ISHS Acta Horticulturae 742: International Conference and Exhibition on Soilless Culture: ICESC 2005
SIMPLIFIED HYDROPONICS: A TOOL FOR FOOD SECURITY IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN |
| Author: | J. Izquierdo |
| Keywords: | food security, poverty, urbanization, hydroponics, urban agriculture, projects, appropriate technologies, training, bag culture, seedlings floating system |
| DOI: | 10.17660/ActaHortic.2007.742.9 |
| Abstract:
Simplified Hydroponics (SH) is a promising technology when used as a complementary tool to sustain availability, quality and safe supply of food for inhabitants, particularly for children, with scarce resources, immersed in urban and peri urban poverty at Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) cities. Training and pilot sites on SH are being developed in projects carried out by FAO at Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, comprising different agro-ecological and socioeconomic scenarios. SH can be integrated within the reduced housing space available, giving opportunity to the unemployed labor for the production of fresh and safe vegetables and thus promoting family integration. The results are revealing the advantages of an appropriate technology with very low investment. Considering the implications in relation to urbanization, food security, health and the environment, diverse SH technological alternatives have been deployed jointly with urban and peri urban communities. SH comprises a working platform for urban and peri urban agriculture (UPA) programs in support of food security. FAO has prepared a series of teaching tools on SH available at http://www.rlc.fao.org/prior/segalim/aup/ | |
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