The project “1000 sustainable gardens for Africa” launched by Slow Food in the continent vies to double or grow four-fold in the Mediterranean under a project presented last week in Cairo.
The plan, as summed up by the initiative’s website, vies to create vegetable gardens that are ‘”tasty, clean and right for schools and villages” in order to “guarantee to communities fresh and healthy food, as well as creating a network of people who are aware of the value of their land and culture.
The idea is to promote a concept of very small gardens that can be managed by schools, communities, or a family.”
Plans for 2015 are to bring up the number of vegetable gardens in Tunisia from 19 to 40, from 26 to 95 in Morocco and from 18 to 88 in Egypt, according to a map shown by Sara al-Sayed, president of the Cairo Convivium and member of the council of Slow Food International.
The initiative of the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity that kicked off in 2012 and mainly focuses on eastern Africa, has reached 1,410 units, exceeding the original objective of 1,000 gardens, the head of the project recalled, and vies this year to a fourth Mediterranean country, Algeria, with five gardens.
In Egypt, the gardens are mostly concentrated (13) in Cairo; and six are in Fayoum, some 130 km south-east of the capital, added Sayed at the conference that took place at the Italian culture institute in the Egyptian capital and organised by the national coordinator of Slow Food for Egypt, Diego Giuffrè.
Watani International
6 February 2015