The urban agriculture revolution

Jennifer Cockrall-King

Preface by Marie Eisenmann and Vincent Galarneau

Translated from English Geneviève Boulanger

In search of alternatives to the agro-industrial system, which is so harmful to health and the environment, men and women from all over the world have been mobilizing for about fifteen years to bring food production and distribution back to the heart of our cities. Combining ancestral agricultural know-how and ecological innovations, more and more of them are launching into local organic production. A little chaotic, totally free and spontaneously decentralized, it is the revolution of urban agriculture!

In this captivating account, which reads like a travel diary, Jennifer Cockrall-King meets the movement's protagonists and bears witness to the proliferation of initiatives underway in a dozen cities in Europe and North America as well as in Cuba. Tomato and herb plants on balconies, chicken coops in backyards, beehives on roofs, urban vineyards, community gardens, intensive market gardening in commercial greenhouses, food forests, aquaponics, vertical farms: these practices, respectful of the Earth, suggest a major shift not only in the way we eat, but also in our very conception of urban space.

Let's stop being simple consumers of food and grow our food, at least in part! This book, enriched with a new chapter on Montreal by Éric Duchemin and Jean-Philippe Vermette, will provide sources of inspiration and motivation to all those who are concerned about their diet and who wish to reconnect with their environment . As one urban farmer Jennifer Cockrall-King met said: “This is […] just the tip of the iceberg!”

Canadian release 2016

Pages 328