Almere (the Netherlands) has an active policy to involve citizens in the production of food in their own neighbourhood. The policy memorandum; 'focus on green' ('kleur aan groen' in Dutch) captures the vision to increase the involvement of the population in the 'greening' of Almere's environment. The City's ambition is to produce 10% of its food locally; neighbourhood vegetable gardens, school gardens and orchards contribute to this ambition.
In Almere several communal vegetable gardens have been established. Wageningen University & Research extracted a roadmap with concrete steps to sustainably realise communal vegetable gardens with major action themes to: i) stimulate civilian initiatives, ii) mobilise the neighbourhood, iii) embed in the institutional environment, and iv) ensure the continuation of the community garden.
The roadmap forms a guidance to implement new communcal vegetable gardens within Almere and is an inspiration for other municipalities.