World Without Fences

Angus Donald CampbellDevelopment, Sustainability, Urban Agriculture

Will Allen CEO of Growing Power, Milwaukee, “I have worked with community gardening projects that don’t do a good enough job of involving the garden’s neighbours.”We’ve got to put up a fence to protect our garden,” people will say.  I tell them no, you don’t. You have to do the harder work of engaging the community. You’ve got to make sure the neighbours know that the garden is their own, not yours. Kids in the neighborhood threw rocks at my greenhouses when I first opening in 1993, but they stopped several months after my arrival.  I had not retaliated or chased them away. Instead, I invited the young people to come and see what we were doing. I gave them summer jobs. Neighbours started respecting the fact that I was bringing food into the community. They started being eyes and ears for me. The community felt ownership in our shared success. … Read More

Design and development of a single household farming kit

Angus Donald CampbellUncategorized

I am currently supervising Kyle Brand for his MTech in Industrial Design which is focused on the development of a single household farming kit. Kyle explains that, “This project forms the practical component of my masters study at the University of Johannesburg, Department of Industrial Design. The aim is to offer small-scale (often backyard) farmers some of the competitive advantages usually reserved only for large-scale farmers. The kit that is being developed using a humancentered design process includes a greenhouse which is low cost but optimised for smaller farmers. The greenhouse integrates an irrigation system as well as water capture. The other element of the kit is a multifunctional hoe/spade hand tool. This tool hopes to provide a more versatile tool for smallscale farmers, building on a tool which is often the symbol of agriculture, the hoe.” See three of the stories as the project unfolds on IDEO’s HCD Connect.