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Soil and Water management in urban Agriculture Production in Urban Areas in CEE/NIS countries (SWAPUA)

SWAPUA is an action-research project implemented in the years 1999-2002 by ETC in co-operation with ICLEI (International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives, Germany), the Ludwig Boltzman Institute (Austria) and local institutes in 5 countries in Central and Eastern Europe: TER and RISSA (Rumania), StPDTGC (Russia), IDS (Slovenia), FOA (Czech Republic) and SWF (Bulgaria).

The SWAPUA project aimed to contribute to policy development on urban agriculture by increasing the knowledge on presence and types of urban and peri-urban agriculture in CEE/NIS countries, identification of main problems and possible solutions, especially with respect to soil and water management in urban and peri-urban agriculture.

The SWAPUA-project reviewed existing literature, analysed existing policy frameworks and identified the characteristics, problems and development perspectives of the various types of urban and peri-urban farmers and gardeners, and supported multi-stakeholder action planning and implementation regarding urban agriculture in 10 cities of 5 countries.

On the basis of the studies and action planning experiences a policy framework was formulated, validated in an international workshop and published.

Funding:The SWAPUA project was funded by European Community - INCO-Copernicus programme.

List of publications 

  • H.de Zeeuw (ed.). Final Report on the SWAPUA project, ETC, Leusden, June 2002
  • Wolfgang Teubner (ICLEI) and Henk de Zeeuw (ETC), Green and Productive Cities; a policy brief on urban agriculture, Leusden/Freiburg, November 2001
  • Antoaneta Yoveva and Galya Voykova. An exploratory analysis of urban and peri-urban farming in Sofia and Trojan, Bulgaria. Sustainable World Foundation, Sofia, May 2002
  • Lucie Panochoa, Jiri Pirner, Petra Malkova, Martin Weber. An exploratory analysis of urban and peri-urban farming in Praguie and Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. Foundation for Organic Agriculture, Prague, May 2002
  • Sorin Liviu Stefanescu, Mihail Dumitru. An exploratory analysis of urban and peri-urban farming in Bucharest and Busteni, Romania, Research Institute for Soil Science and Agrochemistry, Bucharest, May 2002
  • Oleg Moldakov An exploratory analysis of urban and peri-urban farming in St Petersburg and Kirishi,Russia. St. Petersburg Down Town Gardening Club, May 2002
  • Anamarije Slabe and Alenka Bratusa.An exploratory analysis of urban and peri-urban farming in Ljubljana and Maribor, Slovenia. Institute for Sustainable Development, Ljubljana, May 2002
  • Sorin Liviu Stefanescu, Mihail Dumitru. Soil, water and crop contamination and management in urban and peri-urban agriculture; Synthesis report on tests implemented in 5 CEE/NIS countries, Research Institute for Soil Science and Agrochemistry, Bucharest, June 2001
  • Markus Puschenreiter, Wilfried Hartl and Othmar Horak. Urban agriculture on heavy metal contaminated soils in Eastern Europe; a desk study. Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, Vienna, May 2001
  • Kirsten Kruger, Wolfgang Teubner. Inventory and Analysis of actual policies and programmes on urban agriculture in selected European cities, ICLEI, March 2001
  • Video "City Harvests", June 2002

Contact: Ir. Henk de Zeeuw (h.dezeeuw@remove-this.etcnl.nl)