Our third and last for this season City Exchange took place September 21-23 in Rotterdam.

On the first day, we had the pleasure to cycle round the Groene Connectie, an 8km-long circular route which connects green initiatives throughout west Rotterdam. Our starting point was Spoortuin, a community garden along the train tracks. There we were welcomed by the local City Team and told the story behind this garden in particular and the whole Green Connection project in general. From there, we cycled to Voedseltuin Rotterdam, a community garden which, with the help of volunteers, produces healthy food for the local food bank. After having lunch there, we cycled south to Groene Oase op Zuid, where we learned about how the community is dealing with having to move their garden to a new place because of real estate development on the current site. Our next stop was the impressive Rotterdamse Munt, a real urban herb farm and events space. The place also has a shop where visitors can buy all sorts of teas, seeds and other products produced on site or by other green initiatives in the city. We finished our day with dinner at Wijkpaleis, a place which is a real success story of how neighbors joined forces to buy a former school building from the city in order to establish a community center. The building, whose top floor is still used as a school, now hosts also all kind of workshops, community dinners and other events.

On the next day we all gathered at the former Berberis school garden complex, where Natuurtalent now offers job opportunities to people who face challenges accessing the job market. The organization shares the space with Stadsboerin Rotterdam, a highly yielding CSA. After a chat with the farmer behind the CSA, we had a “speed dating” workshop, where participants had to team up with someone, they don’t know that well, and discuss what we considered to be the main values in our work. The talks were followed by a lunch in the garden and then we all headed towards the Rotterdam City administration towers, where the second part of the day took part on the 40th floor and with amazing views over the whole city! Here we met Rotterdam’s green broker and representatives of the Rotterdam Health program and the Rotterdam Climate program and discussed Rotterdam’s greening policy. The day program ended with a workshop on the use of the Diamond Model, led by project partner Alice Bischof.

The last day started at Stadskwekerij De Kas, a beautiful reclaimed inner yard which is now a knowledge center for urban ecology and biodiversity; as well as a plant nursery. There we saw the presentations of three different green initiatives—a neighborhood greening project, a rain garden and a community garden—and each participant chose where to go and help with some field, hands-on work for the next hour and a half. After the fun work at the different sites, participants gathered for lunch at Tuin op Hofbogen, a community garden and public park on the roof of an abandoned train station. The last activity of the exchange was a trip to the edible forest part of the Rotterdam Botanical Garden.

A huge thank you to everyone who made this possible!

This series of City Exchanges was extremely inspiring and we can’t wait to visit Andernach next year!

After the first EdiCitNet City Exchange happened in Berlin at the end of August, the second in the series of events took place September 13-15 in Oslo and was organised collaboratively by all project partners in the city, led by the Agency of Urban Environment. Participants from a total of seven cities took part in the event.

The entire first day took place on the grounds of the beautiful Linderud Manor, a historical estate in Oslo’s Bjerke district, whose garden, the Linderud community garden (in Norwegian Linderud nærmiljohage), hosts EdiCitNet’s Living Lab. After a short introduction round, participants could meet the Oslo City Team and other initiatives working on site. The numerous projects happening on Linderud’s grounds range from job training offers for people struggling with drug addiction, organized by the Salvation Army; through outdoors teaching programs for the children from the local school; summer job opportunities for teenagers organized by EdiCitNet partner Nabolagshager; to green urban food entrepreneurs growing herbs and mushrooms in the garden. The busy day ended with a dinner in the garden, prepared by the lawyer-turned-chef Inka Chef, who used onsite-grown ingredients to prepare one of the most delicious veggie burgers we have recently tried!

The second day of the exchange took off at the recently built Økern Portal center, where, thanks to the presentations of municipal workers, participants could learn more about Oslo’s Strategy for Urban Agriculture 2019-2030, its funding scheme for urban agriculture-related projects, its Sustainable and Healthy Food Program, or the role of the Oslo center for urban ecology. Furthermore, the Økern portal is home to one of Europe’s biggest rooftop gardens, managed by U·Reist, who were kind enough to give us a tour of the CSA, the public park and the comercial garden that top the center. What a sight!

On the last day of our visit, we got to know a series of urban gardens, as diverse as Oslo itself! Our first stop was Ulvenhagen, a newly established community garden, which is a real green oasis between two major roads in an area of the city that is being quickly developed. We continued towards one of Oslo’s most famous urban gardens, Losæter, where we met the director of the Environmental Agency, learned about the experiments the gardeners are doing with companion planting and had lunch. Our City Exchange finished at the school garden Geitmyra, where every interested school in the city is offered a plot, which they can manage according to their own criteria. Additionally, the garden offers crash courses in gardening for the teachers who will later be in charge of the school plot.

Three days full of inspirational talks, networking and, above all, Oslo’s edible side! A heartfelt thank you to everyone who made this experience possible!

At the end of August, the EdiCitNet team in Berlin hosted the first of a series of “City Exchange” events – a chance for project partners to meet in one of the project’s Front Runner Cities, learn from each other’s experiences of urban greening, edible cities + sustainable food and visit the two Living Labs located in the city.

At the event were project partners from Oslo, Andernach, Vienna, Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Sempter pri Gorici, Rotterdam and of course Berlin, including representatives of city administrations, urban farmers, green city activists and academic researchers.

The 4-day exchange kicked off with a visit to the Living Lab in the eastern district of Hellersdorf, a presentation by Prinzessinnengarten Kollektiv about their work in the garden and the Edible City Solutions they’re developing there, as well as a presentation from the local “Neighbourhood Management” team about their work to support and develop urban greenery and public green spaces for the neighbourhood. The end of the day featured a cooking workshop using saved food with local social enterprise – and EdiCitNet Award winner – Restlos Glücklich. It was also the time for members of the public to come by and meet the network, learn about the project and enjoy the sun in the garden!

The second day was based in Berlin’s other EdiCitNet Living Lab in Neukölln. Located in a still-active cemetery, this Living Lab is exploring the use of unused green space in cemeteries for urban gardening, and community events – side by side with visitors to the graves. After enjoying a tour of the Living Lab, from the raised beds to the field of edible crops and the herb garden, the visitors took part in a workshop exploring innovative ways to have more edible, green spaces in cities.

The weekend – also the final two days of the event – was spent networking and sharing knowledge with each other and also with the visitors to the Urban Gardening Summer Camp that was also taking place in the same location. There was a chance to enjoy talks, workshops and presentations all around the topic of urban agriculture and community gardens. Here too, the public were invited to come by and meet the project members and learn more at a public Visit the Living Lab event.

It was a truly inspiring, insightful and exciting three days in Berlin, and felt particularly special after nearly 2.5 years of online meetings and virtual work together. Thank you to Prinzessinnengarten Kollektiv, the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing and the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin for organising the event!

We are looking forward to the next City Exchange event, coming up in the city of Oslo, Norway.

An awareness action on the edible city concept of the EdiCitNet project was carried out by the project team within REACT in collaboration with the project “To preserve in herbarium the flora of Tunisia and to work out a tool of assistance to its identification: FEM/SGP” in the framework of Envirofest. The activity was aimed at children under the title “Let’s learn botany by playing”. The children were asked to guess and define seeds and plant parts while closing their eyes. They had to (i) define the name of the plant and/or seed, (ii) identify if it was a vegetable, spice or fruit while using their other senses: touch, smell and taste. This activity allows them to develop their sensory abilities towards the plant world, to create other links with plants and to identify/visualize plants daily used in our food. Seeds of spices (Coriander, Caraway, Cumin), vegetable seeds (Pumpkin, Corn, Carrot, Parsley, Chard) and aromatic plants (Jasmine, Thyme, Rosemary) have been carefully selected for this event. The exercise is not easy for the children. Expressions of astonishment, surprise and curiosity were complemented by questions that were often abundant. Laughter broke out throughout this highly appreciated awareness activity. Samples of seeds (pumpkin, corn) were distributed to the children with explanations on the steps to follow to sow them since it is the right season for planting.

First, on June 15th, a training session was held by the City of Sant Feliu de Llobregat and Arran de terra within the framework of the course “Urban green/blue structure: considerations for adaptation to climate change” organized by the Barcelona provincial council (Diputació de Barcelona, DIBA). The course was aimed at technical staff of DIBA and other municipalities. During the course, several strategies to adapt to climate change in the framework of urban green/blue strategic planning were discussed as well as some successful initiatives and examples in this regard. The EdiCitNet planning process carried out in Sant Feliu de Llobregat was explained taking into account the context and background of the project. Also, some specific projects linked to EdiCitNet (such as Alimentem Collserola) and its main challenges from the perspective of the transition of its food system were presented. There was also a dialogue around good practices and challenges in the implementation of strategic planning processes and local agroecological transition, with a specific focus to the example of the action plan for school agroecology in Sant Feliu de Llobregat and the main actions implemented in the city school playgrounds and canteens.

Second, the team participated in the workshops on urban agriculture of the Sustainable Food Policy Working Group of the Catalan Network of Municipalities for Sustainability. This conference, which consisted of two online sessions, took place on 29th June and 6th July. During the conference, experiences and knowledge about the management of municipal farms were shared in order to move towards a more sustainable food system promoting local production, agroecology, food sovereignty and seasonal food.

Finally, the team also took part in the course “Interdependents, co-responsible: the 2030 Agenda as an opportunity” of the Summer Courses of the University of Barcelona. During the course, the SFLL team talked about the role of sustainable cities and communities in order to advance towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 11) explaining the experience of Sant Feliu in the framework of the EdiCitNet project.