Earlier this year, I decided to begin focus efforts here at Pedestrian Space on issues of food and cities, including community and urban agriculture. Read more at the following link about our philosophy and motivation to represent and work with these issues:
Some recent developments:
Last month, September 2024 I finished the following courses offered by Cornell Small Farms Program.
PUA 101: Deciding Where to Farm in the City
The course reviews how to create a commercial urban farm with community in mind and also covers issues of land access and tenure, as well as regulations that impact urban farming.
As a Cornell course, it unsurprisingly has a USA focus which I appreciate even though I am in Europe as I am interested in urban agriculture developments there and also view some of the learnings as transferable.
PUA 102: Urban Farm Planning and Management
The course covers what contributes to an economically viable urban farm, including choosing a business model, knowing when to expand the farm, crop planning and knowing your market, managing on-farm labor, and promoting a strong farm culture.
PUA 103: Urban Farming by Community Nonprofits
The course is designed for nonprofit farm staff and the staff of nonprofit community organizations that manage administrative aspects of urban farms.
I look forward to now moving on to take the other online course offered by the Cornell Small Farms Program Urban Agriculture Skills for Planners. More here on the courses: https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/…/the-promise-of-urban…/
Earlier this year, I decided it was time for me to commit to using my role at the intersection of media, research and advocacy to begin to work with issues of community and urban agriculture. My primary drivers with this theme relate to issues of:
• Food sovereignty, healthy local food systems and community resilience
• Food access, health, privilege and (in)equity
• Food literacy via school and community gardening and more, visible at link below
https://pedestrianspace.org/community-urban-agriculture/
Earlier this year, as NGO founder of Pedestrian Space I hosted my first ‘industrial placements’ from the MA in Film & TV program at the University of Bristol offering two tracks: walkability & community agriculture. One of the students chose the latter & produced videos on a local community garden & became an active local volunteer in her community through the placement.
https://pedestrianspace.org/yujie-on-her-industrial…
This year I also learned about agrihoods via the document at the Urban Land Institute website below. Last month I began my own research on this topic, beginning with a series of interviews (in progress) with different individuals (planners, agrihood founders & developers, farm managers) on best practices & barriers of these developments.
https://americas.uli.org/…/ULI…/Agrihoods-Final.pdf
In August this year, Pedestrian Space became a member of the
Inter-institutional Network for Food, Agriculture and Sustainability (INFAS) at The Agricultural Sustainability Institute at University of California Davis which is meaningful for me as my organizational mission includes networking & alliances for sustainable food systems.
https://asi.ucdavis.edu/programs/infas/about/members
And last but not least, most recently was really delighted to ally with Andrea Cayuela and Kay Vasey to be welcoming into their Global Farming Community whose mission it is to increase the visibility of urban farming.
https://www.skyfarmisland.com/Urgenci, Community
Also cooking much more up behind the scenes including some of my first research on issues of food and cities.
Are you interested in connecting over these issues? 
info@pedestrianspace.org
-Annika