Urban Leaves India (Maharashtra Nature Park community farm)
Mumbai, India · Operator: Urban Leaves India (Vidya Vaardhi Trust)
Overview
A Mumbai city-farming movement that opened a community farm on space offered by the director of Maharashtra Nature Park. Aiming for a community farm in every suburb, it spreads organic growing through terrace farms and school programmes.
Citizen participation
Citizens join as volunteers at the community farm inside Maharashtra Nature Park, taking part in weekend work and 'Naturally Treated' method workshops. Schoolchildren and home growers also register their terrace farms and receive training in urban organic cultivation.
Operating model
Run as a community-empowerment programme of Vidya Vaardhi Trust, supported by free space from the park, workshop fees, volunteers and donations.
Impact
Registered 40+ terrace farms across Mumbai and ran training for children from around 100 schools. It demonstrates turning waste land into an urban oasis and has inspired urban farmers across India.
Land tenure
The community-farm land is provided free to Urban Leaves by Maharashtra Nature Park.
Crops
- vegetables
- herbs
- greens
Scale
Community farm within Maharashtra Nature Park, Mahim; 40+ registered terrace farms across Mumbai and school workshops reaching ~100 schools.
Sources(3)
This entry is compiled from the public sources, official sites and research below.
Related cases
CERES Community Environment Park
AUMelbourne, Australia
Established in 1982 on a reclaimed 10-acre former landfill near Melbourne, CERES is an environment park and urban farm combining environmental education, urban agriculture, and social enterprise.
ceres.org.au+1
Jardins Partagés (Main Verte), Paris
FRParis, France
A shared-garden framework based on the City of Paris's 2003 'Main Verte' (Green Hand) charter, under which resident associations run gardens on city plots, committing to public access, events, composting and organic growing to spread social bonds and greenery.
paris.fr+1
Kaipatiki Community Compost Hub (Auckland)
NZAuckland, New Zealand
A neighborhood compost hub in Auckland's Kaipatiki that accepts residents' bokashi food scraps, turns them into compost for a teaching garden, and offers free workshops via Compost Collective in pursuit of the city's 2040 zero-waste goal.
kaipatiki.nz+2
Zhuanghang Community Garden
CNShanghai, China
Completed July 2020, a large ~5.2-hectare community garden in Zhuanghang Town, Fengxian District. Drawing on the area's rice-farming identity, it is an open agricultural park centred on children's farming experiences and food education.
mooool.com+1