Municipalidad de Rosario
The Pitch
By increasing incentives and opportunities for urban agriculture, the municipality of Rosario promoted sustainable food production, environmental regeneration and increased the city's climate resilience.
The Problem
Rosario faced three overlapping challenges: A surplus of vacant lots in low-income neighborhoods, increased vulnerability to flooding and waterlogging in the city’s low-lying areas and widespread food scarcity caused by economic hardship.
The Process
- Transformed degraded land into public spaces
- Created seven orchard parks and four green corridors
- Established seven markets (physical and digital) for farmers to sell their crops
- Allocated resources, technical training, economic support and materials for cultivators of public, vacant urban land
The Impact
- Created fairs and markets where neighbors can buy locally grown vegetables: In 2018, the “La Huerta en Casa” program, which provides training and technical assistance for home-grown food, saw 5,000 participants and delivered 40,000 seedlings
- Improved eating habits and public health by increasing access to fresh produce (all Rosario residents can access crops from public urban farms and orchard parks)
- Provided guided, educational tours of urban farms, orchard parks and transformed peri-urban lots
- Gave community workshops on healthy cooking
- Generated new jobs and promoted money flow throughout the city
- Developed new legal instruments that institutionalized farmers markets
- Regulated the use of agrochemicals
- Generated protection zones for urban agriculture
- Inspired the creation of multiple collaborative networks including the Orchard Network and Huerteros, the Ñanderoga Seed Bank, the Network of Godmothers and Godfathers of Seeds, and more
- Increased landscape biodiversity through creation of urban farms that prioritize organic crops and avoid agrochemicals
