Kickstarting a platform for natural farming in urban vacant land areas
Nirzaree Vadgama
I am Nirzaree, a data scientist from India and I am kickstarting a platform to enable natural farming in urban vacant land areas.
The goal of each of the farm sites would be to:
Grow chemical free, native and seasonal food produce for urban residents
Harbor micro biodiversity hotspots in urban areas
In the long term, improve various environmental parameters (improve soil carbon, increased water table through better retention of rain water, reduction in urban heat island effect through increased green cover, better air quality) in and around the site
Better community engagement in urban areas
Folks and institutions in urban areas who have land can register their vacant site for a certain duration on the platform and those who don’t have land but would like to grow their own food can look for sites around them. Upon a match, we would check the suitability of the site for natural farming, and if suitable then ensure that the site grows seasonal and native produce without chemicals and without single use plastics.
Each site can be anywhere in the spectrum between being completely volunteer driven to completely run by staff from the platform.
The next steps for the work are to set up a few pilot farm sites at different urban locations to prepare a blueprint and for showcasing the feasibility of the idea at various locations.
A basic, functional website is now live at: https://urbannaturalfarms.com/
The work is only kickstarting and it would be important and delightful to build this with perspectives from a diverse group of folks who are interested in the area.
Since SCORAI is a very relevant group for the work, it would be lovely to get inputs on:
Startups/Institutions/Individuals in your area or network who might be aligned to the theme of this work and could be contacted for information/collaboration/incubation (for e.g. I recently came to know about https://ruaf.org/ in Netherlands which is committed to sustainable urban agriculture)
Any feedback on the model and the work
If individually anyone within the group would like to be part of the work going forward on a specific area (tech platform, natural farming, operations etc) or in general.
If there are good natural farms/community farming initiatives in your area, for us to take inspiration from/ read about/ get in touch with.
If you think this is interesting, just spread the word about this in your circles. :)
If I get various relevant resources individually from folks here, I will compile and share with the group for further reference.
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