Urban Agriculture Casablanca (UAC)
Casablanca, Morocco · Operator: TU Berlin with Moroccan partners, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF Future Megacities programme)
Overview
A large research-action project asking whether urban agriculture can make growing megacities more climate-efficient. Set in Greater Casablanca, its model of multifunctional urban agriculture as an urban-planning tool was published as a book and has influenced planning approaches linking urban and rural spheres.
Citizen participation
A German-Moroccan transdisciplinary research project (2005-2014) within the BMBF megacity research programme on energy- and climate-efficient urban structures. Linking urban agriculture, urban development and climate change, its pilot projects—healthy food production in informal settlements, wastewater reuse, agro-tourism—brought residents, farmers, authorities and researchers together.
Operating model
A demonstration project funded by German federal research grants (BMBF). Through its pilots it tested pathways for institutionalising urban agriculture as open-space provision and climate adaptation within Casablanca's urban growth.
Impact
Became a pioneering case for systematising urban agriculture as climate adaptation and planning, cited in policy and research in Morocco and beyond. After the project ended, TU Berlin has continued developing its approach of treating food as infrastructure in urbanising regions.
Crops
- vegetables
- herbs
Scale
Nine-year German-Moroccan research-action project (2005-2014) with pilot projects in the Grand Casablanca region, a metropolis expected to grow from 3.7 million (2004) toward 5 million by 2030
Sources(3)
This entry is compiled from the public sources, official sites and research below.
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