A total of 9 partners from Greece, Germany and Bulgaria are going to visit several experiences in the city of Valladolid and Salamanca for the promotion of urban agriculture trough a study visit organised by the Spanish partners of the project Cityzen (University of Valladolid and Natural Heritage Foundation of Valladolid).
A total of 6 different initiatives are going to be visited. The first initiative that the partners of the project Cityzen will visit is called “Vallaecolid” which is recent created association in which bio-producer, bio-shops and producer who want to transform food take part. The association of Vallaecolid organised one Sunday a month an eco-market in the “Plaza de España” in the city of Valladolid. This association also counts with a place in which producers can gather their products and finally a food lab for the transformation of some products.
The second initiative to visit will be de Cristobal Colon School yard, a School in the district of “Pajarillos” that takes part of the Interreg Project ENEREUSER and had the opportunity to transform part of the concrete of the Schoolyard into several ways to grow fruits and vegetables and use it to motivate and to teach the students several subjects.
The third initiative to visit will be the 617 new orchards stablished in the city of Salamanca located at a short distance to the city centre and founded through the initiative EDUSI (ERDF Founding) with an investment of 2.273.806,38€. The initiative also counts with a total of 550 tree planted, 550 square meters of grass, a picnic area with a total of 34 tables, 965 square meters a play park for children.
The fourth initiative on the 29th of June will be the visit of the “PRAE building” a sustainable building and environmental park which is the headquarters of the Natural Heritage Foundation of Castilla y León. In this place the partners will visit the infrastructures of the Spanish partners and they will learn about initiatives different initiatives to promote urban agriculture, such as the market that is organized on the first and last Sunday of each month with organic producers, as well as the project together with Fundación Adecco in which we work with mentally disabled people to teach them to grow vegetables. They are taught the entire cycle from the seedbed, transplant, growth, and harvest and the project train them in this field.
After this we will visit a new private initiative located in front of the PRAE building and called “Gardening huertos urbanos”. This initiative has started this year 2022 and this project allows citizens from Valladolid to rent and orchard and to grow their own vegetables.
Finally, the last visit will be in the private University “INEA” which is a school for agriculture engineering in the city of Valladolid that offers a very nice initiative in collaboration with the city hall of Valladolid through a project called “Ecological farm” in which retired people use the 437 orchards built in this school to grow vegetables.
