Abstract:

Santiago de los Caballeros, as many major Latin American cities, has been facing intense rural-urban migration; sprawling substandard housing; high unemployment; worsening food security for the poor;  and a deteriorating physical environment due to inadequate waste management. However, in the early 1990s, the local university, municipality, civic organizations1 and the private sector (with the  support of several external agencies) initiated a series of activities to cope with these problems in an integrated way. The driving force has been the university's municipal environmental management program.  This project will explore ways in which urban  agriculture, both intra- and pen- urban, can assist the city with making better use of local resources to improve food supply and affordability; generate income and employment; and, improve community  self-esteem and the health of the living environment. This is the first IDRC project to research centrally the link between urban agriculture and waste recycling. The recipient will interact with other components of IDRC's Latin American Urban Agriculture Network (002318) and contribute to the experimentation with different processes where research furthers the incorporation of urban agriculture into local environmental management.

Purpose:

To describe and assess ongoing (peri)urban agricultural production and waste management, examine the costs and benefits of current practices, and make recommendations to stimulate the reuse of municipal waste via urban agriculture.

Objectives:

• prepared cost-benefit analysis of current agricultural production and waste management 
• designed, proposed and discussed a program to stimulate urban agriculture and its relation with solid waste recycling
• report on impacts directly or largely attributable to this project observed during on-going monitoring 
• documented, using slides, local urban agriculture practices and problems  

1. UA working definition:

For this project, a restrictive definition of UA was used (backyard  gardens with fruit trees, ornamental and food plants, widespread in the city, are excluded, along with small scale cultivation such as hydroponics and non-food crops in general. Given the conjunctural importance it has had for poor families, tobacco-growing has been included. This working definition compares closely with that used in the Harare project, although it is not perfectly coincident with it.

2. City-block distribution of UA: poor doing it in mid-income wards

• This is the first study ever, supported by IDRC or in the literature consulted so far, which actually provides a city-block level  spatial distribution of the incidence of UA in a city. One out of every three blocks was found to contain spaces dedicated to UA (906/2734 blocks). 
• Overall, UA occupies 16% of the urban area of Santiago: the largest land use, after residential and vacant land.

(a) In built-up area: UA occupies 315 hec or 9.12% of the total city-block area (3456 hec) - conservative area as definition is restrictive. Most blocks and most of the area under UA are located in mid-income wards (these are undergoing rapid expansion and generate vacant lots used by UA). UA is observed to be itinerant, as  it migrates with the expansion of the built-up area. Although most UA is found in mid-income sectors, most of those who work the land in those sectors are from low-income groups (58) - see below. This is because there is no room in poor wards: in 1993, 57% of  the city of Santiago was concentrated in census districts classified as low-income or poor (2) but poor wards have very high population densities (up to 33 000/km2). UA is also found in industrial and institutional areas, sometimes under quite intensive and technically advanced systems.

(b) In peri-urban area: UA occupies  10.5% or 838.2 hec of the peri-urban zone (2945 hec). 14% of UA land area is used by pastures for cattle-raising (milk and slaughter). (46-50)

3. Still lots of good vacant agricultural land available:

• Santiago soils naturally have a very good potential for agriculture. Very few areas, unbuilt or built in part, contain soils inadequate for cultivation (5%), which means that a large area is still available where AU could be developed on soil in the city: some 621 hec in the built-up and some 1648 hec in the peri-urban areas, among vacant lots and open spaces (some 30% of the overall city area). 
• Yet, the size of the plot is claimed as the most frequent problem by producers( 79).

 

• The importance agriculture as an urban land use in  Santiago suggests how important is the problem of access to food for a large sector of the resident population. The severe economic crisis  of the 80s and 90s and the need for communities to better use community resources has given rise to  a range of coping responses, including UA (44). Most families who practice UA are poor (n=110) and the number of UA producers in teh city is estimated at 3000 (conservative). 52% have monthly family incomes of less than 3000 pesos (hovering around poverty line), so more than half of UA producers are poor; but 33% have incomes in the 3-8000 bracket, which puts them in the low-mid income group. So it is basically an activity for low-income people. 
• The study estimates, using its definition of UA, that some 11 million pesos worth of food is produced annually in the city, not insignificant when a majority of prodcuers are poor. Monthly production at retail prices equals some 20% of the minimal wage (or 312 pesos). Its is an important source of income, non negligible option  within the poor's coping strategies. Only one out of seven prodcuers does so to sell, and when so, directly to food outlets in the neigbourhood. 
• Nearly 30% are from the city of Santiago or from other cities. Half of  the producers arrived before 1987 and 40% over the last 10 years. Half of producers have been practicing UA for less than 3 years on the plot they were found to work at the time of the survey and 85.5%  for less than 10 years. Spatial mobility of UA is associated with the spatial mobility of producers themselves.  One out of every five said they only had practiced UA in the city, never anywhere else before. 
• UA is mostly an  economic activity which complements others. Only 29% declared themselves as "agriculturists", 17% said they did not have other work, 9.2% and 8.3% are either "employees" or "housekeepers". 27.5% are illiterate, twice as large as the national mean, and schooling is low. The main reason for doing UA is to feed the family (50%); one can add to this those 16.2% who referred to income generation, as such incomes for most in poverty would be aimed at buying food. 
• This suggests that UA has little tradition in the city, the majority of producers having  engaged in it only in recent years. Two plausible hypotheses are put forward: poor families' deteriorating access to food (supported by official ONAPLAN data of 1997) and the initial attractiveness of the activity for recent arrivals. Based on its findings, the study dismisses the perception by a majority of the producers that UA has no future in the city. Given current lack of security and hope to move to other activities, it may be short-lived for many; however, from a city perspective, as in-migration flows and harsh living conditions are expected to continue  the study maintains that UA will keep growing at least over the mid-term (80). And it will continue to be itinerant, transient, complementary and renewed permanently by new arrivals. 

• Men predominate among UA producers as defined in the study. 
• Women are more associated with livestock raising; more are involved in agriculture in the city than is the norm in rural areas of the country. 14% of producers are children.  (54). 
• in the city, due to the separation of home from farming plot, women have less control on the space where crops are grown; in the UA as defined in this study, it is more difficult for women to develop a space of their own (outside small-space systems, such as small livestock, medicianl and aromatic plants) 

• Most parcels worked by people with rural agricultural background are laid out like a typical Dominican conuco (grain, root and plant crops),whereas horticultural crops tend to prevail on plots of  producers of urban origin 
• 75% declared they had started UA on their own initiative (where assisted, some costs are heavily subsidised  - the Secretariat of Agricxulutre has run programs from time to time in the city, depending on circumstances, probably favoring more schools than any other group) (60) 
• A majority (56%) of UA plots are not found close to the producer's home, but rather elsewhere in the ward or in other wards; a majority do UA on plots owned by neighbours or other individuals, the municipality or some private firm. Due to survey constraints, the percentage of producers working plots not of their own is probably greater than reported. Even so, 91% use land without paying any rent (lent for 60%) (tacit agreements seem to be very high).  Producers decide what they plant and keep the harvest. 
• The land area of  UA plots is relatively small (50% under 400 m²) and volumes of produce therefore small. But prodcution is diverse, over 50 diffrent species betweenanimals and plants, largely adequate to local food habits. UA is homogeneous, a majority of prodcuers growing the same crops, with the same practices and the same range of crop combinations. 

• in the city, the residence is not located on the UA plots as defined in this study, 
• in the city, UA breaks away from seasonality of harvests and impresses greater flexibility and dynamism to agriculture (greater access to good soils, water, technology, pressure for sustained use of parcels 
• perennial crops practically are absent from UA plots as defined in the study 
• in the city UA is more temporal and mobile 
• in the city more practitioners are old and families are less involved as a producing unit 
• in the city, due to the separation of home from plot, women have less control on the space where crops are grown; in the UA as defined in this study, it is more difficult for women to develop a space of their own (outside small-space systems, such as small livestock, medicianl and aromatic plants) 
• in the city,  as in rural areas, systems which require intensive use of family labor do not seem to be viable; technologies and species with low labor needs are preferred in Santiago 70). Additionally, non-owner producers may be adverse to technological innovation and land investment and will select short-cycle crops for quick return on labor (confirmed in African case studies).  (64) 

• It is mainly a self-employment occupation, with 20% only hiring labor for more demanding tasks. 
• The water used does not come mainly from the municipal system, as most crops are rainfed or depend, much less so though, on either flooding or irrigation from natural sources. 
• Only one in three producers uses quality seeds; tools and other implements are minimal and basic. Credit is virually absent. 
• The reuse of organics, excepted for small livestock husband, does not seem to have created an important recycling system (39). Organic waste from the city's open fairs would suffice to cater to the potential demand of current UA in the city, which means that supplies to the surrounding countryside would need to be added in order for  reuse to resolve the disposal problem of the city (85). 

Project literature:

CEUR (Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales). 1997. Recoleccion y disposicion de Basura en Santiago: dialogo para una mejor gestion. Conversatorio Municipal. Sabado 23 de agosto de 1997. 20 pp plus appendices. 

del Rosario, Pedro Juan. 1999. Manejo de Desechos Solidos y Agricultura Urbana en la Ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros: Impactos del Proyecto. 7 pp. Located in 98-4039 - Red Latinoamericana de Instituciones en Agricultura Urbana. Agricultura urbana en America Latina y el Caribe - Impactos de proyectos de investigacion. Mayo de 1999. 109 pp.

del Rosario, Pedro Juan, Yeny Cornelio, Luis Jimenez Polanco, Arturo Russell, Horacio Lopez and Petti Escarraman. (CEUR Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales). 1999. Manejo de Residuos Solidos y Agricultura Urbana en la Ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros Parte 1: La situacion de los residos solidos y la agricultura en la ciudad. Santiago de los Caballeros, Octubre de 1999. 95 pp. 

del Rosario, Pedro Juan, Yeny Cornelio, Luis Jimenez Polanco, Arturo Russell, Horacio Lopez and Petti Escarraman. (CEUR Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales). 1999. Manejo de Residuos Solidos y Agricultura Urbana en la Ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros Parte 2: Propuesta programatica sobre los residuos solidos y la agricultura urbana. Santiago de los Caballeros, Octubre de 1999. 69 pp. 

del Rosario, Pedro Juan, Yeny Cornelio, Luis Jimenez Polanco, Arturo Russell, Horacio Lopez and Petti Escarraman. (CEUR Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales). 1999. Manejo de Residuos Solidos y Agricultura Urbana en la Ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros Parte 3: Impactos del proyecto. Santiago de los Caballeros, Octubre de 1999. 40 pp. plus appendices.

Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra. (CEUR Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales). 1998. Propuesta para la gestion de residuos solidos en Santiago. Santiago de los Caballeros, 4 de Diciembre de 1998. 97 pp.

Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra.  Proyecto manejo de desechos solidos y agricultura urbana en la ciudad de Sanitago de los Caballeros.  Primer Informe Tecnico. Republica Dominicana:  Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra, 1997.

Proyecto Manejo de Desechos Solidos y Agricultura Urbana en la Ciudad de Santiago de Los Caballeros (1997). “Primer Informe Tecnico”. 25pp. (December).