Red de Huerta (Urban Garden Network), Pilar, Paraguay

A garden network started in 2003 across four barrios of Pilar, a provincial city in southern Paraguay. Aimed at food and nutrition security, it spread by having residents themselves build fences and beds, record how they grew things, and pass the methods to neighbouring families. Distinctively, it paired well-building with educational stipends and scholarships so the gardens also became a route into further study. The project closed in 2022.

Youth and families from the barrios did the work — building fencing, raising beds, sowing seed-starter boxes, maintaining the garden and harvesting — and kept journals so they could pass the methods on to other families. Participating young people received monthly educational stipends.

Funded by the US non-profit Sustainable Living Foundation and started by Peace Corps volunteers working in the area. Eight wells and a demonstration plot were built, and four participants received college scholarships. It ran from 2003 to 2022 and has since ended.

Over 19 years it supported 35 family gardens, sank eight wells and put four participants through college on scholarships. Among Latin American urban-agriculture cases dominated by big cities, it stands as a long-running resident-led effort in a small provincial city.

This entry is compiled from the public sources, official sites and research below.

• OfficialParaguay Garden Project — Sustainable Living Foundation（公式） ↗zimbabweparaguay.net