There is a greater interest in creating more resilient cities where residents produce what they need, in order to minimize waste and dependency on industrial-scale food production and retailing. This, combined with individual interest to learn and reconnect with the food system, has given rise to a number of urban and community gardens. This bottom-up movement of urban agriculture is also seeking a structural support by policy makers. Several grassroot communities around the world are finding innovative ways to distribute the surplus food grown or cooked which otherwise would go to waste. —Khushboo Balwani

1. League of Urban Canners: Stewarding Urban Orchards

Planting an urban fruit tree is more than a lifetime commitment — it is an intergenerational civic responsibility. Each summer, in Greater Boston, a huge amount of backyard fruit falls to the ground and sidewalk, where it rots and creates a mess. Property owners and municipalities are often pressured to remove these “nuisances,” while many urban residents are struggling to access local and organic food sources. The League of Urban Canners has developed a network of individuals to map, harvest, preserve, and share this otherwise wasted fruit. They make agreements with property owners to share the work of fruit harvesting and preserving, as well as tree and arbor pruning. The preserved fruits are shared between property owners (10 percent), preservers (70 percent), and harvesters (20 percent). Each season the completely volunteer-run enterprise harvests and preserves about 5,000 pounds of fruit from a database of more than 300 trees and arbors. Myriad acts of cooperation sustain this urban commons, in which harvesters, property owners, preservers, and eaters learn to share responsibility, resources, and care for each other and their urban environment. —Oona Morrow

2. Restaurant Day (‘Ravintolapäivä’): Fostering Cross-cultural Gatherings Through Shared Meals

In big cities, people of many different cultures live in close proximity. However, there often aren’t enough chances for them to intermingle and experience the diverse traditions within their city. In an effort to bring people together and foster cross cultural interaction, local organizers in Helsinki, Finland, created “Ravintolapäivä,” or Restaurant Day. Initiated in 2011, it began as a food carnival where anyone with a passion for food was encouraged to run a “restaurant” in their private home or in public spaces for a single day. Even though the pop-up restaurants charge money for the meals, the emphasis is not on profit, but rather on community teamwork and cultural exchange. During the event, Helsinki is transformed by hundreds of these informal restaurants serving a wide range of cuisines in this city-wide street festival. The event is put on through distributed organization — individual volunteer restaurateurs are responsible for finding a location, managing the menu and invitations, and setting the meal prices. Now, Restaurant Day has become a global movement, with over 27,000 pop-up restaurants having served over 3 million community members across 75 countries. —Khushboo Balwani

3. Kitchen Share: A Sustainable Community Resource for Home Cooks

Kitchen appliances can be superfluous uses of money and cupboard space, especially for city residents with tight budgets and small homes. Yet interest in healthy eating is growing. More people are trying out unusual food preparation techniques, which can require unique appliances. Kitchen Share, launched in 2012, is a kitchen tool-lending library for home cooks in Portland, Oregon. It enables community members to borrow a wide variety of kitchen appliances such as dehydrators, mixers, and juicers. Members can check out over 400 items online using affordable lending library software from myTurn. With two locations in Portland, Kitchen Share helps residents save money, learn new skills from neighbors, and reduce their environmental footprint. As a nonprofit community resource for home cooks, Kitchen Share only asks for a one-time donation upon joining, providing affordable access to otherwise expensive and bulky items while building a more resource-efficient city. Learn about starting a lending library with this toolkit.—Marion Weymes

These three short case studies are adapted from our latest book, “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons.”

Cross-posted from Shareable

Photo by Artur Rutkowski on Unsplash

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Khushboo Balwani: Here’s the problem: The rapid expansion of cities is breaking the relationship that people have with the food ecosystem. Although the problem is receiving attention by some city officials, and they are adopting new sustainability programs and policies, it is a time-consuming, top-down process with an uncertain impact. What if with a bottom-up approach of small, local actions citizens can engage with could have a massive impact? Cities are centers of enormous energy and resources, and, by leveraging connections with friends, families, neighbors, and local community groups, it’s possible to create sustainable and affordable food systems.

Here’s how one organization is working on the problem: Back in 2007, a woman in a small town called Todmorden, in the northern part of England, dug up her prized rose garden. She planted vegetables, knocked down the garden wall, and put up a sign saying, “Help Yourself.”

This small action grew into a movement that has transformed Todmorden into a town in which citizens are reshaping their surroundings. The incredible edible Todmorden movement has turned all the public spaces, from the front yard of a police station to railway stations, into farms filled with edible herbs and vegetables. Locals and tourists pluck fruits and vegetables for free.

This novel idea, which is also called “open-source food,” promises a future with food for all. The project shares a participatory vision of “three plates” — community, education, and business. Schools grow food, businesses donate goods and services, and shops sell planter boxes.

Results:

• As a result of the huge success of the project, the Incredible Edible Network was set up in 2012 to attract grant funding and support the replication of the project globally. There are now 100 Incredible Edible groups across the U.K. More are popping up all the time around the globe.
• The initiative has opened up a new marketplace for local farmers as well as the tourism industry.
• The movement has also fostered a sense of community and responsibility among the local residents, interaction and bonding among the neighbors, and connections with spaces like police stations, cemeteries, and prisons.

Learn more from:

• Incredible Edible Network
• Incredible Edible Todmorden
• Shareable article

This case study is adapted from our latest book, “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons.” Get a copy today.

The post Incredible Edible Todmorden gives free access to locally grown food to everyone appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Khushboo Balwani: Here’s the problem: How can consumers become producers? The shift from consumer culture to maker culture is often described in terms of a synthesis between consumers and producers —”prosumers.” What practical steps can be taken for people to become prosumers?

Here’s how one organization is working on the problem: In 2002, Neil Gershenfeld, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), visited India to teach and explore projects that overlap with his work on fabrication labs or “Fab Labs.” Responding to the challenges facing the local community, Gershenfeld suggested developing a Fab Lab in Vigyan Ashram, an education center for science located in Pabal, India. The organization has been working with the local community of Pabal since 1983 to solve problems in the region with the help of low-cost materials and traditional tools. With a focus on self-managed sustainability, it has enabled the development of new models of peer production and local entrepreneurship.

The first Fab Lab outside of MIT, the Vigyan Ashram Fab Lab worked with MIT in procuring the latest tools and machines for collaborative production, rather than relying on ready-made solutions. Since then, several Fab Labs have been created worldwide.

Indeed, today there are some 665 Fab Labs in 65 countries. Taken as a whole, Fab Lab is a distributed international network of scientific researchers and community inventors who define, conduct, and apply new discoveries and inventions for the benefit of both researchers and the local community. Fab Labs support a global design commons where members design, code, share knowledge, and create digital instruction manuals using open-source principles. What gets designed in one lab can theoretically be fabricated in another lab, anywhere in the world.

The projects at the Vigyan Ashram Fab Lab emerge either from local researchers or the local community. Once projects are conceived, the organization passes them to its students and opens a global discussion within the larger network of Fab Labs to leverage open designs and shared knowledge. Several prototypes are made locally and tested within the community using shared assets (space, knowledge, tools) until the final design is developed.

Results:

• The Vigyan Ashram Fab Lab has developed a number of innovative solutions to local problems, such as a pedal-powered generator, egg incubator, and weather data lodger.
• Thanks to its proven solutions, the Vigyan Ashram Fab Lab has become a point of reference and a consultant to local and national authorities on urban challenges. Furthermore, it has inspired the government of India and the state government of Maharashtra to develop a plan to establish tinkering labs and innovation centers at both local and district levels, as reported by Yogesh Kulkarni, executive director of Vigyan Ashram.

Learn more from:

• Fab Lab Vigyan Ashram
• The Fab Foundation

This case study is adapted from our latest book, “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons.” Get a copy today.
Header image of students in Vigyan Ashram building 3D printer under guidance of Japanese Fab Lab worker Mr. Yutaka Tokushima. Provided by Chihiro Matsuura.

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Happy browsing!
Khushboo Balwani, Fest communications & OuiShare Fest Team

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