Badalona City Council Allotment Gardens

Since the first of October, I am doing the control and monitoring of the Badalona City Council Allotment Gardens.

Torre Codina Allotment Garden - Foto: Xavier Recasens

Badalona has 80 plots for urban gardening. According to City Council rules, these plots are for retired citizens. They can grow vegetables under organic agriculture. The production is for themselves, the users can not sell it. The plots have 25 square meters each. 

Can Cabanyes Allotment Garden - Foto: Xavier Recasens

I have been speaking with some users and they said me that the surface it was enough for one couple. Perhaps in summer they give some tomatoes to their relatives.

Fava beans - Foto: Xavier Recasens

These allotment gardens are located in two farm houses or manor houses (Torre Codina/ Can Cabanyes). The ancient orchards are used for urban agriculture.

Urban allotment gardens complaint

An important newspaper in Catalonia has published a letter to editor related to urban allotment gardens Letter to editor (It is in Catalan).

Can Mestres Allotment garden - Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain).

The author complains that Barcelona city allotment gardens only accepted retired users (more than 65 years old). This role is discriminatory for citizens with less of 65 years old.

Polish allotment garden (Warsaw, Poland)

I had an interesting conversation about this topic with Miguel. He is working in Cascais Municipality (Portugal). He has the opinion that city allotment garden should be diverse as the society, not a ghetto for retired people or people with risk of social exclusion.

In my opinion these city allotment garden should be opened to retired people, of course, but young people, families, single parent families, immigrants and people with risk of social exclusion too.

Private allotment garden (Ljubljana, Slovenia)

I know a case of city allotment garden that it is opened to all society. This urban allotment garden is located in Tiana (Catalonia, Spain).

Tiana Allotment garden - Tiana (Catalonia, Spain)

I am sure that Barcelona city council only offers places for retired citizens, because Barcelona is a dense city with scarce number of places for urban allotment gardens localitation. 

If demand of urban allotment garden increase, the city councils  will change their roles.

Agricultura Urbana a Barcelona

Vaig aprofitar la visita aquest cap de setmana d'una companya italiana (Giulia) i una amiga seva (Geogerta) per visitar diferents espais amb agricultura urbana a la ciutat de Barcelona.

Primer varem visitar dos espais inclosos dins el Pla Buits promogut per l'Ajuntament de Barcelona.  Pel qui no sabem que és el Pla Buits, es tracta d'una proposta municipal que ofereix com a us temporal uns espais dins la ciutat a entitats que els dotin de contingut mitjançant propostes.

Més informació: Pla Buits

Dels 12 espais que es van oferir en el passat concurs 9 d'ells tenen l'agricultura com un dels seus eixos. No estem parlant d'una agricultura productiva si no d'una agricultura social on els seus principals motius són l'oci, la comunicació, la relació entre els usuaris (moltes vegades transgeneracional) i les activitats educatives que es duen al voltant de l'hort (per escoles bressol, escoles i esplais). 

Els que varem visitar: Espai Germanetes i ConnectHort, si ens posem en una postura acadèmica els podiem classificar com community gardens (horts comunitaris) i educational gardens (jardins educatius), ja que el treball és en comú, i s'aprofiten com a eina educativa per les escoles i esplais.

 l'Espai Germanetes ofereix mensualment un mercat de pagès.

També varem visitar els horts urbans de la Vila Olímpica (Dr. Trueta amb carrer d'Alaba), el que acadèmicament definiríem com allotment gardens (horts de parcel·les), on els usuaris conreen individualment la seva parcel·la.

I finalment no varem poder parlar amb els usuaris dels horts ocupes situats al triangle entre Rambla del Poblenou, carrerTaulat i carrer Perelló.

Allotment Gardens in Barcelona Metropolitan Region (More examples)

More allotment gardens in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region.

I show two examples more:

Can Mestre in Barcelona city. It is the first time that I have visited an allotment garden under Barcelona council control. The space is a farm house and a piece of farmland around it. The house and farmland are city council property. The farmland is divided in small plots that are growing by Barcelona retired citizens. The Barcelona council also keeps some farm animals (poultry).

The other example is in Tiana, a town close to Barcelona, where the town hall offers plots to retired citizens to grow vegetables.

It is a way keep the social cohesion between the older citizens and also to increase the biodiversity inside the cities, to keep cultural landscapes related with the agriculture and promote healthy activities.

Barcelona Allotment Gardens

I would like to share this picture of Can Soler Allotment gardens:

These gardens are managed by Barcelona Council (Catalonia - Spain). 
Barcelona city Council controls 12 spaces with Alloment gardens inside Barcelona municipality.

More information: Barcelona Allotment Gardens

Horts urbans de Montgat

Us deixo unes imatges dels Horts urbans de Montgat.

Es pot veure com unes antigues feixes agrícoles són aprofitades com horts urbans.