RUAF Foundation Information

RUAF is a leading Centre of Expertise and Global Partnership on sustainable Urban Agriculture and Food Systems. The Partnership is formed by strategically selected expert institutions with a significant track record in urban farming or work on urban food system solutions, and consists of cities, research institutes and NGOs. Partners include the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) based in Colombo, Sri Lanka; The Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGSNRR/CAS), based in Beijing, China; The Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada; The City of, Toronto- Canada (represented by the Toronto Food Policy Council and Toronto Food Strategy), The municipality of Ghent, Belgium, The city of Quito-Ecuador (represented by CONQUITO, its Economic Development Agency), and the NGOs Economia e Sostenibilita (ESTA) from Milan, Italy and the Mazingira Institute, based in Nairobi, Kenya. RUAF seeks to contribute to the development of sustainable cities by facilitating awareness, knowledge generation and dissemination, capacity development, policy design and action planning for resilient and equitable urban agriculture and urban food systems. Since 1999 RUAF has engaged with over 100 local and international partner organisations and worked in 50 cities in over 40 different countries around the world. RUAF supports local and subnational governments, urban producer organisations, NGOs, CBOs, research centres and other stakeholders with training, technical assistance, action-research and policy advice. RUAF publishes the Urban Agriculture Magazine, books, technical and methodological guidelines and working papers on urban agriculture and city region food systems reaching about 800.000 readers globally today. In addition, we support local, national and international knowledge exchange, advocacy and learning activities. The RUAF partnership is oriented towards the delivery of practical and high-quality results in action, ...