Potentialities

The Municipality of Rosario has a bank of intra-urban soils that are accessible for agro-ecological production, with resources for the provision of infrastructure and equipment. This soil bank is the result of one of the first research-action projects carried out by the PAU, with the aim of finding out the availability of land for urban agriculture in the city. Different non-built spaces of suitable surface area were identified, classified as: private wasteland, public wasteland, urban green areas, institutional, non-developable (railways, roads, watercourses), ecological reserves, sanitary landfills (final disposal of urban waste). Simultaneously to this study, the soil conditions in these spaces were analysed and different conditions were detected: "decapitated" soils -without a fertile layer- due to the extraction of earth for the manufacture of bricks; impermeable soils due to the accumulation of rubble (informal disposal of construction waste); soils covered with informal rubbish dumps and/or weeds; low flooded or waterlogged soils. It is important to mention that Rosario has developed a rich experience in the recovery of degraded soils through composting and agro-ecological preparations. In a short time, soils with poor initial conditions for cultivation have optimised fertility and permeability variables and become useful substrates for the production of food and medicinal plants. 

Urban and peri-urban producers have vast experience in the preparation of bio-preparations incorporating residual organic matter (compost, liquid plant-based vitalisers, etc). This knowledge and the experience acquired, constitute a strength that transforms these degraded soils into potential living soil.

The difficulties in handling the city's organic waste, which imply relevant metabolic deficiencies, constitute an opportunity as a nutrient stream for composting, which is necessary for agro-ecological food production and for the closing of material cycles. Waste disposal is currently a serious problem for the local administration.

Recent initiatives to incorporate renewable energies in peri-urban farms and horticultural urban gardens are an encouraging possibility, given the positive results they are having for producers and their families.

Despite the various marketing channels for agro-ecological vegetables available to the residents of Rosario through fairs and other permanent sales outlets- the supply is insufficient to supply and guarantee the right to healthy and inclusive food for the population. The existing demand justifies an increase in production, which should be promoted by state actions that make training with secure employment opportunities for new producers, infrastructure and equipment for available intra-urban land, and access and secure tenure to vacant peri-urban land within the fruit and vegetable protection area.  

The accelerated consequences of global warming as a result of climate change are particularly evident in the Rosario region. In 2017, through heavy rains and floods in areas that had never suffered hydrological catastrophes of such magnitude. And, since 2019, due to droughts and summer temperatures reaching 40°C, which have led to unprecedented losses in extensive production in the country's cereal-growing area par excellence. These circumstances have a direct impact on the supply and cost of food. They have also generated a large flow of information that raises public awareness of the causes and consequences of climate change. The visibility of Agroecology's contributions to mitigating and adapting to Climate Change, promotes the recognition of local processes and boosts political and social support.

The implications -on the environment and on the health of the population- of the use of polluting agrochemicals in conventional intensive and extensive practices, has led to the emergence of social movements that promote agrochemical-free zones. The justified and sustained pressure of these social movements contributed to the sanctioning of the Provincial Law on Phytosanitary Products N°11273/1995, in the framework of which the Municipality of Rosario establishes agronomic borders -of 50 metres during the first year and 100 metres from the second year onwards- between rural and urbanised areas (Ord. N° 8871/2011).  It is worth mentioning the weakness of the Provincial Law in leaving the sizing of these phytosanitary barriers to each municipality and commune, which is why most of them are not effective due to their limited depth. These interfaces or "Green Shields" (W. Pengue, 2018) must have a sufficient surface area and a special arrangement to effectively fulfil their function. The provincial law must be corrected to solve the weaknesses that have been sustained for almost 30 years, due to the strong pressures of the powerful sectors associated with industrialised agriculture. Nevertheless, the necessary adaptation of the provincial and municipal regulatory framework opens up a potential perspective for the planning of these sanitary barriers as areas planned from an agro-ecological vision, as intra-urban futures of environmental quality that integrate the production of healthy food into their logic and dynamics of functioning. This implies the progressive creation of a system of food production and value addition, integrated to the green infrastructure, through the optimisation of horticultural and agricultural spaces in progress, the productive occupation ecologically compatible with certain sensitive areas, the implementation of new residential typologies that incorporate alternatives (individual and collective) for the domestic production of food and/or useful species for human use; the generation of new industrial typologies, new "green" jobs, short value chains and participatory guarantees of quality of processes and results. The joint work of the PCVR, the Secretariat of Planning and the Secretariat of Environment and Public Space of the Municipality consolidates the integration of agro-ecological food production into territorial and environmental planning.  In this framework, the 460 Ha "El Gaucho" Agricultural Park Project has been approved by the Planning authorities in the framework of Ordinance N° 10.142/2020, and is awaiting a budget for its implementation.

Within the framework of the local development of food security practices, the Municipality of Rosario carries out numerous and diverse initiatives, aimed at improving nutritional quality and achieving food security for the population. It should be noted that only food grown under the coordination of the PAU and the PCVR is produced without agrochemicals through agroecological practices. Articulating with other municipal initiatives and programmes, constitutes a potential possibility to increase agroecological production to supply them. Another potential is the Cuidar Rosario Plan, with which the CVPR is already working, whose aim is the creation of a participatory healthy food system.

The sustained work in action research by the technical teams of the PAU and the PCVR, strengthened by the work carried out by the Centro Agroecológico Rosario, provides answers to the need to base the efficiency and sustainability of agroecological productive spaces on the management of public policies that subsidise enterprises and promote the occupation of vacant peri-urban and urban land for food production.

The recent adhesion of the Municipality of Rosario to the principles set out in the Milan Pact, in its commitment to the development of food security policies, and its role as representative of South America together with the Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in the Board of Directors, also constitute a potential for local and regional agroecological development.

The repeated context of deep socio-economic crisis in the country, which generates unemployment, increasing poverty and rapidly growing problems of malnutrition in vulnerable sectors of the population, can be alleviated through organised food production. In fact, the crises have functioned as mechanisms for propelling and structuring the agroecological system of Rosario.