Barcelona's rooftop farms: growing both plants and community 

High above the crowded streets of Barcelona, a quiet revolution is taking root. On some of the city’s rooftops, once-empty spaces are now filled with vegetables and fruit trees. Offering not just food, but a new sense of purpose for those who need it most. 

Urban rooftop gardens are an eco-friendly and green initiative that is growing in the city of Barcelona. These urban farms have several functions, such as making Barcelona a greener city or providing a social space for people with disabilities, the elderly, or others while benefitting their overall wellbeing.  

Barcelona is a big city with high population density, making it a limited area for green spaces. To solve this problem, several organizations have come up with innovative ideas to make the Catalan capital greener by using unoccupied spaces as plant-producing opportunities.  

One of those initiatives is 'The Rooftop Garden', a project that started at the headquarters of the area of Social Rights from the Barcelona city council in 2016.  

Now, with a number of nine gardens under their belt, The Rooftop Garden doesn't only focus on the green aspect of their garden, but also on the social aspect that this urban farm brings.  

"This initiative is designed mainly for people with disabilities. We know for a fact that these kinds of projects are a huge benefit for their quality of life," Ferran Urgell, from the Municipal Institute for People with Disabilities, told Catalan News. The institute has conducted research over the past years into the effects of urban farming on people with disabilities.  

A study from 2018 shows that urban rooftop gardening in general, but more specifically for those with intellectual disabilities and mental health disorders, is beneficial for their quality of life.  

''This is a calm space. There's no noise up here, no pollution. You have another side of the city that you can appreciate as well, while you're working with the essentials of life, like plants and food,'' explains Urgell.  

Another benefit coming from spending days on the rooftop between the plants can be seen on a social level. Rooftop gardening improves aspects like self-determination, social inclusion, personal development, and interpersonal relationships. The gardening also improves physical health, as the work being done can be considered physical labor. A concept which is also known as ''agrofitness''.  

The Rooftop Garden hosts people with different types and degrees of disability. Currently around 170 people work year-round on maintaining the garden. 

L'Hort del Mercat 

Another initiative like The Rooftop Garden is 'L'Hort del Mercat' (translated to 'The market garden'). A unique urban farming project, covering 1.750 m² of the roof above Vall d'Hebron's market.  

L’Hort del Mercat is an initiative of the Horta-Guinardó District of the Barcelona City Council, in collaboration with the Municipal Institute of Markets. 

The project's goals include developing a sustainable ecological management model. To support this, the garden offers workshops and training sessions and provides a community composting area, where organic waste from both the market and local residents is recycled and used as fertilizer for the garden. 

Another goal is strengthening community cohesion, just like 'The Rooftop Garden'. The space is open to everyone, organizing a wide range of activities to cater different interests and needs, encouraging the involvement of various individuals, community groups, and institutions from both the neighborhood and the wider city.  

Arnau Montserrat, coordinator at L'Hort del Mercat, explains the necessity of a communal space like this one: ''We produce plants, agrofitness, and relationships. Our people mainly come from the neighborhood. We have students, collaborations with associations and regular visitors.'' 

L'Hort del Mercat is showing its importance for the elderly community in Barcelona. ''Probably half of the people that work more often in the gardens is retired,'' says Montserrat to Catalan News.  

The garden in Vall d'Hebron is thriving, attracting a wide range of insects, including bees, improving biodiversity. The market garden proves to be more than just an urban experiment. L'Hort del Marcat is giving the Catalan capital a rural touch.  

''We're part of a large movement. A big network of green infrastructure,'' explains Montserrat. ''We promote this kind of presence of agriculture inside the urban landscape, bringing people in contact with nature which is healing for them.'' 

While The Rooftop Garden and L'Hort del Mercat are institutional efforts, some Barcelona residents have taken rooftop farming into their own hands. Robert Strauss, an American who has been living in Barcelona for several years now, has done this by planting his own rooftop garden in Gràcia's neighborhood.  

"I've been gardening for many years before I moved to Barcelona, and when my family and I came to the city, we looked around and we couldn't find any place to garden." 

Strauss, who has been rooftop farming for 13 years already tells Catalan News what inspired him to start his gardening project: "We were up in Collserola one day, and when we looked out over the city, we saw all the unused red rooftops of Barcelona. We were fortunate to have a house that had a lot of patios, so we decided that we would try to start gardening on the roof," adding that there are thousands of rooftops where this could be done as well.  

Though having a rooftop garden of his own, Strauss is not only gardening at his house in Gràcia, but he also volunteers weekly at L'Hort del Mercat. Bringing institutional efforts and individual initiative together in his urban farming "career." 

Whether managed by institutions or passionate individuals, Barcelona’s rooftop gardens prove that green spaces can thrive in the most unexpected places. More than just urban farms, they are communities in the sky, fostering sustainability, inclusion, and a new vision for city life.