BACKGROUND

GreenUP is a research program on vertical and organic farming initiated in 2010 by professors Giacomo Pirazzoli (Department of Architecture) and Paolo Grossoni (Department of Vegetal Biology) at CrossingLab, University of Florence, Italy. First discussed at the Governing the Large Metropolis international conference (Sciences Po, Paris, 2013), GreenUP's research background relies on over 300 people involved, including botanists, engineers, architects, students, agriculture experts, urban planners, anthropologists and social scientists, nutritionists, well-being experts and doctors, all working across disciplines. In fact, urban farming appears to be a common key for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to address healthy food supply solutions for recently settled people and/or migrants, as well as for the World Health Organization to address its own agenda. The UN-Habitat Agency reporting on ground consumption is also part of the problem to be holistically solved. Therefore, the book "GreenUP - a Smart City" and its international follow-up have provided an opportunity to thoroughly analyze critical issues in urban and vertical farming, as well as debunk false solutions through various case studies selected from around the world. In this regard, the desperate disparity between scientific thinking (worth mentioning contributors like Peter Wohlleben, Anne Hope Jahren, Stefano Mancuso, Emanuele Coccia etc.) and the current practices of "the green" has been recognized as a pressing gap that requires effective technical solutions.

Due to the lack of farming land within metropolitan areas, GreenUP has been developed mostly as an affordable tool to connect Third Landscape's (Gilles Clément) relics, either vertically or horizontally - a kind of systemic "repairing network" after the actual loss of the natural environment. GreenUP also aims to significantly enhance environmental qualities, such as biodiversity, for local communities to grow organic edibles, crops, fruits, and vegetables, from a food security perspective. Eventually, it aims to decrease air pollution while increasing the CO2 balance within urban and metropolitan settlements. From a sociological, psychological, and anthropological point of view, GreenUP may greatly improve intercultural, intergenerational, and gender dialogue, as food caring for community sharing purposes regularly does, for both vulnerable and regular communities. As an individual accountability tool towards community outcomes, GreenUP is intended to improve collaborative skills and social inclusion.

Under the guidance of Prof. Pirazzoli, GreenUP research has been implemented also in France, Germany, the USA, Australia, China, and other countries. For a while now, we have been working in Brazil, following the pioneering applied research on agroecology of Ana Maria Primavesi and, more recently, of Ernst Götsch. This also entails paying special attention to PANCs (Non-Conventional Edible Plants, also known as Alimurgia), in conjunction with the indigenous, Afro-diasporic, and migrant communities' knowledge of edible plants.

Finally, in Brazil we are glad to mention the specially inspiring Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado and Sebastião Salgado's Instituto Terra - including its amazing soundtrack Refloresta by Gilberto Gil featuring Bem Gil and Gilsons - as well as Bela Gil's Instituto Brasil Orgânico.