Shaping City Through Food
Feeding today’s cities sustainably is becoming a great challenge. The growing population and existing global food infrastructure systems are not only disconnecting people from food and its origins but are also causing detrimental health and environmental impacts. As a result, people are now tasked to look for ways to repair the environment and still have enough choices of healthy, nutritious, locally sourced food. One way to respond to these challenges is to look for ways to produce food in a space-saving, sustainable, and community engaging manner within city boundaries.
A new Urban Farming Community Centre in Nottingham is an opportunity to reconnect people with food and inspire them to recognize and acknowledge the importance of nutrition. The centre brings food production right into the city centre so nature can recover, and city-dwellers can benefit from fresh, locally-grown foods. It supports globally spreading urban agriculture movement and aims to become the social hub for the local community of the city. Its mission is to make food’s production-consumption-disposal cycle as transparent to the public eye as possible so people can better understand the process and impact of food production. Participation in urban farming activities will help people form social bonds, increase awareness and bring city residents back to nature while opening their eyes and minds to global issues.