Carl Pickens : Winston Churchill Fellow

In 2019, landscape architect Carl Pickens was awarded a fellowship to study world-leading practice in urban agriculture projects and policies in Europe and the United Kingdom.

And here is a link to his livestream presentation

Winston Churchill Fellow Carl Pickens

Supporting community resilience and food security with urban agriculture

Carl explored how urban agriculture is contributing to community resilience (economic, social, environmental) and food security in central and Western Europe – places where urban agriculture has been enjoying a renaissance in recent years. He also looked into how these projects relate to a New Zealand context and what lessons might be applied here.

Projects visited included a visionary rooftop farm in Antwerps Green Quarter; a CSA 20 minutes by bike from central Amsterdam; an edible town in northern England; a project enabled by the Parisculteurs municipal growing initiative; and a quirky farm in coastal Oslo where the community has built a building in the form of a Viking ship (they bake bread there).

Carl’s interests in sustainability, food security and working closely with local communities, led him to pursue this fellowship. He is now applying lessons learnt to projects here in NZ.