Overall Objectives of RUAF
- To enhance awareness regarding the potential of urban agriculture and facilitate its recognition as an area for government intervention;
- To facilitate access of local stakeholders to documented experiences, in order to enable practical policy and technology interventions
- To support local capacity development and networking regarding urban agriculture;
- To facilitate the participatory formulation and implementation of gender sensitive policies, action plans and programmes on urban agriculture.
From Seed to Table:
Many poor urban households engage in local production of food, food processing and vending and related activities (e.g. compost making, feed supply, etcetera) as main or complementary strategies to secure food supply for their families and/or to earn some cash income. The United Nations Development Programme, UNDP estimated in 1996 that 800 million people are engaged in urban agriculture worldwide. Of these, 200 million are considered to be market producers, employing 150 million people full time. Since then, urban poverty and the number of families involved in some kind of urban agriculture have substantially increased.
Urban Agriculture is a noteworthy source of income and savings and often is more profitable than rural-based production. The up and downstream effects of urban agriculture in the local economy can be considerable. Urban agriculture effectively contributes to reduce food insecurity by improving access to fresh and low priced food and raising the nutritional and health status of poor and middle income households (both of the producing families as well as of other poor families in these areas). Other benefits of urban agriculture are related to its potentials for social inclusion of disadvantaged groups, recycling of urban wastes, urban greening and improved urban micro-climates, recreational services for urban citizens, maintaining buffer zones, etcetera. (Read more)
Cities Farming for the Future:
The RUAF-Cities Farming for the Future (CFF) programme seeks to contribute to urban poverty reduction, urban food security and improved urban environmental management including safe reuse of urban organic wastes and wastewater. It also seeks to contribute to the empowerment of urban farmers and participatory city governance by developing the capacity of local stakeholders and facilitating multi-stakeholder policy formulation and action planning (MPAP) on urban agriculture (UA).
The project, which is being coordinated by IWMI-Ghana for the Anglophone West Africa region, is part of a global drive by RUAF Foundation, (www.ruaf.org) an international network of Resource Centres on urban agriculture and Food Security on .policy support, action planning, training and information exchange on urban agriculture through multi-stakeholder processes. The project will contribute to the stated development goals through the following strategic components implemented in an integrated manner: (Read more).