Russia’s large-scale peri-urban community agriculture has proven to be a very resilient food system. In this guest post, Arthur Grimonpont investigates the phenomenon and wonders if it could be reproduced in other industrial nations, for example in France.

Image: Dacha settlement, Kursk Oblast, by Petr Magera (CC BY 2.0).

This article was written by Arthur Grimonpont, and originally appeared in Les Greniers d’Abondance under the title Les collectifs de jardins russes : une organisation résiliente. Translated from French by Beth Lindfield and Alice Essam, adapted by Kris De Decker. 

The Scale of the Concept

Satellite images demonstrate the undeniable importance of community gardening in some Russian cities. From the sky, you can see vast, continual mosaics of plots lined with trees, gathered together in pockets or strips on the outskirts of almost all city centres.

Typical community gardens seen from the sky on the western outskirts of Iaroslav, Russia.

In Irkoutsk, the most populated city in Siberia located next to Baikal Lake, community gardens have become immense neighbouring forests.

A neighbourhood in the south-west of Irkoutsk. 

The Russian Gardener’s Association estimates that of the one hundred million people in Russia, sixty million engage in gardening activites in order to produce food. [1] Even in the largest cities, such as Moscow or St Petersburg, over half of the population has an arable plot. These people are called gardener-inhabitants, or datchniki. In provincial towns, such as Kazan, their number can reach as high as 80% of the population. [2] Throughout the country, there are an estimated 80,000 garden communities, which range from around ten to a few thousand plots. [4]

Origins and Description of Community Gardens

Garden communities (similar to allotments in the UK) appeared in 1917, following the increasing and worsening food shortages after the Russian state established a monopoly on food production. The gardens, informal by origin, were originally disapproved by Soviet powers. However, they quickly became managed by the state due to their undeniable efficiency in counteracting the shortages. The communities were controlled by state businesses that divided the property into equal plots and distributed them to employees. [3]

A drawing of the guidelines of a plot. (Source: Revue Jardins aupres des Oussas’bas, Moscow, April 1959, p.13)

The arrangement of the gardens was the objective of strict management. The law even enforced a certain number of apple, pear, cherry and plum trees, and raspberry and blackcurrant bushes, as well as defining a minimum area for strawberry plants and vegetable patches. The majority of plots have a surface area of 600m² (a rectangle of 20 metres by 30) and are called the “six-one hundred square metres” in Russian. In general, they have a “garden house”, or datcha, which serves as a temporary living space, as well as for storing gardening tools and harvested fruits.

It is evident that these Russian allotments offer few points of comparison with French allotments, which are much smaller (around 30 m²), don’t allow their occupants to stay there, and are historically reserved for poor people. [5]

Local Footing

The immediate proximity of these gardens to where their occupants live establishes their reason for being. Developed during a time when using cars was rare or even non-existent and free time was rare and sought-after, the allotments were located close enough to town centres for people to get to on foot or by public transport (which was the almost exclusive mode of transport for city dwellers until the 80s).

A ban on the commercialisation of harvested produce guarantees that it is only consumed locally. In the rural city of Kazan (1.2 million inhabitants), the majority of datchniki that were asked said that, thanks to their gardens, they had managed to feed their families for at least the summer. With certain produce, such as potatoes, some even managed the whole year. Potatoes are some of the most cultivated vegetables, with farming statistics showing that nearly 80% of potatoes from the Kazan region are grown on these plots. [19,20]

Datcha and luxurious garden in Valdai, in the Oblast of Novgorod. Photo by Jonas Bendiksen

As well as significantly contributing to agricultural production, the gardens play a major role in making people’s diets more varied in urban populations: they provide them with access to a diet rich in fresh produce that they can’t always find by conventional means due to their high cost. [10] They consistently harvest potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, among many other crops. They also grow a lot of berries and fruit on trees. Many varieties are often cultivated for each type of plantation and annual flowers also often make an appearance. [11,12]

The moderate size of the plots and the ban on the commercialisation of the produce separate them from the agro-industry (seeds, fertiliser, tools) and from professional selling avenues: swapping and using your own produce are the only legal practices. [13] The datchniki don’t have to put up with fluctuations in the price of agricultural produce. Their harvest, little or not at all modified, doesn’t depend on any factories or mainstream infrastructure. The mixture of fruit trees, vegetable patch plants and ornamental crops creates a varied island of greenery. The gardens host great biodiversity, which decreases vulnerability to disease, pests and adverse weather conditions.

Resilience and Flexibility

Throughout the 20th century, the number of collectives and the intensity of their cultivation fluctuated a lot in accordance with economic conditions. Likewise, today the gardens are distinguished by the extent of their productiveness, which partly conveys the differences in social status between their occupants. The continental climate of Russia encourages the majority of datchniki to maintain a main place of residence and a job in urban areas, and to only temporarily occupy their gardens in the active season, stretching from May to September.

In recent years, more and more Russians are making the choice to live in their “six-one hundred square metres”, which have been made more comfortable by some recent transformations. With the relative political and economic stability of Russia in recent years, the number of cultivated plots has decreased and the plots are progressively used more for holidays than for agriculture. Most families who can afford to tend to give up their food-producing cultures, although they often keep a small part for family tradition. [6]

From the beginning of the spring until the first frost, millions of Russians make the most of their summer chalets. Photo by PhotoXPress

However, the system is flexible and its usefulness was made particularly clear during the disintegration of the Communist Bloc and the decline in production on kolkhozes and sovkhozes (state-owned Soviet farms in Russia) in the early 1990s. Russians were hit by the quick collapse of agro-industrial production and spending power (teachers saw their earnings cut by between 3 and 5 times). [14]

During that period, fears concerning sudden provisions shortages and the outbreak of famine spurred the United States and the European Union to devise huge food aid programmes. However, the aid was not necessary due to the revival of allotments: people quickly converted the lawns in their “six-one hundred square metres” into space for food growing.

A study from the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) showed that as many as 65% of families in the city of Moscow engaged in urban gardening in 1991 compared to 20% in 1970. In the mid-90s, this urban gardening provided the majority of potatoes, fruit and vegetables eaten by people living in cities. This production represented between 20 and 30% of the total value of food production in Russia. [15]

A Model to Replicate?

In France, 57% of households have a house with 600m² of adjoining land as their principal dwelling. [23,24] There already, then, exist significant potentially cultivatable plots of land. To provide all homes without a garden with a 600m² plot on which to grow, around 18,000km² (6950 miles squared) of arable land is needed near city centres, which is about 6% of used agricultural land in France. [26] This is the equivalent of half of the current urbanised land area. [25,27]

Dachas Moscow Oblast. Image by Trasprd (CC BY 4.0). 

This might seem like a lot, but consider that:

• Garden communities do not lay down unnatural floor (access paths must be permeable and cabins must be easily dissembled) and can host considerable biodiversity (much more than a monoculture plot), particularly if the size of the plot allows for trees to be planted. [28]
• With regard to halting urban sprawl, converting wasteland, neglected land and some peri-urban agricultural land into garden communities would improve the relative value of land, making possible its transfer and safeguarding ownership.
• Gardening, on a large scale, offers other societal benefits than just food production.

This last point is particularly visible in Russia, where we can observe that these communities:

• reduce low-income households’ dependence on social benefits
• help people who have experienced difficulties reintegrate
• improve health and life expectancy
• provide many people with and affordable place to get fit and spend leisure time
• give people a place to ride out continental summer heat waves, minimising both the heat island effect and providing somewhere well adapted to the hot season.

The suburban model, the main mode of urban growth in France since the 1970s, is by all accounts unsustainable but undeniably meets a proportion of the French populations demands. [31] Garden communities offer a credible response to individual aspirations, without externalising harm to common interests and good.

Recent Evolutions and Uses

Allotment plots officially remained property of the state until 2006. They have since been transferred into private hands at a rapid rate. The increase in the standard of living and the loosening of rules have also meant that there is a higher number of permanent structures within certain communities. This change is often accompanied by the merging the plots to make them bigger, installing gas and electricity, and strengthening access roads. The community gardens are therefore moving significantly towards the model of European housing estates. [7]

Kstovo’s industrial area (CC BY 2.5).

These changes cause inequality among community gardens, especially those next to the most important cities. Subsequently, these changes have put pressure on property and, more interestingly, on property developers who generally already have access to water and gas. By contrast, in some suburbs far from the city centre, gardens have been abandoned by their owners. [8]

At the beginning of 2019, the legal system managing the communities was standardised in attempt to prevent these kinds of deviations. In particular, the right to build is now managed in a standardised way by local planning regulations. [9] Despite the changes observed in recent years, urban gardening remains in cultural heritage and a tradition for tens of millions of Russians.

Arthur Grimonpont

Original article: Les collectifs de jardins russes : une organisation résiliente.

Notes and References

1. Estimates are difficult to make because of a lack of a clear legal status; they vary from 45 to 67 million, according to different authors. 60 million is indicated by : https://versia.ru/obshhaya-ploshhad-dachnyx-uchastkov-v-rossii-sostavlyaet-desyat-territorij-moskvy
2. Marloie M., Boukharaeva, L., 2011. Des sols agricoles au service de la résilience urbaine : réflexions à partir du cas de la Russie. Espaces et sociétés, 147, p. 135-153
3. Marloie M., Boukharaeva, L., op. Cit.
4. Specialists note the difficulty in making a precise estimation of this number in the absence of an official consensus, and given its constant evolution. Estimate provided by: Marloie M., Boukharaeva, L., op. Cit.
5. Guyon, F. 2008. Les jardins familiaux aujourd’hui : des espaces socialement modulés. Espaces et sociétés, 3(134), p. 131-147
6. Robert-Bœuf, C. 2014. Les jardins collectifs à Kazan: une agriculture familiale entre espace productif et espace résidentiel. POUR 4(224), p. 101-109
7. Robert-Boeuf, C. 2017. Cultiver la ville en Russie, Géographie et cultures, 101, pp. 17-34.
8. Translated from the Russian website: https://rg.ru/2017/04/26/kakie-izmeneniia-zhdut-vladelcev-dachnyh-uchastkov.html
9. A new federal law of July 29, 2017 No. 217-З entitled “Keeping citizens of gardening and gardening for their own needs and amending certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation” ame into force on 1 January 2019
10. Ortar N. 2005. Les multiples usages de la datcha des jardins collectifs. Anthropologie et sociétés, 29(2), pp. 169-185
11. Ortar N., op. cit.
12. Ortar N., op. cit.
13. This independence is of course not perfect. With regard to seeds, Robert-Bœuf C., op. cit., notes that “few gardeners save their seeds today, preferring, because of their relative low price, to buy them in specialised stores or in supermarkets”.
14. Marloie M., Boukharaeva, L., op. cit.
15. Marloie M., Boukharaeva, L., op. Cit.
16. Robert-Boeuf, C. (2017), op. cit.
17. Ortar N., op. cit.
18. Marloie M., Boukharaeva, L., op. cit.
19. Robert-Boeuf, C. (2017), op. cit.
20. Statistical data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Tatarstan, from 2012
21. FAO (2014), L’agriculture urbaine, http://www.fao.org/urban-agriculture/fr
22. Zezza, A. et L. Tasciotti. 2010. Urban agriculture, poverty, and food security: Empirical evidence from asample of developing countries. Food Policy, 35, p. 265-273.
23. INSEE (2018) https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2412780
24. INSEE (2006) https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1281267
25. In the absence of more precise data concerning the area of the spaces adjoining individual houses and their use (these can be waterproofed, serve as parking or a terrace), we arbitrarily consider that half of the gardens with an area of ​​less than 600m2 do not lend to significant vegetable production. There are then around 60% of the 30 million French households to equip.
26. The French UAA represents 29 million hectares, or 290,000 km2, according to INSEE, Agreste.
27. Artificial soils, that is to say coated, built or made unfit for cultivation represent 3.4 million hectares, according to INSEE, Agreste
28. Most “working-class gardens” in France prohibit the planting of trees, and would be too small to accommodate them
29. Marloie M., Boukharaeva, L., op. cit.
30. Dacha owners spend most of their weekends there, from spring to fall, and many spend their entire holiday there: http://krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/2239
31. Dias D., Langumier J., Démangé D. 2008. Mutabilité du périurbain. Le modèle pavillonnaire face aux crises énergétique et environnementale. Les Annales de la Recherche Urbaine Année.104 pp. 149-156

“It might seem alarmist, even tasteless, to mention food security in the West when we appear to be enjoying the greatest era of abundance in history. Food security is something we tend to associate with the developing world, and considering how many people worldwide face starvation every day, worrying about our own food supply seems almost obscene… On the face of it, the modern food industry seems to have solved the problem of food supply. Far from waiting anxiously at the quayside to see whether our ship will come in, there is now so much food swilling about in Western cities that most of us are more likely to die of obesity than hunger.”

“What could possibly go wrong? The short answer is: just about everything… Supermarkets supply us with 80 per cent of our food in Britain… Contrary to appearances, we live as much on a knife-edge now as did the inhabitants of ancient Rome or Ancien Régime Paris. Cities in the past did their best to keep stocks of grain in reserve in case of sudden attack; yet the efficiencies of modern food distribution mean that we keep very little in reserve. Much of the food you and I will be eating next week hasn’t even arrived in the country yet. Our food is delivered ‘just in time’ from all over the world: hardly the sort of system to withstand a sudden crisis.”

Quoted from: Hungry City: How Food Shapes our Lives. Carolyn Steel, 2013. Image: Packaged food aisles in an Oregonian hypermarket. Lyzadanger/Dilliff (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Fish fermentation allowed the ancient Romans to store their fish surplus for long periods, in a time when there were no freezers and fishing was bound to fish migratory patterns.

Picture: http://www.urbanoutdoorskills.com/garum_1.html

Fish sauce is widely seen as unique to Eastern cooking —distinctive of Thai, Vietnamese, or Phillipine cuisine. Less well known is the fact that it was one of the main condiments used by the ancient Romans, and that they had an extensive, low-tech trade network to produce it in large quantities. Making fish sauce also helped reduce food waste both in the food industry and for households.

Ancient Roman and modern fish sauces are probably identical in preparation, color, and taste. Making garum, as it was called then, is simple. Place some fish—such as mackerel, sardines, anchovies, or discarded fish innards—in a barrel with salt at a 5:1 ratio. Place a weight on top of the mixture, and let sit for 2-3 months.

By this time the fish will ferment and liquify, creating an umami flavor similar to that of parmesan, and a slightly pungent smell. You can now take out the liquid, and use the remaining residue to make a second batch of fish sauce with more salty water.

How to make fish sauce, modern and ancient. Source: Robert Curtis.

It was long thought that garum was a condiment reserved for the rich. The elite like to have access to ‘exotic’ flavors, and historians have suggested that for this reason garum was mainly appreciated by rich gourmands. Yet recent research shows that fish sauce was a condiment enjoyed by the hoi poloi as well.

The extent of fish sauce urns in Pompei’s restaurants, homes, and public places indicates that it was available to and enjoyed by most citizens, elite or slave. It was included in over 75% of recipes found in a cookbook from the first century AD, which included many dishes that were likely composed by slaves or servile cooks.

In addition, the trade network for fish sauce was immense. Archeologists have found over 60 fish sauce-processing sites in Spain and Portugal, and one site in Morocco had a production capacity of more than 1000m3. By plotting shipwrecks containing amphorae of fish sauce, we now know that fish sauce was widely traded across the Mediterranean. Spanish fish sauce amphorae have been found in Greece, Lebanon, Germany, and England.

These processing sites functioned at a scale similar to modern factories—supplying the multitudes of Roman soldiers, sailors, and slaves with flavor enhancer. These factories were placed strategically along lines of tuna migration, so that fishers could bring their catch to shore, which could then immediately be processed and sent throughout the empire. During off-seasons, these same sites would process smaller fish such as sardines and anchovies.

Fish fermentation therefore allowed the ancients to store their fish surplus for long periods, in a time when there were no freezers and fishing was bound to fish migratory patterns. In addition, these factories likely fermented the insides of the larger fish, making use of what in our society would be considered a waste product. In this way, the fermentation process was a useful compliment to, and byproduct of, their large fishing industry, which was necessary to feed the mobile masses of the Roman empire.

Salting vats at ancient Roman fish processing sites, Almuñecar, Spain. Source: Robert Curtis.

But fish fermentation also happened at smaller scales. Fermentation vats have been found at fish market stalls and in private homes, indicating that many Romans supplemented their income from a ‘cottage industry’ of fish sauce. Fishmongers would make use of fish waste and sell it on the side, often flavoring it with herbs, spices, or wine.

The condiment had many benefits for the Romans. It contains lots of amino acids, vitamin B-12, and other micronutrients. It has low bacteria content and isn’t prone to spoilage because of its fish-to-salt ratio and low pH. Romans ate mostly lentils, bread, dairy, vegetables, fish, and a small amount of meat—so fish sauce was a crucial flavor enhancer and appetite-stimulant.

But perhaps most importantly, the fermentation of fish provided a low-tech alternative to storing fish yields for up to two years, in a time when there were no modern fishing fleets containing on-board processing facilities, freezers, which produce 27 million tonnes of waste from by-catch annually. There were also no supermarkets lined with fridges, so consumers needed access to quality products that remained edible for long periods of time.

It also provided a cheap method of processing what is considered refuse in our society: fish intestines. Imagine if every modern fish market had a big vat of fish innards fermenting in the back, instead of sending those tasty intestines to the landfill.

This low-tech solution to fish waste may be a bit beyond our comfort level. Even Pliny the Elder snubbed Ancient Roman fish sauce, referring to it as “that secretion of putrefying matter”. But on the other hand, the fact that the fish sauce developed by Romans is almost exactly the same as that found in South-East Asia today, indicates that this type of food preservation can have universal appeal. Over ⅓ of food goes to waste globally—making fish sauce an inexpensive, low-energy, simple, and appetizing way to minimize that waste, both at large and small scales.

Aaron Vansintjan

Source: Umami and the foods of classical antiquity. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Curtis, Robert I. 2009.

Before refrigeration came into our houses and global supply chains, most of our winter stores were salted, pickled, and dried. Many of the strong compelling flavors found in European delicatessens come via fermentation: cheese, salami, gherkins, vinegar, olives. Likewise the mainstays of Oriental cuisine—soy, miso, and tempeh—and the whole of the world’s drinks cabinet, including everyday luxuries such as coffee and chocolate.

If you were wary of venturing into this unknown territory alone, you could not hope for a more enthralling guide than Sandor Ellix Katz: “My advice is to reject the cult of expertise. Do not be afraid. You can do it yourself.” There is no recorded case, he assures us, of poisoning from fermented vegetables.”

Read more: Fermenting Change. Thanks to Aaron Vansintjan. More low-tech food preservation.

When the British colonized India, they imposed their own system of water management, which included the building of large-scale dams, sewers, and irrigation channels. This high-tech approach continues today, as the World Bank is urging India to build enormous dam projects to fight drought and depleted aquifers. The Indian government has followed its advice. Its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called dams the “Temples of modern India”. Since then, India has built over 5,000 dams and large reservoirs. [1]

However, before the British arrived, people on the subcontinent used traditional low-cost, low-tech engineering to collect rainwater for thousands of years. This involved the placement of thousands of small structures throughout rural areas which, in one way or another, catch excess rainwater from the monsoon months and allow it to slowly percolate into the groundwater during the dry season. To maintain and manage these structures, community-based management schemes were necessary. However, these were actively discouraged during British rule and following independence. As a result, in the 20th century many of these small reservoirs fell into disrepair.

In the 1980s, the Alwar district in the North-Western state of Rajasthan was one of the driest in all of India, even though older villagers remembered that its rivers used to flow in the past. Many farmers were migrating to the cities, as there was no longer any means of subsistence from the land. In 1985, Rajendra Singh—now known as the ‘Water Man of Rajasthan’—arrived in the area and started encouraging villagers to rebuild their old water reservoirs, or water johads. When the villagers had constructed 375 johads, the river began to flow after having been dry for several decades. [2]

By 2003, Singh, through the NGO Tarun Bharat Sangh, had helped with the construction of over 5,000 johads and the rejuvenation of 2,500 old reservoirs, providing irrigation water to 140,000 ha. and 700,000 people. [3, 5] In 2015, 8,600 johads had been built, bringing water back to 1,000 villages. [4] The johads are incredibly cheap and productive—at 100 rupees per capita, they can raise economic production by as much as 400 rupees per year. Compare this to nearby Sardar Sarovar Dam project, which cost 300 billion rupees, and cost 100 times more per person supplied with water, and 340 times more per hectare irrigated. [3]

The design of water johads. Source: Anupma Sharma, National Institute of Hydrology

And yet water johads are extremely simple and low-cost structures that require no large equipment or expensive materials to build—simply a village of able hands and local elements. After digging a pit, the villagers shape the excavated earth into a semicircular mud barrier. A stone drain is sometimes set up, allowing excess water to seep into the ground, or connecting it with johads nearby. Essentially the johad will capture runoff from monsoon floods and allow it to slowly percolate into the water table during the dry months. When many johads are built in one area, they have a cumulative effect, resulting in the replenishment of whole aquifers. [5] In addition, it has been shown that the water stored in the aquifers does not draw away water from communities downstream. [6]

It’s important to note that water johads are place-specific technologies and cannot necessarily be replicated to other geographical locations or climates. They require steady sloping land—where each johad can feed water into another downstream—and a rainy season, where floods can fill up the reservoirs during the dry months.

In addition, constructing and maintaining thousands of water reservoirs also required new forms of resource management. Since the government refused to participate with the johad construction efforts, or recognize that they were effective—its policies remain tied to the development narrative. Villagers decided to take matters in their own hands and organize their own water management councils, which have now expanded to managing forests and parks through participatory and democratic methods. The result is what some have claimed a miracle: bringing water back to a water-scarce and impoverished area.

Building Community

An engineer might look at a johad and claim that it is far too simple a technology—there is no innovation here, let alone a miracle. This is true: similar technologies exist all over the world. In Mediterranean countries, for example, rain water catchments were built over a thousand years ago and continue to provide water to farmers during dry seasons.

Rajendra Singh attributes the success of the johads to the fact that the technology encourages people to work together, building community while addressing essential needs. This is in strong opposition to the large government-built dams, which have displaced millions of people in India and, on average, have increased poverty. [5]

So, perhaps the key innovation with the johads is that rather than relying on engineering expertise or governmental action, villagers have constructed the johads themselves through traditional methods and community participation. The result is the revival of a low-tech tradition that is far more cost-effective than high-tech dams could ever be.

Aaron Vansintjan

Sources:

[1] International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). http://icold-cigb.net/GB/World_register/general_synthesis.asp?IDA=206

[2] The Water Man of Rajasthan. Frontline. Sebastian, Sunny, 2001.

[3] Water-harvesting in India transforms lives. Alternet. McCully, Patrick. 2003

[4] An ancient technology is helping India’s “water man” save thousands of parched villages. Ghoshal, Devjyot. 2015.

[5]. Water Harvesting: Alwar, Rajasthran. National Institute of Hydrology (Roorkee, India). Sharma, Anupma.

[6]. Traditional Water Harvesting Structure: Community behind ‘Community’. Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. 41, No. 7, pp. 596-598. Kashwan, Prakash, 2006.

[7]. “Dams,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, MIT Press, vol. 122(2), pages 601-646, 05. Esther Duflo & Rohini Pande, 2007.

Related: Madakas.

The Landscape Table is a platform for cultivating, processing, cooking and sharing the food at the centre of the FARMPARCK in Brussels, Belgium. Thanks to the edible and medicinal plants inserted into the table itself, the installation invites the public to meet and eat in direct contact with a landscape that is a bounty for the senses – sight, smell, touch and, above all, taste. The essence of this project is to involve the visitor in the landscape, farming, nature and cooking through shared moments.

FARMPARCK puts to the test a new model for a public space combining the characteristics of a park and farmland, where food is grown, cooked and eaten by the neighbours. There is a vegetable garden, an animal farm, a kitchen, and a compost toilet which is to transform the park’s organic waste into “terra-preta”  (black earth, a rich and fertile soil) for the park and the surrounding area. FARMPARCK, which happens in a multicultural neighbourhood, meets both social and ecological needs. It was set up as a prototype from May to September 2014, but continues to be active today. Picture: Eric Dil.

Livestock at waste management park in Bobbili, India

Lowly as it may seem, Bobbili prides itself on its zero-waste zone with a comprehensive recycling system that ensures nothing goes to the landfill. Their unique solution involves door-to-door collection of household waste strictly separated as dry and wet, and the 2010 ban on plastic. The spotlight of the scheme is the Municipal Solid Waste Park – a 8.5-acre site comprising a bio-compost yard handling 2.5 to 3 tonnes of organic waste a day. The most innovative part is the utilisation of livestock.

A 2012 report by India’s Regional Centre for Urban and Environmental Studies states that “animals are the part of the solution, not the problem. The livestock’s potential contribution in solving environmental problems is equally large. The livestock contribute to tackle our environmental degradation by a variety of ways.”

By 2012 the park kept 4 chickens, 21 ducks, 6 pigs and other animals for different functions. Chickens are benefited from the insects in the waste, whilst pigs would gulp the food waste collected from hotels. Ducks take care of the leftovers collected from the fish market. Dogs are in charge of domestic leftovers. The ‘park farm’ is probably the first in the world to implement animal feed on a municipal level.

Solid Waste Management Park in Bobbili, India

The animal farm takes its inspiration from the history of feeding animals with organic waste. Dogs, especially domesticated ones, are effective in taking care of meat scraps. As a common practice in traditional pig farming, pigs often consume the leftovers, rather than energy and cost-intensive crops. Ducks and chickens respectively favour kitchen scraps and milling by-products. Given the extraordinary effectiveness of earthworms to decompose vegetable and food wastes, vermicompost is another key of this living waste management system.

Besides the fact that landfill relief means avoided methane emission, animal waste can be a sustainable source of natural fertiliser whose cost and carbon footprint are way lower than artificial ones. More importantly, because the system doesn’t involve complex technologies, it can be easilly implemented – though in a smaller scale – on household levels. Just by keeping dogs and resuming the tradition of backyard chicken, we can easily reduce kitchen scraps and contribute to a significant cut in food waste.

This is a guest post by Ren Wan, a writer and sustainability advocate who is based in Hong Kong. She runs JupYeah, an online swapping platform, is a managing editor for WestEast Magazine, and blogs at Loccomama. Ren previously wrote about Furoshiki, a square cloth that with different wrapping techniques can basically transport anything.

“Like Asia and the Americas, the continent of Africa is blessed with a rich tropical flora. Many of the 50,000 or so plants that evolved within its forests and savannas ripen fruits to tempt the myriad wild creatures into spreading their seeds. Speaking generally, Africa has as many of these tasty morsels as tropical Asia or America.

This fact, however, is something one would never guess by looking in produce markets or college textbooks. Today, American and Asian species dominate tropical fruit production worldwide, including within Africa itself.

For this, there is good reason. Africa’s fruits have not, by and large, been brought up to their potential in terms of quality, production, and availability. Geographically speaking, few have moved beyond Africa’s shores; horticulturally speaking, most remain poorly known. Thus, the vast continental landmass lying between Mauritania and Mauritius contains a cornucopia of horticultural, nutritional, and rural-development jewels still waiting to be cut and polished.”

• Lost Crops of Africa: Volume 1: Grains (1996)
• Lost Crops of Africa: Volume 2: Vegetables (2006)
• Lost Crops of Africa: Volume 3: Fruits (2008)

The three volumes can be consulted online at The National Academic Press. Previously: Lost crops of the Incas. Via Avantgardens.

“At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Incas cultivated almost as many species of plants as the farmers of all Asia or Europe. On mountainsides up to four kilometers high along the spine of a whole continent and in climates varying from tropical to polar, they grew a wealth of roots, grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, and nuts.

Without money, iron, wheels, or work animals for plowing, the Indians terraced and irrigated and produced abundant food for fifteen million or more people—roughly as many as inhabit the highlands today.

Throughout the vast Inca Empire, sprawling from southern Colombia to central Chile—an area as great as that governed by Rome at its zenith—storehouses overflowed with grains and dried tubers. Because of the Inca’s productive agriculture and remarkable public organization, it was usual to have 3–7 years’ supply of food in storage.

But Pizarro and most of the later Spaniards who conquered Peru repressed the Indians, suppressed their traditions, and destroyed much of the intricate agricultural system. They considered the natives to be backward and uncreative. Both Crown and Church prized silver and souls—not plants.

Crops that had held honored positions in Indian society for thousands of years were deliberately replaced by European species (notably wheat, barley, carrots, and broad beans) that the conquerors demanded be grown. Forced into obscurity were at least a dozen native root crops, three grains, three legumes, and more than a dozen fruits.

Domesticated plants such as oca, maca, tarwi, nuñas, and lucuma have remained in the highlands during the almost 500 years since Pizarro’s conquest. Lacking a modern constituency, they have received little scientific respect, research, or commercial advancement. Yet they include some widely adaptable, extremely nutritious, and remarkably tasty foods.”

Lost Crops of the Incas: Little-known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation, 1989. The book can be consulted online at The National Academic Press.

“Insects as a sustainable feed ingredient in pig and poultry diets – a feasibility study” (PDF), Livestock Research, Wageningen University, October 2012. Previously: Mass Insect Farming / Edible Insects and Insecticides.

Almost all food steamers or steam cookers on the market work by virtue of many little holes, through which the steam rises from the boiling water below. The disadvantage of this method is that you lose the bouillon of the food, as well as the spices you might add.

When I visited my cousin last week in the French Dordogne, I stumbled upon a ceramic steamer in her kitchen. It was hand made by Laurent Merchant, an artisan living and working in the region. Ceramic food steamers are everything but new — they were already used in Neolithic China 6 to 7000 years ago* — but this one was different. Just like any other steam cooker, it is placed above a pot with boiling water. However, the steam enters through a central chimney rather than through dozens of little holes. The obvious advantage is that you don’t lose the juice, which greatly increases the potential uses of steaming.

Some commercially available steamers feature a condensation catchment, but in that case you can only use the bouillon separately, or add it to the food later. Furthermore, the ceramic steamer offers several additional advantages. Its design allows you to easily warm up earlier made dishes or leftovers following the same cooking method, because the device also serves as a perfect storage container and the steam prevents the food from drying out or sticking together. The steam cooker is also particularly suitable for defrosting food, and it is much easier to clean than conventional devices. Last but not least, it is made from sustainable materials and looks great, which cannot be said of most plastic food steamers.

Laurent Merchant did not invent the device, which he dubbed “Le steamer”. Ceramic steamers with a central chimney originated in China, where they might have been in use for many centuries in the region around Shanghai. They resurfaced in California in the 1970s, where the artisan saw them for the first time. I could not find any information on their history, but in 2007 Merchant stumbled upon an authentic Chinese specimen which he could photograph (picture on the right — more pictures here).

“Le steamer” is available in different sizes (from 1 to 4.5 litres) and can be ordered online. Laurent Merchant’s website is in French, but he will answer your questions in perfect English.

* Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 5, part 5: fermentations and food science, page 76-91

Korean artist Jihyun Ryou, a graduate of the Dutch Design Academy Eindhoven, translates traditional knowledge on food storage into contemporary design. She found the inspiration for her wall-mounted storage units while listening to the advice of her grandmother, a former apple grower, and other elderly. Her mission: storing food outside the refrigerator.

On her blog, “Shaping traditional oral knowledge“, Jihyun Ryou explains the motivations underlying her work, which actually go beyond food storage:

“This project is about traditional oral knowledge which has been accumulated from experience and transmitted by mouth to mouth. Particularly focusing on the food preservation, it looks at a feasible way of bringing that knowledge into everyday life. Through the research into the current situation of food preservation, I’ve learned that we hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to the technology, the refrigerator. We don’t observe the food any more and we don’t understand how to treat it. Therefore my design looks at re-introducing and re-evaluating traditional oral knowledge of food, which is closer to nature. Furthermore, it aims to bring back the connection between different levels of living beings, we as human beings and food ingredients as other living beings. Through the objects of everyday life, design can introduce traditional oral knowledge into people’s lives through their experience of using it. Objects make invisible knowledge evident.”

Talking about fruits and vegetables as living beings sounds rather woolly, but it is actually true. Vegetables and fruits continue to live even after they are picked. They keep breathing, taking oxygen from the air and giving off carbon dioxide, water vapour and heat. By regulating temperature and humidity, it is possible to slow down this respiration, resulting in a longer storage time.

Storing food outside the refrigerator

While many fruits and vegetables benefit from the low storage temperature in a refrigerator (around 40 degrees F or 4.5 degrees C), this is not true for all of them. So-called fruit vegetables such as peppers, courgettes, aubergines and tomatoes require higher temperatures and decay more rapidly in the refrigerator. They need high relative humidity, though. The shelf pictured above gives these vegetables a suitable space. Through the ritual of watering them everyday, they will stay fresh. The water not only raises humidity but also cools the produce, assuring a temperature that is higher than that in the refrigerator but lower than that in the room.

The same principle is applied to the fruit bowl shown above, in which a perforated dish sits over a bowl of water. The concept is inspired by the old farmer’s wisdom to preserve fruits fresh before selling.

Damp sand

Keeping vegetables in slightly damp sand has been a storage method for many centuries. While low temperatures are favourable for vegetables like carrots, high humidity is equally important. Keeping them in wet sand can be a good compromise. In the design above, this concept is improved by burying the vegetables upright, mimicking their growth conditions – and making them last longer, says Jihyun Ryou. Just don’t forget to water them from time to time.

Rice absorbs humidity

Other foods, like spices, garlic, onions and sweet potatoes, require low humidity but higher temperatures, which also makes them unstuibale for storage in a refrigerator. Because it absorbs moisture easily, rice can be of great help here. In the design above, the cork lid of each spice container contains a small space holding rice, which helps to keep the spices dry without forming into lumps.

Ethylene gas

Some fruits and vegetables (notably apples but also tomatoes, avocados, bananas, muskmelons, pears, plums, and peaches) emit ethylene gas. This has the effect of speeding up the ripening process of fruits and vegetables kept together with them, which is why it is wise to store ethylene producing fruits and vegetables separately. However, when combined with potatoes, Jihyun Ryou says, they have a positive effect, because the ethylene gas prevents the potatoes from sprouting. The design pictured above consists of a wooden box that keeps potatoes in the dark (a more common way to keep them from sprouting), while the holes on top allow them to benefit from the ethylene gas emitted by the apples.

The same design could also be used to accelerate the ripening of tomatoes, a process that is used – on a much larger scale – by food distributors.

Does it work?

The more food you can keep out of the fridge, the smaller it needs to be and the less energy it will consume. The designs described above show a refreshing way to do that, although it should be remembered that these are artworks, not consumer products. Using similar methods when storing food in a basement or a specially designed root cellar – the traditional way – will give better results (more on that in a forthcoming article). Furthermore, some of the storage strategies followed by Ryou are not generally accepted. Most of the sources that I have consulted (books, not grandmothers) say that ethylene gas will promote the sprouting of potatoes, not prevent it.

Anyway, her work will certainly encourage others to search for alternative storage solutions based on traditional knowledge – and that’s what it is all about. Experience and experimentation will tell what works and what not.

More at Jihyun Ryou’s blog: “Shaping traditional oral knowledge” and in this video. She also offers a beautiful booklet. An overview of temperature and humidity requirements for most vegetables and fruits can be found here (.pdf).

We will publish more on low-tech food storage soon. Stay informed via email, feed, twitter or facebook.

Thanks for the tip, mom!

Related articles:

• The poor man’s refrigerator
• How to keep beverages cool outside the refrigerator
• Pottery refrigerators
• California coolers
• Bog butter: storing food in soil

Julieta Ramos-Elorduy in “Ecological implications of minilivestock“, red. Maurizio Paoletti, 2005.

See also: “Edible forest insects: humans bite back!!” (.pdf 4MB), Patrick Durst, Dennis Johnson, Robin Leslie, Kenichi Shono, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2010. Summary at the edible forest insects FAO-website. Previously: mass insect-farming.

“Almost anyone who has a backyard or garden would do well to plant fruit trees for the years ahead. Most fruit trees, though, take more years to mature than most of us have to prepare, and take up more space than most of us have in cities or suburbs. Luckily, only a few centuries ago master gardeners developed a way to cultivate fruit in narrow spaces – one that yields more fruit, more quickly, and with a longer growing season.

Espalier is a method of growing a dwarf fruit tree along a wall or fence, binding it for support, and bending the branches to follow certain lines, as Japanese artists do with bonsai trees. Most gardeners started espaliers with a “maiden,” a one-year-old sapling that had not yet forked, and tied it to a staff of wood to keep it straight. Then they tied the desired branches to the fence or wall as they emerged, bending and pruning aggressively as the tree grew.

With the tree’s natural growth concentrated into only two dimensions, it creates many spurs looking for a chance to spread, creating more flowers and fruit than their conventional counterparts, and earlier in the trees’ life. The fruit can be picked casually while standing or sitting, with no need for the ladders or devices needed to pick many other fruit trees, and no risk of injury. Growing a tree against a south-facing wall has another advantage; not only does the tree receive maximum light and heat, but the thermal mass of the wall absorbs the heat and provides shelter from the wind. In this way trees get a longer growing season, and can grow in cooler climates than they would ordinarily tolerate.”

Read more: Fences of fruit trees. Related: Irish hedgerows.

“Edible insects are rich in proteins, minerals and vitamins and are being actively promoted by the United Nations as the secret weapon in averting a worldwide famine. According to a recent UN report: Edible insects constitute high-quality food for humans, livestock, poultry and fish. Because insects are cold-blooded, they have a high [pro rata] food conversion rate—crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and twice less than pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein. Only a few countries “farm” insects, and the UN is now spending millions of dollars to investigate mass insect production.”

Read more. Illustration by Nicole Antrobus. See also: Edible Insects and Insecticides / Insects as a Sustainable Feed Ingredient in Pig and Poultry Diets.