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Update
on Urban Harvest SSA activities: note from the
Regional Coordinator - Diana Lee-Smith, January 2004
A milestone was reached
for UA practitioners in Kampala this new year as the
Kampala City Council passed an important reform
on superfluous and restrictive regulations on
agriculture and food trading and distribution - a
result of an enriching participatory process
involving urban farmers from the different areas of
the city, officials, NGO's, and research institutes
. The new Ordinances -- which include one titled
the Kampala City Urban Agriculture Ordinance --
provide for the city to document all commercial
urban crop and livestock activities. Being on the
list will constitute a temporary permit. The same
applies to other activities of fish, meat and dairy
marketing, where "artesanal" activities
can get temporary permits under the UA Ordinance,
while tighter restrictions will apply to
"industrial" type activities. The permit
is vital as it legitimizes UA activities and
prevents the harassment of farmers (several of whom
are women) by unethical officials and land
developers. Guidelines
and public information in local languages on the
detailed provisions of the ordinances will be
disseminated, to create awareness among the UA small
farmers and traders on the improved security in
their livelihood activities. It is planned that the
new set of regulations will be enacted into law
following a review by federal authorities. The
participatory process between diverse stakeholders
that led to the new reform in UA regulations will be
documented in a video that will be used in the IDRC-funded
Regional Training Course on Urban Agriculture coming
March. This activity has mostly been funded by
DFID's Livestock Production Programme, which takes a
strong interest in poor urban farmers.
With the same donor
support, work is continuing on networking in the
East African sub-region on urban agriculture and
livestock keeping, with an emphasis on low-income
community involvement. Several urban agriculture and
livestock forums have been held involving farmers,
private sector service providers and public sector
stakeholders. In January this year, the community
(or farmers) sector met and formed the Nairobi
Network of Farmers and Livestock-keepers. About
forty farmers attended, representing several
different groups, some with about a hundred members,
from different parts of the city. There is a plan
for several more inter-sectoral meetings in Nairobi
in 2004, as well as similar meetings in Kisumu in
Kenya. The urban farmers network has a plan of work
for the year, involving meeting with City Council
and others on issues the farmers have identified and
want to get a response on.
Preparations for the
Regional Course on Urban Agriculture continue. After
City Teams from Ghana (Accra and Kumasi), Kenya
(Nairobi and Kisumu), Uganda (Kampala), Cameroun (Bamenda)
and South Africa (Msunduzi/Pietmartizburg) were
selected at the November meeting of the
International Committee, two further meetings have
been organized in January. These are for the teams
preparing learning modules on UA Crop Systems
(Nairobi 16-17 January) and Waste Water re-Use in UA
(Accra 26-28 January). Regional expertise is drawn
from the respective sub-regions.
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