---

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors, especially in names. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment in the audio.

0:01Who are the characters behind science? This is Science Behind the Glass, illuminated in a human sight. In this podcast, we unveil the human sight of laboratories and science. Scientists share personal experiences and will discuss their meanings from different perspectives and fields of research. Welcome to Science Behind the Glass, where we explore the fascinating intersection of science, society, and sustainability through captivating conversations with experts in their field. In this episode… We are thrilled to welcome Rachel Watts, a passionate human geographer and environmental manager, currently pursuing her PhD at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia. Rachel’s research delves deep into transformative power of urban gardening and community engagement, shedding light on the crucial topics of food resilience, environmental belonging, and the challenges posed by rapid urbanization. Welcome, Rachel. And to start… Can you tell us your path in science and what sparked your passion for gardening and community engagement with the urban environment? Thank you for having me. What sparked my passion? So I, it’s been a lifelong passion. I grew up very rural and mostly self -sufficient till about seven with my family and obviously learned how to garden and procure food.

1:26And when I was 11 or 12, we moved to the city and we sort of became aware quite quickly that the kids in the city had a different relationship to their food than we had. They didn’t know where it came from. They didn’t want to know where it came from necessarily. And this felt really odd to us. And obviously we sort of adapted to that city lifestyle and stopped procuring our own food very quickly. And it wasn’t until I was about 19 studying dietetics that I found out that Washed spinach, when you buy it in the store, washed lettuce, anything in a bag is washed in a chlorine solution to prevent salmonella.

2:03That was really shocking to me because I’d grown up just eating it from the ground and being like, well, it’s from the ground. Like, why would we need to wash something in chlorine to make sure that we can eat it? And I was the only person shocked in the class. And so I immediately left that degree and went into environmental management, hoping to understand more about food systems and sustainable agriculture, climate smart agriculture. And from there, it just sort of sparked a passion for gardening again. And then when I moved to give oil cans to do my honors with my supervisor, I joined a community garden to grow my own food because I didn’t live in a place where I could grow my own food. And it was on my university campus. And I realized, A, people were getting their food from this garden that were involved in it that lived on campus or like me. We also found like a sense of belonging to the environment, which was really awesome moving from temperate Australia to tropical Australia or wet tropical Australia, which is even more different. And then it just sort of rolled on from there. I think it just sort of all fit together really nicely. Like all of the building blocks of my life sort of led to becoming passionate about feeding people in urban environments and helping them understand about where their food comes from and how to get food that doesn’t need to be washed in chemical solutions. That’s quite inspiring. I never questioned about that. I didn’t either until I found out about it. And your research focused on the intersection of food resilience, environmental appropriation, and urbanization.

3:30Could you elaborate on why these topics are crucial, especially in today’s rapidly changing world? Yeah, so food resilience is probably the first one. That shocked, also shocked me, but it’s the one I’m most passionate about. And it’s, you know, I think the FAO say every, or the UN, sorry, say that every city in the world is classified as food vulnerable and food vulnerability is sort of tied in with food resilience. And then the next step is food security. So to be food vulnerable means we don’t have the means or the knowledge to procure or acquire our own food.

4:04That means that, you know, we don’t have, we don’t understand how to grow it, what actually, what it takes to grow it. And we don’t have the means. We don’t have the space. We don’t have the land. You know, if you want to feed yourself entirely out of your garden, you need traditionally quite a large, a very, very large space and a lot of time to be able to dedicate towards growing and picking. So that’s a big one for me, understanding that every single one of us, I think we all live in cities, is probably food vulnerable in the event that a disaster occurs or something like COVID that shuts down transport. You know, we see rapidly how concerned people are. become about being able to access fruit and vegetables which are necessary for you know daily nutritional needs and then urbanization is a big one obviously our cities are getting bigger we live in them for a reason they’re fast easy convenient they come with more people more community traditionally or the idea of it and we are taking up more agricultural land we’re taking up more national park or native land wild land not national parks thank goodness um and so We’re slowly sprawling into all of these available areas where we could have been growing food before, or we were growing food and we’re now not. And so as we continue to do this, I think the question becomes more of like, instead of getting the food from regional to urban, how do we grow food in the urban? Because it’s just becoming less and less viable to feed so many people. And environmental belonging is a big one. It’s important to understand where you are because otherwise you don’t know how to interact with it. You don’t know what to grow.

5:33I remember moving here and trying to grow tomatoes in summer. because I came from a temperate region where you grow tomatoes in summer and tomatoes in Gimoy in the wet tropics only grow in winter. And so that was just like, it flips everything when you move around. And, you know, we traditionally, as far back as you go, as I come together is, you know, your environment, you know how to work with it. And we slowly, slowly lost touch with this. Even living in cities, we don’t get exposure to as much nature. So we don’t really understand what is needed or what’s actually happening out there in the wild or in the natural environment as much. And so I think that that’s just, it’s important to have a sense of environmental belonging before you can even begin to garden and do it properly. But I think through gardening, you can also build that sense of environmental belonging.

6:16Right. So you were explaining to us how community gardens contribute to communities’ resilience and food security. Can you explain to us how community gardens contribute to people well -being and social capital within urban environments? Yeah, so. Well -being is a big field in community garden research. How do I put this? Like you garden and you feel better. There is this concept of grounding hands in the soil sort of thing.

6:45A lot of people think that it’s a bit left field, but what I think it is is that the garden is quite a quiet space. Time is very different in the garden. You have to devote a lot of care and nurturing and compassion towards plants to let them grow. You have to begin to understand the soil. You have to pay attention to really… minute things which sort of allows you to drown out everything else and so mentally it’s very therapeutic they use it they use community gardens and gardening in general in therapeutic care in ot care in prisons in schools to encourage people to just take a bit take a bit take a beat and slow down a little bit so mental well -being is huge in the garden they also use it for migrants especially in melbourne there’s a big field there big research field there community gardens for migrants where They’ve relocated to a new country, obviously, and there’s this disconnection. They’re a bit displaced in the environment. And so in order to be able to keep connection to their old culture or their culture, they garden and they plant the foods that are relevant to their culture. But they’re doing it in a new way, in a new environment that allows them to begin to understand where they are. And slowly you see this harming of the person and this understanding and this knowing of where they are, which is super helpful for someone who’s been through trauma, someone who’s had to relocate. or flee their country because they have a sense of autonomy and agency in understanding what they’re doing and they are able to express themselves and their culture through food. And then the last one was social capital. I mean, social capital, you get to know people in the garden. I can’t tell you how many times you’re in a garden and someone

8:16says, oh, what are you growing? And so you begin to build connections with the most unlikely of people. Some of being a 27 -year -old. Some of the best friends that I’ve made in the garden are well into their 80s. And so it creates intergenerational relationship, cross -cultural relationship, where, you know, someone from Papua New Guinea taught me how to harvest taro. And so I was doing it wrong. I had no idea how to do it before. But you just, you begin to engage with people that you generally wouldn’t in your day to day, whether that’s through your work situation, your school situation, your social circles, you’re opened up to this entirely different community. And so it enhances resilience. community and social capital by bridging divides that we didn’t probably didn’t even recognize were there that’s awesome it’s like a meditation doing meditation during gardening yeah it is it’s a meditation i’m socializing the social meditation yes climate change and food security are pressing global challenges how can urban agriculture participate particularly climate -smart regenerative practices, contribute to addressing these issues? This is a really good one because I think a lot of our ideas towards growing hooded cities, you know, they think it’s for like a hippie movement or they think it’s for old people. They think it’s for the tech side. So in the Netherlands where they’re growing lettuces and tomatoes in giant, I guess, smart greenhouses where they’re on rotator belts and these aquaponic systems and these artificial sunlight, that’s all well and good. And I think

9:47that is going to help beat the masses. When it comes to working with the climate and trying to actively contribute to a better climate future, we have things like syntropy or syntropic agroforestry, which is at this stage predominantly used in plantations or in people’s farms. It’s larger scale, but there is a slow growing movement in Brazil and New Zealand, I just found out, where people are doing it in urban areas and even up here in Gimoy, James Cook University. for a while was trialing at the community garden at a syntropic agroforestry system and that’s where you plant in rows and you plant companion plants you have perennials you have your annuals you have long growing plants so like your fruit trees and then you have your your quicker growing fruit trees such as like bananas and stuff which will produce within about two years so you have all of these planted together in rows so that you can walk through the rows but you chop and you drop And that idea, even though it’s just easy to remember, is you chop the foliage off of some specific plants. So bananas, let’s take a banana leaf, and you lay it down on the outside of the garden or the outside of the road that you’re on. And what it does is it traps the heat. And as it rots and as it ferments into the ground, you’re building biomass, so better soil for the plants that are continually growing. Banana leaves also carry a lot of water in them and so do their trunks. And so as you chop these plants, you’re just depositing the water straight back into the soil. And so the idea of syntropic agroforestry is to, A, capture carbon as it’s growing because you have got the long -term larger trees growing,

11:18but it’s also to fill the soil and rebuild soil with more micronutrients and what they call biomass. And biomass is, yeah, just rotting plants into the soil and you trap it with a heat barrier, which could be banana leaves or something. And so I think things like that can be done on a small scale. You could do it in your backyard with just two rows if you wanted to. Thinking about the way that we could improve our soil health in cities is probably one of the most in community gardens, in backyards, in verge gardens, in rooftop gardens. It’s one of maybe lesser rooftop gardens, but it’s one of the ways that I think cities can contribute in regards to food with planet smart agriculture. Nice.

11:59Well, we see that sometimes these kind of initiatives are promoted by governments, but many other times are promoted by… the communities itself. So what do you consider are good strategies for promoting this kind of initiatives and particularly maintaining this kind of initiatives in developing countries? Because, well, you know, sometimes it’s like the big hype of the beginning, but with the time, it may be fading. No, definitely.

12:32And I think that… That problem is synonymous with developed countries as well. But I think in developing countries, one of the first steps is to realize that people in developing countries probably have less of a generational divide between pharma and urbanite. So for instance, when I was working in Cambodia, a lot of the people that were living in cities still had very close familial ties to people living in regional areas. And so that knowledge that comes with that or that understanding or that knowledge system that they can access. It’s a lot easier. And I think one of the things we have this term in environmental management where it’s top -down, bottom -up systems.

13:08So it can’t just be delivered by the government and it can’t just be demanded by the public. It has to be a bit of both. So the government can come in and fund something, but there has to be demand from the public. And the government also has to listen to the public when they’re saying, hey, you know, we want to regenerate this drain as they’re doing in areas in India. we want to regenerate the strain and we want to put community gardens here, or we want to, you know, fill it with edible foods. And so the government can then listen to that and then all the local council and then fund it. And so I think it’s just this, these channels are very shut in, especially in developing countries.

13:43And there’s, there’s no listening to one another going on. And when there is, it’s not successfully done. And so I think one of the key strategies for promoting and sustaining open gardening initiatives in developing countries is. Probably empowering, first of all, empowering the community through education. What can you do when it comes to government action? How can you influence government action? And I think that that ends up relying on the government improving education standards in their country. We all know that education for females or for women in particular has bound effects for the community. And so educating women on the importance of adequate diet, on the importance of… Being able to encourage their children to take action on these things in a peaceful way is one of the first strategies that I think we could probably turn to. And one of the most achievable strategies because everybody, I think, does want to know how to grow their food and especially children are so curious. And so if you begin to teach children these things in schools, then you’ll probably end up having a more climate smart, more food resilient future. Maybe just not right now. Everything is a very slow change, I like to think. Yeah, that’s true. I think that in developing countries, the commitment of the community is quite important. And then once they are just like a commit to do the gardening or community garden, they can just start pushing a little bit the government because there’s more people that is involved and that is more notorious that only one person trying to do the change.

15:13But it’s not only in developing countries, but yeah. But yeah, I think it’s exemplified in developing countries. The problems we have on microscales here in developed countries of the global north, in the global south, it’s just like exemplified and amplified. And I think that we sort of forget that here in developed countries. It’s like, oh, you could just start gardening. You all know how to do that. And it’s like, well, hang on. There’s a lot more at play here. There’s a lot less talking between cultures and class. How do you envision the future of urban agriculture evolving? And what role do you see it playing in creating more sustainable and resilient cities?

15:47I see urban agriculture playing a huge role in cities as we move forward. I think not only for the fact that, you know, it enhances and bolsters food resilience, but I think because of the social capital it develops and the mental wellbeing that, you know, stems from it. But I think that planning is probably going to start to change. So I think zoning rules will start to relax when it comes to food growing. In the tropics, you can walk around and sort of pick a mango anywhere because people have planted mango trees back in the day. But at the moment, verge gardens, that strip between your footpath and the road, it’s technically council land, but you’re supposed to maintain it. And in most cities, Brisbane, like the centre of Brisbane or Minchin and Sydney, they have relaxed the laws saying that you can grow edible things there. So people have started planting edible foods in between the road and the house, which does a lot for like capturing carbon. filtering the runoff coming from the cars, the hydrocarbons. And so it’s super important thinking about the role that planning could play and the pressure you could put on your government to change the planning rules. It was changed in Brisbane because a bunch of old people basically just kept planting things and the councils were figuring it out. It was an ongoing thing during COVID that was quite fun to watch from a distance.

17:00But eventually the planning rules were relaxed there. And so I think planning is going to change in the future as we become more aware that we need to have more space to grow food and we need to have more means and different spaces, not just a plot of land that people have to go to, but somewhere like physically accessible by everybody, which is the roadside. I see technology being more involved in it. Setting up or watering a community garden is one of the hardest things. It’s on one person. You’ve got to go do it every day. But I think the more that… artificial intelligence, does it evolve then and becomes more easily accessible, then I think you would see cheaper automated watering systems that are accessible by the masses, not just by people who can afford it and then want to put it in the garden on their own means and potentially lose their own system. So I think that we’re going to see some leaps and bounds in the technology that can make these spaces a bit easier. I think that we’ll probably start seeing vertical gardens on, like such as in Singapore, they grow their vertical gardens up their walls of their city.

17:56I think that we’ll probably see those starting to be involved, which cools the city, first of all. So it’s a more pleasant city. It becomes a more walkable city. People are out and about more, which only contributes to the social capital of the city. So it only has benefits, but I think we’ll start to see that a bit more in Australia or in other countries as we realize it’s just getting hotter. Yes, that’s right. Precisely thinking on the future of these initiatives.

18:22Can you share some examples of innovative strategies or technical advances or protocols that have been employed from science or in particular in your research to address the challenges posed by urbanization and food insecurity or to enhance what is already existing and being done? Yeah, so I think it’s always, always fascinating to… My PhD was in education, so I will give a brief example of that about that. But I do think it’s always fascinating to look at what’s going on in Singapore. They’re an entirely reliant country or have been an entirely reliant country. They created artificial. like see artificial dams basically to capture the water runoff so now they are water sufficient for themselves they’ve created you know areas in the city that can flood and that captures the water and then when it goes down the park benches are still there the plants are still there because they’ve planted the right things um so i think that’s singapore in terms of planning for that and the science integrating nature into the city absolutely amazing and they’re currently working on they have a wetland they don’t grow any of their own food they import all of it as well so a very, very food vulnerable area, very food vulnerable. And what they’re doing is beginning to explore how they can grow, use like aquaponics and hydroponics to grow all of their food in very limited areas.

19:42So I think that’s a really interesting space to watch just in terms of their technological advances, their commitment to it. They have a real longevity plan. You know, they set something for 2050 and they continue to follow it. So I think that’s really important to remember that things do take a lot of time when it comes in. to actually seeing if these advances work. So I think Singapore, just in general, awesome to watch. And I think that the Netherlands, again, really important space. The Spanish food bowl is about to run out of, not about to, but it’s like slowly depleting nutrients in terms of what’s in the soil. And so thinking about how they can grow food in their cities, the Netherlands has been a leader in that for many, many years. And I think it’s going to be interesting to see how much of that food begins to feed further regions and how they adapt it. maintain it for cultures that might not be so specifically or countries that aren’t so reliant on technology. So I think that’ll be awesome. But I think one of the main things we can do is change the way we approach education towards food, not just teach children about growing, you know, some food for nutrition in terms of like tomatoes, cucumbers. I think they grow capsicums. Oh no, they won’t grow capsicums.

20:48They’ll grow zucchinis in Australia. And basil, they grow a lot of things that aren’t going to feed the family. So I think teaching children about growing crops and on small scale and different types of food and looking after their soil and regenerating it, I think that teaching children how to work with their local environment is going to be the most important way we move forward. And so that we have people growing all over Australia, all over the world that is related to their specific environment, because that is ultimately what is going to grow best where they’re living. And so they’re not going to need to use. you know, chemicals that are going to harm soil or the little insects and balls of humans, we call them in geography, living in the soil. So I think learning to use place responsive pedagogies when it comes to food education is going to be one of the biggest advances and innovative advances.

21:34It’s new for education. A lot of people don’t use place responsive pedagogies, which is where you embed your teaching in the local place. And so everything you do works with it. So it would mean that you do. sport at the appropriate hour of the day and not midday here in the tropics which is blistering hot it would mean that you grow tropical fruits and vegetables or like in the garden so you would go dragon fruit you’d grow papaya you’d grow bananas things that actually want to grow here and thrive and not tomatoes and cucumbers so I think that’s going to be one of the biggest advances that we see in terms of food is that we’re actually going to change our approach to teaching food and embed it in the entire curriculum because food relates to everything and this goes or or this can be, I guess, implemented in developing countries. So how good could be the transition? Yeah, definitely.

22:22And I think actually developing countries probably, like I know Cuba is one of those grey zones. It’s like developing, but it’s kind of also developed in its own way because of the Cold War. But they explicitly use place -responsive pedagogies in their schools now when it comes to food. Education, food is embedded in all of their studies. You know, they use maths, science. History, they even use history in the garden or on farms. And so children have a deep, deep connection to food growing up because they had to. And it would be really nice if the rest of the world didn’t get to the point where we have to change rather where we begin to change. But in terms of working with the environment, I think people probably in the global south and in developing countries have that. It’s like a little bit, they’re a little bit more connected than maybe we are in the global north. And I think that they would be easier to shift to a place of responsive pedagogy.

23:10Yeah, I think that I point out. something is that in colombia for example when in bogota and the university that danny and myself study they have a really good like a connection with um with a belgian university and they they were like passing on that knowledge regarding to greenhouses and then really fishing greenhouses and they were growing tomatoes without using any pesticides so that’s and they are just like trying to involve the farmers and trying to give them training so that was really important so i think that that’s a big contribution that they these countries like australia that could i don’t know that kind of give that that point so work together with developing countries Yeah, I think we have a duty in the global northern developed countries to work with developing countries to ensure that we’re all food resilient and that divide doesn’t just keep growing. That’s a beautiful story, though. Yeah. Because it goes both ways, no?

24:08It’s like in developing countries or in rural countries, they also have like their indigenous communities or ancestral farmers and people who already have their ways to grow food. And they have a lot of knowledge that can be applied for smaller spaces or be more productive or I don’t know, any kind of challenge that we face today in farming. Definitely. And I think like just quickly, one of my friends did her PhD with Uganda and I think it was communities in Melbourne and in social housing, so migrant refugee communities.

24:48They lived in social housing in one block and they ripped the fences out of the backyard and they turned it into a communal farm. So all the properties became, yes, there were still separate houses and a few fences involved, but they became like one big system of producing food for each other. And I think like that concept of removing the fence, like we fence things in the West. That’s just what we’ve always done. And I think that idea of removing the fence really contributes to that idea of building social capital. increasing food resilience for everybody on your block.

25:20And I think that’s something we could probably take here in the West or in Australia where we are like, okay, well, maybe if we just move these fences, we’d have more space to actually grow things. True. And, well, this is the questions that we have, but we want to hear from you a personal experience during this beautiful career path that you have. A beautiful experience. I mean, other than just like seeing the kids very excited, always that I worked with when it came to food, that was awesome. And I probably, there’s a few that come to mind, but one that really comes to mind is the wellbeing effects of gardening and its influence it can have on education. So the school that I worked with has an at -risk youth program, which the at -risk youth, the kids that are disengaged with learning. It was all boys, the boys that didn’t want to be in the classroom. They weren’t doing well. The teachers found it really frustrating and distracting to have them in there. And so they started a gardening program with their school counselor or their youth support worker. And basically these boys would garden and it was really calming for them.

26:24They built garden beds. They began to plant things. They were really passionate about it. They became very invested in like, you know, they were trying to grow mint and it kept dying in the sun. And then someone found a book in a library on plants and found out that mint needs wet feet and so he was like oh we have to plant it near the taps like it so that when we turn the taps off the water just runs into it and the mint has been growing ever since So they’re learning these things about gardening in a way that they would learn in the classroom, but they’re particularly passionate about it because they have a lot of control and they have a lot of agency and they’re respected. Like they see success. It’s immediate when something is thriving and it teaches them resilience because, you know, oh, I can’t get my mint to grow. It keeps dying. Let’s revisit this. And there was one child in particular who is probably like the top of the most difficult students at the school. He became really passionate about the compost and just thought it was the coolest thing that you could turn food waste into soil. And he became really involved in it and really proud of it. And so the support worker was like, okay, hey, to the English teacher, like if I can get him to write reports, if I can get him to do something about this, like write a report, do a PowerPoint, do a presentation, like could he pass English? Could he get his tick to say that, yeah, he can go to high school?

27:38And the teacher sort of thought about it and was like. Good luck with it. Yeah, if he writes a report, if he does a presentation, he can do it. And this kid was just so excited to do that. And he ended up getting up on the whole school assembly. So every child from prep to year six was there. And he got up and did a presentation on the benefits of composting and why it’s important that we should all do it. And his little at -risk youth friends that were in that gardening club with him got up with him, sort of held their hands across the chest. But he gave a presentation that dug into the science of it that… was very literate so he spelt everything correctly he got up he gave a beautiful presentation he spoke clearly he ended up getting the passing grade for english for that term and i think it just goes to show that you can really change someone’s schooling experience by giving this up following that passion and working with it and it just so happens that composting in the tropics is super easy because it’s so hot and it all rots really quickly and so i just That is like one of the biggest success stories for me that they took someone who was traditionally really, really disruptive. And like, even I had difficulties with him and they made him really passionate about coming to school. Granted, he may have only come to school on Fridays when gardening was on, but he came to school on Fridays and that’s awesome. Like it gave him a reason to want to learn. So I think that’s one that really, really stands out. That’s fantastic. Yeah. I’m changing. I’m working with kids. Yeah. and those kind of things can be useful not only for kids but i was thinking maybe from people who are

29:10in jail and that also have like different ways to to express the their situation and like a constructive way to express themselves and everything i think that that is like a good idea it’s an awesome idea sydney botanical gardens does it with prisons in australia at the moment but it’s a it’s a growing field i think they do it a lot in developing countries um and they do it a lot in the us but in australia here there’s less there’s less research and less like ben the benefits are less seen of gardening and so i think it’s a field that we haven’t tapped into yet but it just changes people’s lives and it’s yeah it’s beautiful you’re right yeah it’s an amazing bond that you just growing the plant and putting out the air for Just like this waiting there. Three months you’ll eat your tomato and you’re like, oh my God, this is the best tomato I’ve ever eaten. The pleasure of growing it and waiting.

30:04Thank you very much, Rachel, for your time, for being here and sharing all this amazing experience and your knowledge with us, with the public. And put it in simple words. Thank you so much. I think putting science in simple words is the most important thing. But thank you for having me. It’s a brilliant podcast and great questions. Outstanding interview. Many individuals may recognize the term food security, but may not understand its significance and implications. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines food security as a fundamental essence of ensuring that everyone has consistent access to safe and nutritious food, enabling them to lead active and healthy lives. However, one significant aspect of an overlook is the disconnection between people and the resources of food. Children, in particular, are increasingly detached from nature and the origins of the food source. This generational amnesia fosters a misconception that normalizes living in an environment deprived of nature.

31:08What do you think, Dani? Yes, that’s certainly an issue. But as our guest told us, it depends vastly on the environment and community where children grow. It’s true that we are increasingly living in cities, but still there are farming communities, indigenous groups, and other settlements that have a deep understanding of the food growth and the nature around their systems. And this gap that we see commonly affecting the populations living in cities might be filled with a simple act of recognition and visibility of those other communities. Yes, for example, urban and community gardens have emerged as a crucial intervention in closing this gap. They not only provide access to high -quality produce but also serve as outdoor classrooms, promoting essential skills such as planting, composting, and harvesting. These spaces facilitate interactions among individuals from diverse backgrounds, fostering community cohesion and enhancing overall well -being. Despite their significance, awareness about the functions and benefits of community gardens may be lacking.

32:07For example, in my case, I didn’t have any idea about the community garden at JTU, at least where I was studying. It was only until the end that I realized that this community garden, I could go there and plant my own food. Yes, that’s right. Sometimes people don’t realize that there are these kinds of initiatives around them. Precisely in many places we saw how the COVID pandemic isolated people, that may be a factor, and also this pandemic caused an economic crisis. These initiatives within cities are crucial to connect neighbors and facilitate the creation of nets for mutual support. Rachel explained how community engagement in gardening projects empowers individuals, particularly those facing economic challenges.

32:51Yeah, that’s true. The COVID -19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerabilities inherent in global food supply chains. Urban gardens emerge as a resilient buffer against supply chain disruptions, showing the advantages of localized food production by reducing dependence of distant suppliers. Urban gardens offer a safety net during crises such as natural disasters or transportation disruptions. Allowing people to reclaim agency over their food sources, it is not merely about growing food. It’s about fostering self -sufficiency and resilience with vulnerable communities. Totally. not only with vulnerable communities this is also about better urban management in every city generally cities have a challenge in creating or preserving green areas for example managing water resources and supplying food these are big technical operational issues that can be addressed at least partly with community initiative For example, in cities like those where we live that are very hot, having local gardens can make a difference in terms of shade and humidity, and in consequence the overall temperature of the city. This is not minor, when in recent years the extreme temperatures are increasingly deadly for these human settlements.

34:04yeah that’s true and these initiatives are important to solve some problems but it’s necessary to invest in the basic science understanding how to improve the efficiency in these urban gardens and productivity and understanding the services for example in Bogotá the botanical garden is in charge of planting and monitoring trees but because they don’t have a lot of information about urban trees and their water requirements and heat tolerance the tree’s mortality is quite high, which ends up being expensive because there’s no investment in research focusing on these biological aspects. And with this thought, we reach the end of this episode. This episode was inspired by curiosity and the article, Can Gardens Help Us Grow? We leave the reference to this in the episode description. And as always, this podcast is self -funded and self -published by its host.

34:56Support us by clicking the like button and subscribing. You can listen to us on Spotify and YouTube and our official website. Follow us on our social networks, on Ets, Facebook and Instagram. Original music by our colleague and friend Bernardo Aguirre.