Milan was inspiring! I enjoyed a lovely visit to Orti di via Padova community garden where the president and one of the board members showed me around their very active garden. People kept on coming in and out of the gate whilst I was there and they had so many different projects going on from bees and compost to a university study on aquaponice.
Then it was off to meet with Cecile from the Sectetariat for the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. I have to admit to being quite sceptical about this visit, thinking that it was just another one of “those documents” that everyone signs but does nothing about like the Paris Agreement. It was so brilliant to be proven well and truly wrong on this one!
The MUFPP has actually had quite a profound impact. There are now 240 cities around the globe signed up (including City of Sydney and Melbourne - well done guys) and the excellent framework that has been laid out by Milan has actually really helped all these cities to make super positive and very quick changes to support urban agricultural activities including community gardens.
Celcile took me through multiple examples where cities have made real change that has had outstanding impact on the community such as in Dakar in Senegal, a city with little to no green space in the urban environment. Since signing the pact they have actively promoted rooftop gardening, particularly during the pandemic when supply chains were so slow that access to food became a major issue. These rooftop gardens are not only providing families with food but are also providing women with income from the sale of excess produce, giving them a measure of independence and the ability to improve both their own, and the lives of their children.
They are now looking to update the framework as the community of practice that has evolved with signatory cities has provided a diverse realm of knowledge and many exceptional examples they are learning from. To say I was inspired by this meeting is an understatement. I walked away truly knowing that when we band together we really can produce positive change on a large scale. I salute the City of Milan for being the instigator of this important work and really hope we can encourage many more cities around the world to sign up and make change. This is one really solid way we can help to create a secure food future for our world.