Milan is one of Italy's foremost examples of urban allotment growing. Essential tools for mitigating urbanisation and shortening the supply chain of seasonal produce.
The advent of urban allotments in cities began in Germany and the Netherlands in the post-war period, before spreading in the following decade to the peripheral areas of the main cities of the United States, with San Francisco leading the way. It was at the end of the 1980s that the phenomenon of building small urban agricultural islands managed by associations, organisations and volunteer citizens became a reality in Italy too.
In particular, the municipality of Milan is one of Italy's foremost examples of vegetable growing close to home. Thanks to the areas of the Parco agricolo Sud Milano, the largest agricultural park in Europe and the most fertile in the world, and of the Parco Nord Milano, the Lombard capital records 87 city spaces given over to urban allotments (open data from the Municipality of Milan, 2013). This need, and consequently this result, compensates for the high pressure humans place on the use of available resources, starting with land, which is now considered unsustainable.
The memorandum of understanding between Anci, the National Association of Italian Municipalities, and Italia Nostra, the association for the safeguarding and conservation of the Italian environment and territory, signed in 2008 and confirmed this year, marks the transition to local administrations that are receptive to the idea of granting their own green areas for the creation of shared allotments. The aim is to prevent and reduce air pollution in keeping with the commitments of the Kyoto Protocol and to facilitate the transfer of knowledge between municipalities on how to allocate public areas for use by their citizens, as well as to promote initiatives aimed at enhancing and regenerating urban allotments.
The Orti Urbani project, on the one hand, and numerous grassroots civic initiatives, on the other, have sparked the interest of the city council, which, from 2015 onwards, resolved to reduce annual fees, abolish the security deposit, extend concession periods and introduce priority in allocations for people on low incomes or belonging to socially vulnerable categories (people with disabilities, the elderly and the unemployed). Furthermore, private individuals can now sign an agreement with the municipality in order to make their own spaces available for the creation of urban allotments.
Milan allocates its available areas through zone-based public tenders to which citizens may apply on a voluntary basis. Once a plot has been allocated, the municipality grants its use free of charge for a maximum of nine years, renewable for a further three, in exchange for an annual fee of 300 euros.
ColtivaMi and Giardini Condivisi are two of the ongoing municipal projects promoting the practice of city allotment growing. While ColtivaMi allocates spaces owned by the municipality, Giardini Condivisi regenerates degraded and currently unused municipal areas into green spaces through the participation of neighbourhood associations.
Growing allotments in cities thus becomes an opportunity to mitigate the impacts of urbanisation and to shorten and enrich the supply chain of natural seasonal produce. The urban allotment also meets the need for dialogue and the exchange of knowledge, as well as for multi-ethnic community building. This opportunity and need ultimately triggers social transformations such as collective participation, access to food, and living and working habits. The allotment therefore represents a founding element of virtuous progress towards the agricultural metropolis and the circular economy.
From today, the good practice of urban allotments finds its accelerator in a new project called Città d'Orti. The fruit of the work of LifeGate, SlowFood and Comart, Città d'Orti aims to bring companies on board and to facilitate the process of accessing, creating, training for and maintaining the city allotment for its main beneficiaries: citizens coming together. This is to bear witness to and stimulate a sense of active citizenship, an awareness of what we choose to put on our tables, and the bond between human beings, nature and, by extension, agriculture.