Biyem-Assi urban agriculture programme, Yaoundé (Cameroon)
Yaoundé (Biyem-Assi), Cameroon · Operator: PROTEGE QV（カメルーンの環境・生活改善NGO、1995年設立）／Alternatives（カナダ・モントリオール）
Overview
An urban agriculture programme (2013–2014) in the working-class district of Biyem-Assi in Cameroon's capital Yaoundé, aimed at reducing poverty and food insecurity among residents. Because arable land is scarce and soil contamination common in the city, Alternatives brought in the soil-free (hors-sol) growing techniques it had developed on Montreal rooftops and spread them among neighbourhood women's groups, market vendors, and school pupils and their families. The work combined building vegetable gardens and a school garden with income-generating activity, a training programme and educational materials.
Citizen participation
Around 150 women from neighbourhood groups, 10 market vendors and 200 pupils of the Les Pigeons primary and secondary school with their families took part. Alongside growing, they were involved in income-generating activities, an urban-agriculture training programme and the production of educational materials (a teaching guide, radio programming and an information kiosk). Ten interns from Quebec joined through an international internship programme.
Operating model
A joint project between the Canadian international-cooperation NGO Alternatives and the Cameroonian NGO PROTEGE QV, funded through Quebec's international cooperation programme Québec sans frontières and the Louise Grenier Foundation (2013–2014).
Impact
A case of transferring North American rooftop and soil-free growing techniques into an African city where both land and clean soil are hard to secure. Its distinguishing features are that it spread through organisations that already existed in the neighbourhood — women's groups, market vendors, a school — and that it left durable teaching materials behind in the form of a guide and radio programming. Roughly one in ten residents of the city is said to practise agriculture in some form, so this was diffusion on top of an existing base. Whether the activity continued after the project ended cannot be confirmed from published sources.
Land tenure
Crops
- 葉菜
- 野菜全般
Scale
地区の女性団体150人、市場の売り手10人、小中学校（Les Pigeons）の生徒200人とその家族が対象
Sources（2）
This entry is compiled from the public sources, official sites and research below.
Related cases
Rooftop Gardens Program in West Bank Refugee Camps (UNRWA)
PSDheisheh / Bethlehem, Palestine
With little access to farmland and about 40% of West Bank refugees food-insecure, this program uses shelter rooftops so families can grow vegetables. It began with roughly 11 families in Dheisheh camp and is envisioned to expand to other West Bank camps to reduce aid dependence and build self-reliance.
unrwa.org+1
ANERA Rooftop Gardens, Nahr el-Bared Camp
LBTripoli / Nahr el-Bared, Lebanon
An ANERA project spreading low-cost rooftop gardening with recycled containers among residents of a Palestinian refugee camp destroyed and rebuilt after the 2007 fighting. Residents such as 62-year-old Om Maher grow vegetables, herbs and fruit trees on their roofs, supporting food security and the rebuilding of their lives.
anera.org+2
Mexico City Rooftop Agriculture Grant Program
MXMexico City, Mexico
Mexico City municipal government has issued grants to over 3,000 residents since 2007 to promote rooftop agriculture. Community projects like Miravalle provide environmental education and agriculture workshops.
foodtank.com
Urban Farming School at Tulla Culture Centre (rooftop greenhouse, Tirana, Albania)
ALTirana, Albania
An urban-farming school in central Tirana, taught in a greenhouse built on the rooftop terrace of the Tulla Culture Centre. It began in 2022 with funding from GIZ Albania and holds growing classes every Thursday evening, raising roughly 300 plants a season — tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and spinach — chosen to suit the local climate. Tirana once had a culture of families keeping small allotments, but it faded as green space was taken over by construction. The school gives equal weight to recovering those lost skills and to building connections between people.
etf.europa.eu