Sembradores Urbanos is a nonprofit urban agriculture demonstration center and outreach group in Mexico City started by three women living in Mexico. There vision is to transform urban soil into green, productive, and sustainable spaces. They opened the The Center for Urban Agriculture Romita, one of the first urban agricultural community spaces in Mexico. The center demonstrates a variety of urban agriculture and organic gardening techniques as well as serving as a space for workshops and courses. Sembradores Urbanos helps give talks at schools and businesses, puts on community movie nights, and helped start the Barter Exchange Merkado de Trueke in Plaza Romita. They also help install gardens in homes and apartments, hospitals, and juvenile detention centers with local volunteers.
Background[edit | edit source]
Sembradores Urbanos sees urban gardens as educational, food providing, therapeutic, and community strengthening green spaces.
There objectives include:
- demonstrating appropriate technologies and integrated management practices that produce healthy foods, while optimizing on the space available in horizontally confined urban areas.
- organizing and facilitating workshops, especially in communities with scarce resources and populations vulnerable to undernourishment.
- design and distribute informative manuals and appropriate technology kits with info on urban agriculture techniques.
- coordinating environmental education programs and installing gardens in public and private schools.
- offering consulting and advice for community urban gardens.
- establishing activities that strengthen the local economy and local markets.
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Veggies and plants growing in recycled tires.
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Strawberries in a series of stacked open face potted planters
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Dry loving cactus in planters with PVC drains at bottom
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Tomato planted upside down in a hanging planter
Partners[edit | edit source]
They work with other non profits like: Isla Urbana, who designed and installed their rain water harvesting system, as well as Semillero Romita, who coordinate the barter exchange Merkado de Trueke.
Projects[edit | edit source]
Sembradores Urbanos has many projects including hanging vertical garden tubes, reusing tires as planting containers, rainwater harvesting, urban grey water treatment and also the following:
