,500m² per site. This would make them comparable both in size and nature with Havana’s

‘Organopónicos’ that took vacant urban sites that were considered unsuitable for direct

agriculture and used a raised bed form of growing.

As we have seen, there are already many avenues that could be explored for Urban

Agriculture in Glasgow, although should we choose to act before the impact of peak oil we

would have the opportunity to adopt systems that are far more technologically advanced than

the methods we have seen so far.

Fig 46. The potential of derelict land between the Gorbals and Govanhill

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Futuristic Farming

There is a substantial amount of research into innovative ways of farming in the city, the

most highly publicised of which is the ‘Vertical Farm’, the basic concept of which is stacking

food production inside high-rise buildings. This idea is now being experimented with in the

UK at Paignton Zoo, where a small scale vertical farm has been built to provide food for theanimals. Valcent, the company that has produced the system claims it will be at least twenty

times more efcient than traditional eld growing (Valcent, 2010).

MVRDV looked at solving the Netherlands problem with pig population, where in 1999 there

were 5.5 million humans and 5.2 million pigs. Their solution was ‘Pig City’, a collection of

high-rise pig farms intended to take the pressure off of the land whilst allowing a transition to

organic pig farming, a process that would otherwise have required 75% of the Netherlands

(MVRDV, 2000).

Fig 47. Atelier SOA’s Vertical Farm Proposal

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Food + The City

Fig 48. Computer controlled farming atPaignton Zoo

Fig 49. MVRDV’s Pig City

Other ideas include, living walls that involve

panels being attached to the side of a

building allowing for plants to be grown

vertically. With the largest area of most

buildings being the wall these provide an

interesting way to make them productive,

although I remain skeptical about how easily

these could be harvested.

It is these projects that are attracting the

interest of large corporations and as a result

it may not be long till we see a 20-story

vertical farm supplying a Tesco Metro in its

ground oor.

Fig 50. Patrick Blanc’s Green Wall at TheCaixa Forum Museum, Madrid

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Food + The City

Who will grow it?

“Many are the difculties that beset the person equipped for the rst time with a spade, a

packet of seeds, and a plot of soil” (Brown, 1940:III)

The largest issue when it comes to bringing huge swathes of new land into production iswho will farm it. This can be seen with the rates of production in Cuba where the production

rates at the average ‘Huerto Populares’ in 1996, six years into the Special Period were only

1-2kg/m².yr. This eventually rose to 8-12kg/m².yr in 2000 as the methods of sustainable

urban agriculture were developed and perfected and the knowledge was subsequently

disseminated, but there is still clearly a steep learning curve (Viljoen, ed. 2005:148-149).

With regards to individual production I believe that the most signicant, wide-reaching and

cost effective way to spread knowledge and methods is through the Internet. An online

community should be established containing basic instructions for making your garden

productive, along with this there should be advanced advice and a forum for people to

discuss their various methods; this could also be supplemented by outreach events or a

dedicated advice team who can visit gardens and offer guidance.

For the more commercial forms of production we have to look towards the thousands of

unemployed people in and around the city. In association with the Council and involved

social enterprises apprenticeships in Urban Farming should be established to offer training

and provide a qualication. By creating a formal qualication that is required to participate in

commercial production it makes it easier to answer the next question.

How do you distribute the produce?

There are a number of routes to market for produce grown in the city, from selling at the farm

gate through to distributing to supermarkets. By having a training process it would not only

rapidly increase the growth in efciency and therefore commercial viability but it would also

make it possible to that the growers operate within food safety standards, this of course

would have to be checked by a regulatory body. Although selling at the farm gate offersthe most environmentally friendly way of distributing produce - as the food doesn’t have to

travel before it is sold - it may not necessarily be the desired option for many farms due to

money having to be kept at the site and staff having to be made available for retail. Therefore

potentially the best method in most cases is distributing to already established retailers

through the city’s existing food markets (CEiS, 2009).

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Food + The City

How Much Will You Produce?

The nal and probably most signicant question is ‘How Much Will You Produce?’ Given

the variety of forms of production that are available across a number of different urban

landscapes as well as a number of other variables, any estimate is bound to be inaccurate.

The WHO recommends a minimum daily consumption of 400g of fruit and vegetables, whichbased on Glasgow’s population of 1.2million means that were everyone to eat the advised

amount Glasgow would consume 175,200 Tonnes per year (WHO, 2005). Despite Scottish

people currently only consuming around 65% of this amount we should adopt this as a total

in the hope that consumption increases. We will compare how much could be produced if we

matched Cuban production levels in comparison to the ‘Peters Produce’ study carried out

by the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society (a study into how much one person could

produce on a typical allotment) and Brighton based architects Bohn&Viljoen’s research into

how much space is required to sustain someone.

Fig 51. Table indicating potential yields

Fig 52. Graph comparing the three estimates

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Food + The City

Bearing in mind that these estimates don’t include the potential yield of the gardens of ats

or tenement properties that make up over 65% of Glasgow’s housing stock as well as the

possibility of adopting roof gardens and advanced technology it is clear that Glasgow has

huge potential to produce the majority of its fruit and vegetables within the connes of the

city. So how should Glasgow move forward?

47.

Fig 53. A vision of a greener Glasgow



Food + The City

conclusionWere Glasgow to be the rst city in the developed world to try and establish a successful

network of Urban Farms there would be a number of issues to overcome. Therefore the best

approach would be to put in place a timetable for change that will play out over a number

of years, allowing for a smooth transition to localized production. The process could be

visualised as taking place over 5 stages:

Stage 1: The creation of a number of trial projects to establish viability and yields as well

as giving an indication of the set-up costs. These pilots should be at least part funded

by Glasgow City Council or the Scottish Government and conducted in partnership with

universities to provide biotechnical assistance. Funding should also be directed towards

community groups who are already actively involved in Urban Agriculture as well as steps

being taken to provide allotments for everyone who wants one (CEiS, 2009).

Stage 2: Once the original research phase is completed the results should be published

to raise public awareness and legislation should be sought to provide a grant system for

individuals and groups wishing to become involved in Urban Food Production. This should

be accompanied by legislation allowing the temporary occupation of vacant urban land and

a change in allotment laws that currently prevent people from selling the produce grown on

council allotments. An online community should be established that allows the dissemination

of knowledge amongst those involved resulting in efciencies improving as quickly as

possible.

Stage 3: What will have essentially been a community based movement should shift towards

the commercial with the creation of social enterprises that provide apprenticeships in Urban

Agriculture and create jobs within the city. Routes to market should be provided for these

new intensive farms and incentives should be offered to organisations who purchase local

organic food over industrially produced, imported food. Partnerships should now be being

formed between Glasgow and other cities in the UK that are now following Glasgow’s lead

and becoming heavily involved in Urban Agriculture, this allows for discussions to begin about

the creation of a sustainable food distribution network.

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Stage 4: As corporations see the potential for food production in the city that reduces food

transport costs and improves their ‘Green’ image, investment will dramatically increase

both in the research and realisation of advanced techonological solutions. As vertical farms

begin to compete with ofces as viable developments and as the price of their construction

decreases Glasgow’s economy will soar due to the growing levels of investment and the risein ‘Green Tourism’.

Stage 5: As Glasgow heads towards becoming a self-sustaining city unemployment levels

will drop as new jobs are created throughout the city, health will improve as people begin

eating more healthy seasonal food, whilst localised food production will greatly reduce food

miles and our reliance on oil. Happiness in the city will rise as drab vacant spaces become

vibrant productive spaces and communities producing food for one another will be drawn

together. Meanwhile, across the globe cities will be looking at Glasgow as an exemplar city

and trying to replicate the ‘Glasgow Effect’.

Fig 54. Potentially the three production estimates suggested in Fig 51 would relate to stagestwo, three and four, indicating a steady rise in production and the possibility of Glasgow

setting a new precedent by stage ve for what can be achieved within a city.

The benets that the inclusion of Urban Agriculture could make are undeniable but it would

require commitment on the part of the Government, the City Council and most importantly,

the people to make it succesful. What the Cuban government achieved in Havana is

remarkable, most notably for the fact it was done in a country the had been ostracised by the

49.



Food + The City

majority of the world and also that it was achieved in a climate of economic collapse with very

few resources. The key to the success of Urban Agriculture in Glasgow will be how early it is

adopted; as the price of oil rises the price of implementing UA will also rise.

A window exists at the moment to shift from our oil dependant food chain to organic, localproduction without any disruption to the food supply and we have a responsibility to take

this opportunity, both to the people of Glasgow and to the rest of the world. Throughout the

planet people are being affected by the way we consume, from the people who suffer from

chronic hunger in Africa who see the food they grown being packed into planes and own

away, to the people of India where commercial farming is causing the water table to drop

by over a metre a year. If we wait for a crisis before we act Scotland may be able to recover

over a period of years, but there are many people on this planet who are in a much more

fragile position than those in the developed world. In 2008 the World Food Program provided

food for over 100million people, but it relies on the UN for its funding and of the $6.7 billion it

required in 2009 to feed 108million, by September it had only received $2.7 billion, this was

blamed on the current economic climate (CNN, 2009). It would have taken less than 0.01%

of the money plowed into attempting to stabilise the nancial markets to bridge the gap in

funding (CNN, 2009). With Peak Oil expected to cause worldwide economic collapse as well

as a huge rise in the price of food it is unimaginable the effect this could have on levels of

famine and global population.

“As a report commissioned by the US Department of Energy shows, an emergency

programme to replace current energy supplies or equipment to anticipate peak oil would

need about 20 years to take effect. It seems unlikely that we have it. The world economy is

probably knackered, whatever we might do now. But at least we could save farming.” George

Monbiot (Monbiot, 2009)

Action has to be taken now and it has to be taken quickly.

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Fig 20. Graph charting vegetable production in Havana (created by author, Source: Koont,2009) P.21

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Fig 25. The land in front of the Reichstag as it is now. Available: http://www.fosterandpartners.com/Projects/0686/Default.aspx. [13.03.2010] P.25

Fig 26. Old poster from the Dewar’s world of whisky centre at the Aberfeldy distillery inPerthshire. Available: http://www.topfoto.co.uk/aboutus/pdfguides/scotfoto.pdf. [13.03.2010]P.26

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Fig 27. Tesco’s new 1million square foot distribution centre in Livingston. Available: http:// www.ickr.com/photos/50626930@N00/2423520908. [13.03.2010] P.27

Fig 28. Work Architects ‘Public Farm One’ installation in New York. Available: http://ps1.org/ exhibitions/view/201. [13.03.2010] P.28

Fig 29. View north towards Glasgow city centre. Available: http://www.webbaviation.co.uk/ scotland/glasgow.jpg. [13.03.2010] P.29

Fig 30. Diagram illustrating methods of production and their escalating costs / rates of production (by Author). [13.03.2010] P.31

Fig 31. Aerial view of Glasgow city centre. Bing Maps Birdseye View, retrieved 21 February2010. Available: www.bing.com/maps. P.32

Fig 32. The roof of Chicago’s City Hall (Elder, 2009). Available: http://webecoist.com/2009/07/18/green-in-the-city-rooftop-gardens/. [8th March 2010]. P.32

Fig 33. The roof of True Nature Foods in Chicago (Urban Habitat Chicago, 2009). Available:http://www.urbanhabitatchicago.org/projects/true-nature-foods. [13.03.2010] P.33

Fig 34. A sign inside True Nature Foods (Urban Habitat Chicago, 2009). Available: http:// www.urbanhabitatchicago.org/projects/true-nature-foods. [13.03.2010] P.34

Fig 35. What Glasgow’s rooftops could look like (author’s photograph digital compact, taken8th March 2010, edited in Adobe Photoshop CS4). P.34

Fig 36. The West End (Original image: Webb, 2009; edited by author in Adobe PhotoshopCS4). Original available: https://reader009.{domain}/reader009/html5/0506/5aee4f44e55a8/5aee4f7a79P.35

Fig 37. An aerial photograph illustrating the layout of tenements. Bing Maps Birdseye View,retrieved 21 February 2010. Available: www.bing.com/maps. P.35

Fig 38. One of the many ways a tenement backcourt could be used for Urban Agriculture(author’s photograph digital compact, edited in Adobe Photoshop CS4). P.36

Fig 39. The South Side (Original image: Webb, 2009; edited by author in Adobe PhotoshopCS4). Original available: https://reader009.{domain}/reader009/html5/0506/5aee4f44e55a8/5aee4f7a79P.37

Fig 40. A group of four tower blocks. Bing Maps Birdseye View, retrieved 21 February 2010. Available: www.bing.com/maps. P.37

Fig 41. The potential for productive land to surround tower blocks (author’s photographdigital compact, taken 8th March 2010, edited in Adobe Photoshop CS4). P.38

Fig 42. Urban sprawl in the East End of Glasgow. Bing Maps Aerial View, retrieved 21February 2010. Available: www.bing.com/maps. P.39

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Fig 43. A woman tends a vegetable patch in her back garden. Edinburgh, circa 1950. Available: http://www.scran.ac.uk/database/image.php?usi=000-000-471-600-R&cusi=000-000-471-600-C&searchdb=scran&. [15.03.2010] P.39

Fig 44. An engraving of Glasgow Green in 1850 complete with cows (Lizars and Stewart,1850). Available: http://www.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-000-095-756-C&scache=18w0t18va8&searchdb=scran. [13.03.2010] P.40

Fig 45. Queens Park Allotments in Glasgow (Muir, 2007). Available: http://www.ickr.com/ photos/krmuir/433816246. [13.03.2010] P.41

Fig 46. The potential of derelict land between the Gorbals and Govanhill (author’s photographdigital compact, taken 8th March 2010, edited in Adobe Photoshop CS4). P.42

Fig 47. Atelier SOA’s Vertical Farm Proposal (Atelier SOA, 2007) Available: http://www.ateliersoa.fr/verticalfarm_en/urban_farm.htm. [12.03.2010] P.43

Fig 48. Computer controlled farming at Paignton Zoo (Valcent, 2009) Available: http://blog.valcent.net/?tag=vertical-farming. [12.03.2010] P.44

Fig 49. Pig City (MVRDV, 2000) Available: http://www.mvrdv.nl/#/projects/181pigcity.[12.03.2010] P.44

Fig 50. Patrick Blanc’s Green Wall at The Caixa Forum Museum, Madrid. Available: http:// upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Madrid136.jpg. [12.03.2010] P.44

Fig 51. Table indicating potential yields (created by Author, Sources: Davies et al., 2009;McCue, 2010; SAGS, 2007; SAGS, 2008; SG, 2010; Viljoen, ed. 2005; WHO, 2005). P.46

Fig 52. Graph comparing the three estimates (created by Author, Sources: Davies et al.,2009; McCue, 2010; SAGS, 2007; SAGS, 2008; SG, 2010; Viljoen, ed. 2005; WHO, 2005).P.46

Fig 54. A vision of a greener Glasgow (author’s photograph digital compact, taken 8th March2010, edited in Adobe Photoshop CS4). P.47

Fig 53. Graph suggesting that the three production estimates would relate to stages two,three and four (created by Author, Sources: Davies et al., 2009; McCue, 2010; SAGS, 2007;SAGS, 2008; SG, 2010; Viljoen, ed. 2005; WHO, 2005). P.49

Documents

Ambercrombie_2010_Food and the City_Glasgow and Cuba