The French Ministry of Agriculture has recently launched a 30 million Euro support programme for urban agriculture and community gardens as part of its Corona strategy for the economic recovery of the country. One of the reasons given for this measure is that the edible city can make good use of its advantages, such as creating social cohesion and educational work, especially in these difficult times. Another 34 million are allocated for urban agriculture projects, which are currently underway in areas of urban renewal!

Let’s see who will follow France!

Read more about it here: Agriculture urbaine : les financements France Relance pour l’initiative « Jardins partagés » désormais disponibles | Ministère de l’Agriculture et de l’Alimentation

At minus 7 degrees, palm kale grows and spinach sprouts without any problems! This can be seen right now in an unheated glass house in the middle of Berlin on Friedrichstraße, which is currently closed to traffic. So let’s stop thinking that this is only possible in summer. Beyond urban farming, the edible city offers endless opportunities to produce, process and distribute food in the city, bringing people together, creating jobs and revolutionising unsustainable food systems.

REACT has participated in the Tunisia Environmental Film Festival ENVIROFEST TUNISIA  from 11^th to 13^th of  December 2020 at the prestigious “Cité de la Culture de Tunis”.

EnviroFest is an annual cultural, educational and cinematographic event that provides a platform for understanding and debating environmental issues.

EnviroFest is organized by the Tunisia Cinema Foundation since 2017.

For its third edition, the festival stretches over a period of seven months traveling to eight cities around Tunisia. In addition to screening award-winning films about the environment, the festival sets an environmental village in each of these cities.

The environmental village is an open forum for associations, private companies, individuals and institutions that advocate for awareness and actions to save our environment with practical daily steps. In addition to film screenings, a large part of the festival activities is focusing on workshops and playful activities for children and teenagers to raise their awareness of critical environmental issues such as global warming,

REACT and Carthage were part of the Village and have introduced to visitors their involvement and activities towards the EdiCitNet project. The broadcast of two short movies, produced as media support for explaining the aims and strategy of EdiCitNet in Tunisia was an opportunity to exchange with visitors and even with a special guest; the Tunisian minister of agriculture.

Many stakeholders and initiatives were invited to the Environmental Village, active members of civil society, wildlife protection programs, startups and ECSs involved with REACT and Carthage in the Edible Cites Network. They had the opportunity to introduce their services and sell products. They were pleased to participate and to broaden their collaboration; they have all noticed and contributed to the friendly atmosphere and exchange during the event.

Participating in the EnviroFest was a precious occasion to present in detail ECS, edible cities and urban agriculture to a large public. And also to explain how EdiCitNet could help to better adapt all these concepts in Tunisian context.

Three dry years are behind us and have left clear traces in the urban green and the region. What do we need to prepare for? What can I do myself to mitigate the consequences?

Erwin Nolde (Nolde & Partner, part of EdiCitNet) discussed this topic in November with the Head of Water Management in Berlin, a journalist and filmmaker who did the documentary below, the environmental policy spokesman of the green party in Berlin, the environmental policy spokesman of the conservatives and the group manager of Berlin Forests.

Watch the whole discussion here: https://youtu.be/hMDCSRJrQ7Y

Watch the documentary here: https://www.rbb-online.de/doku/a/auf-dem-trockenen.html

Discussion and documentary are both in German.

As part of the technical visits organized by REACT to Tunisian ECSs, 13 members of the Tunisian network had the opportunity to discover the urban compostors designed by the artist and eco-designer, Mr. Lassaad Zouari. The visit was organised on October 2, 2020. Mr. Lassaad has created a cultural centre with an interest in and commitment to sustainable municipal waste management. He advocates for a selective collection of organic waste and its recycling as fertilizer using urban composters of different shapes and capacities and adapted to city life. It enables the produced young leachate and compost to be integrated into a green ECS, thus closing the nutrient loop. Mr. Lassaad had openly shared his vision with us for two hours and presented other creations in favour of sustainable development. The typical behaviour of the Tunisian citizen within the city is integrated in the design of the products in order to increase their lifetime and attractiveness. Mr. Lassaad is organising open trainings and awareness sessions for different visitors and target groups including pupils every Saturday in order to change mentalities and promote the adoption of composting in the city. We thank our host very much and we hope that his urban composter will be used by many Tunisian families and it will be unavoidable for ECSs.

In order to adapt the toolbox to the needs of cities within the project, WP2 (Toolbox for enhancing ECS learning) has strengthened the collaboration with WP5 (Documentation and Monitoring) and WP3 (Living Labs) and with City Teams of Berlin and Montevideo. The topic of the meetings was to discuss how the toolbox could assist Living Labs and FC in data collection and monitoring.
WP2 has proposed an integrative approach for LL monitoring. The main goal is to have all data automatically stored in the EdiCitNet database and have all procedures unified in one online platform: the toolbox web.
Currently, WP2, 3 and 5 are closely collaborating to further develop such proposal.
We will be more than glad to arrange new meetings with all cities and partners that ask for it.