City Farming

United Arab Emirates is located in the Middle East bordering the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. It has an area of approx. 83,000 sq.km. It has a flat barren coastal plain which merged into rolling sand dunes of vast desert area with mountain in the east. Its arable land is about 0.50%. It has a population of approx. 2, 500,000 people of which about 1,700,000 are non-national.

The United Arab Emirates is a constitutional federation of seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al- Qaiwain, Ras al- Khaimah and Fujairah.

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan – Ruler of Abu Dhabi was elected as President in 1971, a post to which he has been re-elected by the Supreme Council at successive five year intervals.

The term of elected office for the Vice-President is also five years, and the post is presently held by Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Climatic conditions of United Arab Emirates are desert type and cooler in the eastern mountains.
Monthly temperature in centigrade as follows:

Temp	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
Mean Max.	24.2	25.0	29.0	34.0	39.0	41.0	41.8	41.1	39.6	35.8	30.9	26.0	34.0
Mean	18.3	19.2	22.5	27.0	31.3	33.6	35.1	34.6	32.3	28.6	23.8	20.0	27.2
Mean Min	12.4	13.3	16.1	19.5	23.3	25.8	28.1	28.3	25.4	21.6	17.2	14.1	20.4

Humidity	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
Mean Max.	89	98	86	80	76	82	82	83	86	86	87	89	85
Mean	63	62	57	50	46	51	54	56	56	55	59	64	56
Mean Min	36	34	27	20	17	19	25	29	24	23	29	37	27

Rainfall	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
Mean Min	14.4	37.9	26.2	09.4	01.9	00.3	01.03	02.7	01.0	01.5	02.7	11.4	110.7

His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan is an internationally acclaimed visionary. He has a vision of how the country should march ahead into the future. Since becoming the President of the UAE, he has devoted more than three decades for making his dream for UAE a reality.

One important foundation of his philosophy as a leader and statesman is that the resources of the country should be fully utilized for the benefit of the people. The financial sources, have always been regarded by Sheikh Zayed not as a means unto themselves, but as a tool to facilitate the development of what he believes to be the real wealth of the country – its people, and in particular the younger generation.

In his own words Sheikh Zayed has said “the most important of our duties as rulers is to raise the standard of living of our people”.

If the heritage of the people of the UAE is important to HH Sheikh Zayed, so too, is the conservation of its natural environment and wildlife. This has led him to ensure that conservation of wildlife and the environment is a Key part of Government policy, while at the same time he has personally supervised a massive programme of afforestation that has now seen over 150 million trees planted.

We cherish our environment because it is an integral part of our country, our history and our heritage. On land and in the sea, our forefathers lived and survived in this environment. They were able to do so only because they recognized the need to live and to preserve it for succeeding generations’.

Regarding internationally as an environmental visionary, UAE President, H H Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, was honoured with the World Wide Fund Gold Panda Award: He was the first sitting Head of State to be honoured with this Award.

Commenting on the award to him of the Gold Panda, H H Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, has the final word:

“With God’s will.................we shall continue to work to protect our environment and our wildlife, as did our forefathers before us. It is a duty – and, if we fail, our children, rightly, will reproach us for squandering an essential part of their inheritance and our heritage”

Regarding internationally as a crusader for conservation of environment H H Sheikh Zayed’s belief is reflected through the importance given to the UAE’s National Environment Day, Environmental Award – the most prestigious being the “Zayed International prize for Environment” which is the world’s largest environmental prize. This prize recognizes and encourages environmental achievements that have substantial impact on policies and actions in line with the vision and philosophy of Sheikh Zayed.

Regarding the need to set high standards to be achieved especially in the field of environment FECC became the first government institution in the Middle East and Africa to obtain ISO 9002 international quality certificate.

UNDP and FECC are working towards introducing quality management systems in almost al areas and especially in environment inspection and monitoring. These high standard set are continuously monitored and upgraded to provide UAE with a cleaner greener environment.

City Farming is a United Nations Development Programme acclaimed scientific technique. It uses indigenous technology for recycling organic waste in the same premises it is generated and simultaneously growing agricultural and beautification plant from the same (organic waste). It is a scientific patented technique which is lauded nationally and internationally. It is a technique which emphasizes the harmonious balance of science with nature. The success of the City farming technique lies in its simplicity and adaptability to various environment conditions.

Dr . R.T. Doshi , city-bred intellectual now residing in Mumbai, India, has experimental with an innovative package of workable farming practices that enables city dwellers to grow their own food on every available square inch of urban space, including terraces and balconies, if they so desire.

None of the innovations Dr. Doshi recommends requires heavy expenditure, equipment or subsidies, Neither does the farming the proposes require long hours of work. Every member of the family can be involved in the maintenance of the city food garden, including the old. The food garden provides the family with ample nutrition from plant sources, eliminating the need to purchase one’s vegetables and fruits from the market. Where inflation makes a mockery of housewives’ budgets.

2. THE PROBLEM OR SITUATION BEING ADDRESSED BY THE PRACTICE/INNOVATIVE EXPERIECE

Dr. R.T. Doshi was an economist before he commenced farming. Prior to this, he was associated with the marketing of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) fertilizers, micronutrients, organic manure, etc. After retirement, he worked on his farm at Kamshet near Pune and discovered the immeasurable problems farmers face. He discovered that if farmer include the costs of their labour in the calculation of farm profit and loss. All farms would be uneconomical. This led him to think very seriously about reducing the costs of farming including labour.

There were also other problems associated with food production for persons living in urban areas. One is the cost of food, which continues to spiral because it is subject to inflation. The other is the quality.

The production of food, particularly vegetables and fruits, in many countries of the South is carried out in rural areas and often involves transport over long distances. The lack of an active linkage between such producers and consumers has led to several undesirable practices that place urban populations at risk.

One of the most important of these issues is the present farming practice of dousing most agricultural produce, from grapes to cabbages, with toxic chemical pesticides to enable them to maintain their outward appearance for fetching better prices. Institutional facilities like laboratories which can investigate toxic pesticide residues in market produce are almost non-existent in many countries of the South. Even in countries like India where such facilities do exist, actual investigations and sampling can be frightfully expensive and no institution, not even the government, is really willing to pay such costs,

One of the alternative to this unhealthy scenario is to stimulate urban dwellers to grow their own food, particularly vegetables and fruits in their own backgardens. However agricultural production of any kind is seen as impossible in urban areas simply because most land is covered up in bitumen and available space in seen to be more profitable if diverted for real estate development instead of being utilised for growing of vegetables. Cities swallow up agricultural fields with impunity, especially in countries of the South.

In these circumstances, Dr. Doshi’s city-garden methods are a major innovation and qualify easily for good-practice status. Dr. Doshi has perfected a method of growing vegetables and fruits for domestic consumption in available covered urban spaces including terraces and balconies, and utilising even the walls of civil constructions. He has shown how it is not at all necessary to think that food should only be grown in fields, with expensive irrigation facilities and mechanical equipment like ploughs, harrows and tractors. This has opened up possibilities in the imaginations of urban dwellers of raising nutritionally acceptable food close at hand, within their own premises. In addition, since Dr. Doshi recommends only organic methods of farming, food grown in such city garden is safe from toxic residues and can be consumed without any anxiety. Dr. Doshi’s methods involve neither extra time nor money, but produce net gains, his gardening materials include sugarcane waste from nearby sugarcane juice vendors and spent polyethylene bags which are normally used to pack cement or fertiliser and are useless thereafter. These cost next to nothing. The only item for which some payment may be necessary is soil, if this is not available in the close neighborhood. Nothing more is required for the urban gardener to begin a thriving garden producing whole some vegetables for his family “the Doshi way”.

Dr. Doshi today grows vegetables, pulses, fruits and cereals on the terrace of his bungalow in Mumbai located in one of the crowded areas of the city.

He has raised mango. Fig and guava plants and also harvested bananas and sugarcane stalks. All these crops Dr. Doshi raises only for self-consumption and not for sale in any market. He enjoys the exercise tending to the city farm entails and also of course, the ample fruits of his labours.

Dr. Doshi innovative practice have now been adopted by several families in not just Mumbai but adjoining cities like Pune as well , leading to a profusion of city vegetable gardens and improving local environments family nutrition and public health overall.

3. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRACTICE / INNOVATIVE EXPERIENCE AND ITS MAIN FEATURES

Since it is no longer possible to even imagine the availability of fields for planting vegetables in most cities. Dr. doshi came up with the unusual idea of planting soil in containers or cylinders of different kinds. This ensured also that only limited quantities of soil need be used. Only the root zone of the plant need be given soil and nothing more. In any case, more is simply not possible.

For instance, Dr. Doshi uses high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bags (of the kind used to pack 50 kg of cement or fertilizers) which have a diameter of around 9 inches and a length also of around 9 inches, in growing vegetables and cereals.

For bigger crops like sugarcane, HDPE bags with larger diameters are essential (14 inches). Fruits trees like fig, guava and mango have to be grown in bags which have a diameter from 18 to 21 inches. The bags must be open at both ends: hence the base of the bag must also be cut open.

After selection of the appropriate bags according to size, the next step is to fill them up with soil. If soil is put as it is into the bags, it will fall out the other end which has also been opened. To prevent this, the bottom half of the bag is tightly packed with biomass of any kind. Dr. Doshi himself often uses waste sugarcane stalks which he collects from the sugarcane juice vendor outside his house. The material is free and the sugarcane juice vendor is glad to be rid of it. Left to itself, it attracts flies. Dr. Doshi makes good use of it as a base for the sacks, functioning as a kind of giant plug which will keep the soil in but is, at the same time, sufficiently porous to allow the water given to the plants to drain out easily.

After the base has been plugged, so to speak, 25% of the bag space that remains is filled with compost, either made in the house or purchased from garden stores. Dr. Doshi makes his compost by putting cow dung, organic material and water in polyethylene bags and leaving them alone for six weeks.

Compost can be made in hundreds of ways, but Dr. Doshi’s method requires the least amount of labour and trouble and is ideal for city homes since the bags are kept closed and there is no chance of them being infested with vermin or other undesirable insects like cockroaches.

The remaining portion of the standing HDPE bag is now filled with mal garden soil and the bag is ready for planting Approximately 2 to 4 liters of soil would be required for every sq ft of area. The bags are now soaked with water two to three times and then the water is allowed to dry up. Now one is ready to plant the seeds.

Seeds should be carefully selected: they can be taken from one’s kitchen (groundnut, cereals like wheat ) or bought from the store. The important point here is how one plant the planting Dr. Doshi suggests the idea of “chain planting” by which plants are raised as per a schedule that provides for small quantities of vegetable at staggered intervals and not a large quantity all at once, as is usually the practice in large vegetable farms growing for the market where bulk and quantity are important considerations, given the costs of transport. Either seeds cutting or grafts can be placed in the bag and with the right amount of watering, they begin to take root and flourish. Seeds may be placed ½ to ¾ inch below the soil level. After three weeks have passed and the plant has emerged fully from the soil, leaves may be given foliar sprays. Pets should be dealt with, as far as possible, with non-toxic sprays and concoctions which can be made at home, including neem extract.

The city farming efforts of Dr. Doshi owe much to the insights of Dabholkar’s Prayog Parivar (more of which in the following section) Today scientist admit that most of the energy of the plant (95% in fact) comes from the atmosphere and only 5% from soil. Doshi argues that solar energy can replace soil in cities since solar energy is available in plenty on terraces and balconies. Looked at from this point of view, city spaces are ideal for such farming.

Water use in the” Doshi system” is also considerably less than in conventional farming. Since the plant grows in sealed bags or tyres or other cylindrical bags or containers, considerably less water need be given compared to if it were receiving the water while growing on soil in open fields where most of the water would leach undergound or even evaporate since the area of evaporation would be extremely and unconfined.

4. DESCRIPTION OF THE INSITITUION RESPONSIBLE AND ITS ORGANISAITONAL ASPECTS.

What Dr. Doshi has done is to put into practice the ideas propagated by the Prayog Parivar, an institution set up by Shripal Achyut Dabholkar from Kolhapur, also located in Maharshtra. The word “prayog” means experiment or effort while “parivar” (family) isused to signify a sense of belonging and togetherness till success in the experiment achieved.

Dabholkar has influeenced thousands of individuals all over the country with his natural farming idea in which the best of indigenous farming practices is combined with the best modern thinking.

The essence of the Prayog Parivar movement is the regular meetings of farmers groups to discuss practical problems they face in their fields and to provide them access at the same time to the best of scientific practice, whether indigenous or modern.

Dabholkar is convinced that it is possible to feed an entire family on ¼ acre of land (or 1,000 sq.m) if people follow his system. Doshi has refined it further. He says he grows his requirements of vegetables and fruits in an area of 1,200 sq.ft.

Dr. Doshi candidly admits that he has been heavily influenced by the ideas and practical advice of the Prayog Parivar. He is not a farmer nor an agriculturalist by training, but his innovations are the result of close observation, experience and frank discussions with the Prayog Parivar. More important, as one can see when one visits his terrace farm in Mumbai, whatever he dues he does successfully and can be replicated by other elsewhere.

The impact of the practice of city farming is clear, Following Dr. Doshi’s lead, urban folk are now growing their own quantities of vegetable and fruits without having to depend all the times on markets. Marketed food is expensive often because the cost of transport has to be added to it. It is also often hazardous: no one quite knows what amount of pesticides and pesticide residues will be found in the foods purchased from the market.

Dr. Doshi’s agriculture precludes the use of chemicals and presticides. For this reason, it is also safe. Since it dones not require much time and money and relies on using wastes from nearby sources, it is an important form of sustainable agriculture.

The urban farming methods developed by Dr. Doshi are suitable for any scale of operation: his own plot is a mere 1,200 sq ft of terrace space. On this, he grows an enormous variety of fruits, vegetables and cereals. He has also raised 1,000 sugarcane plants. Similar or larger plots can also use this method since the techniques used are easily replicated and rely very much on materials available in the local environment.

Dr. Doshi’s good practices could have a significant impact on policies relating to food production. Today, most governments have fallen into the trap of relegating all good production to the countryside. However, new policies supporting such forms of urban agriculture should now be entertained.

Urban farming brings the health and other benefits (including recreation and physical exercise) associated with rural agriculture to city folk.

Farms of the kind raised by Dr. Doshi can help bring down prices in the market for obvious reasons. Even if the vegetables and fruits produced are not destined for the market, their availability to several households in the cities can help reduce scarcity generally.

Dr. Doshi’s social innovations promoting successful urban or city farming are simple enough to be promoted among city dwellers in different countries. The practitioner himself has written a detailed booklet on city farming which lists out detailed steps for those wishing to get into urban farming immediately. The book also advises on the economics of the operations and provides pointers for dealing with pests.

Another useful book is Planty for All- Prayog Parivar Metholology , which contains critical details, photos, pictures, tables etc. and it written by Prof Dabholkar himself.

In general, the techniques propagated are not expensive and rely on materials available close by. These are no requirements of heavy equipment or even light equipment. But the results are there for all to see and, if lucky, to taste.