How Urban Gardening is Helping Us Solve the Food Crisis
February 2020
A leafy plant grows healthy over the rim of a plastic bottle that has been made into a container - a prime example of how we can creatively make good use of what would otherwise be seen as trash. Photograph © Alo Lantin / WWF-Philippines
You don’t need a lot of land to grow a lot of food.
Rising populations and expanding cities have put more and more pressure on food security. Bigger populations mean more mouths to feed, and with agricultural lands being converted to accommodate urbanization, many now suffer from hunger and poor nutrition. We don’t seem to be able to produce enough – but there are those who dream of coming up with solutions to address our food problems.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines has been working to promote food security through its Sustainable Food Systems unit. The projects under this unit work mainly with rural communities, promoting all-natural agriculture as a means to fight poverty. Among the unit’s most crucial components, however, is a practice that can hopefully promise food security for all – urban container gardening.
Plants grow tall out of soil-filled glass bottles. The practice of urban container gardening brings the farmland back into urban settings, in all shapes and sizes and out of all sorts of planters. Photograph © Alo Lantin / WWF-Philippines
The practice of urban container gardening means growing crops in portable and modular planters, in settings where agricultural land spaces are not available. With the help of trellises and good and compact irrigation, urban container gardening allows for crops to be planted in tight spaces and in vertical structures, similar to hydroponic technology but at reduced cost.
The practice is also useful in combating plastic pollution, as containers can be made out of what would otherwise be seen as waste, such as old plastic bottles.
“One of the pillars of food security is access to food. What better way to provide that than by growing your own food?” says WWF-Philippines Sustainable Food Systems Program Manager Moncini Hinay. Through the practice of urban gardening, says Hinay, you have direct choice over what you grow and eat, and you’ll be able to provide yourself with a stable and healthy food supply – key points to good nutrition and food security.
A woman checks on her container gardens. Done right, the practice can provide enough food to feed a community. Photograph © Alo Lantin / WWF-Philippines
Urban container gardening is a cheap innovation with plenty of potential – but what role does it play in the current world?
In 2018, the United Nations reported that an astounding 820 million people go hungry each year, despite over a billion tons of food going to waste. According to the Social Weather Station, two in every five Filipinos lack access to a healthy diet and consider themselves food-poor. The practice of urban container gardening proposes a solution to decrease these numbers, and puts power over healthy food decisions back into the hands of consumers.
“This is about democratizing agriculture. Given our broken food system, we need to empower households to produce their own food. We want them to be self-sufficient,” says Hinay. A top problem in food security, especially in urban settings, is that there is little land available for food to be grown, and families live far from their sources of food. By introducing farming to cities, however, urban gardening has shortened the gap between production and consumption and has allowed families to take ownership over the food that they grow and eat.
In a schoolyard in Pampanga, old toilet bowls have been made into planters. With a little creativity, anything can be made into an urban container garden. Photograph © Alo Lantin / WWF-Philippines
“Everyone deserves to have enough to eat. What urban container gardening is all about is making agriculture accessible and doable for everyone,” concluded Hinay. As the pressures of modern society continue to push down on us, the idea of urban container gardening stands as a figurehead of hope in a food-insecure world.
Support and learn with WWF-Philippines, and help us build a future where everyone gets enough to eat.
For more information, please contact:
Mr. Monci Hinay
Sustainable Food Systems Project Manager
mhinay@wwf.org.ph
For media arrangements, please contact:
Ms. Pam Luber
Integrated Communications Manager
pluber@wwf.org.ph
