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Empowering
Urban Agriculturalists
“My friends
call me crazy, [for applying techniques acquired
from the
Urban
Field School (UFFS)] they don’t know…Hopefully they’ll come and see.” Maximo Bellido
expressed hoping that his friends would come to the
first Urban Farmer Field School Day to understand
and learn about UFS and its activities.
Maximo is one of the sixteen participants of
the UFS in Carapongo who helped introduce one of the
seven themes presented in the UFS Day.
Although, only one of Maximo’s friends
came, 36 people attended the special day, including
Major Maria Angelica Fonseca from the adjacent
district of C.P Santa Maria de Huachipa.
The first UFS
Day, held April 1, 2005, which is part of the
methodology of the Urban Farmer Field School,
allowed the participants, like Maximo, to reaffirm
the knowledge and experiences they obtained form
the UFS by disseminating the acquired knowledge,
techniques and methodology of the UFS to Urban
Harvest partner institutions, municipalities
representatives, neighboring agriculturalists and
their friends from the surrounding areas. The day
helped to bring awareness about UFS Urban
Harvest’s project “Farmer in the City”.
The aim was to show that UFS are based on
intertwining theoretical and practical methodology
carried out through participatory sessions and to
present the different themes and topics that the
Urban FS sessions concentrate on.
After all the
attendants visited each installation* a light snack
was provided and a round of discussions were
conducted giving the attendants the opportunity to
comment and ask further questions.
When the discussions ended the sixteen UFS
participants remained to hold an evaluation meeting.
They expressed how important it was to diffuse their
experiences and knowledge to their neighbors and
friends, although some felt that not enough young
agriculturalists attended.
Their enthusiasm extended when they
discussed, among themselves, about forming a company
or to establish an ecological fair in the area,
which they would appeal to their municipality to
help them attain.
It could be said that the UFS Day empowered
the participants and gave them the self-confidence
to continue incorporating the new knowledge from the
UFS to their own activities and lands.
At the end of the day, Maximo Bellido was
very happy and proud that he was able to present
information and his experience on experimental
plots, although he was bit disappointed that one
friend showed up, thirty of the attendants expressed
their content in attending the UFS Day.
View
Photos
* There were seven installations with seven themes: Farmer in the City” Project (presented by UH); the
Urban Farmer Field School; insects and organisms;
fertilizers; integrated plague management;
experimental plots; and agro-ecological analysis
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