Urban Farmers Punto Com: English Version

Who are we?

We are an urban youth group dedicated to developing school, home, and community gardens with the purpose of preparing the population of our country to face a possible food crisis. The type of agriculture we promote is an ecological one, since we do not use pesticides or chemical fertilizers. The other facet of the project is the creation of blogs that accompany each garden that we do. When you join a field activity (garden) with a virtual activity (blogs) we obtain a higher dissemination of the project, and therefore the compromise for maintaining the garden and the participating opportunities increases because of the diverse activities. We became agents of the learning dissemination obtained from in school on gardens and the management of technological communication, thus impacting populations who were less favorable of participating.

What do we do?

We coordinate, with public and private schools who are interested in creating a garden, a visit to evaluate the area to be transformed. In each visit, we direct schools or communities on what they have to do, so when the day of the creation of the garden arrives, they are prepared. Once this day arrives, we proceed to transform the pre-selected space and convert it into a school or community garden.

The transformation of our first edible garden at Colegio Rosa-Bell in Guaynabo, PR

What is the problem solved?

Puerto Rico is a small island that imports about 85% of the food consumed. Modernization has moved away from agriculture and today hardly practiced. It has raised the alarm about a possible food crisis for the island. Few people know how to produce food. Our project is aimed to solve the problem of food availability.

How is it solved?

When we make a garden in a school or community, the students and/or residents learn by doing the garden themselves. They realize that they have the potential of producing food. This makes us less dependent of food imports. At the same time, when we teach them to create a blog about their own garden, this makes

the project more reachable and foments interaction between certain communities or schools so that they may share experiences or even agricultural products.

Who benefits?

It benefits the entire Puerto Rican community. According to experts, with existing land availability, Puerto Rico can produce between 90 to 70 percent of the food consumed. Most of the population is urban and doesn’t practice any agriculture. This project provides information and practical techniques for developing edible yards and disseminates them to the internet.

What is so innovative about this project?

In our country there is no one taking this knowledge to schools and urban communities. The ecological concept makes it innovative because we count on the organic farming since it is more economical, environmentally friendly, and healthier. What stands out is the technology integration project we do when we create a blog that documents all activity in the garden, thus allowing greater dissemination. On the web page www.urbanfarmerspuntocom.blogspot.com is a directory with all the addresses of all the gardens we create. This facilitates dissemination of information and interaction between communities and schools participating in the project.