On Cairo’s rooftops and vacant land, people are coming together with visions of cultivating a different sort of development in the city. Community groups, social entrepreneurs and individuals are responsible for this new growth which intertwines local development and environmental consciousness in an effort to achieve food secure neighbourhoods.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) stated in The State of Food Insecurity in the WorldReport (2011) that the urban poor are particularly vulnerable to current global increases in food prices. In Egypt, urban agriculture offers the opportunity to address these problems holistically. Aspirations for urban gardening in Cairo were first voiced through international institutions in the early 1990s.
A decade later, FAO in coordination with the Egyptian government launched the "Green Food from Green Roofs" project. This project offered a policy-based approach to developing food production. In contrast, the current growth of urban agriculture echoes the citizen-led change witnessed in Egypt last year. These new initiatives operate at a local level, with objectives that prioritise local change.
Having spoken to a collection of the leaders of these projects, it is clear that each group aims to enchain a wider reaction within Cairo’s communities. They are working with other NGOs and individuals to begin small-scale gardening projects on balconies or rooftops - and setting up trainings in agricultural techniques.
The groups are also well-informed of previous projects, and they have developed innovative techniques to overcome problems. Schaduf, a social enterprise managed by two brothers, aims to lift people above the poverty line through an income generated by the sale of garden produce. Sherif Hosny, joint-CEO, says previous projects required residents to sell produce themselves, yet they were ill-equipped with the business and marketing savvy to make a profit. More
