Use edible plants in urban landscape

With food security being a main talking point these days, what is witnessed is a flourishing of the herb, vegetable plant and horticulture industry.

“There is a high interest being shown by people to be self-sufficient in some of the food they consume. The traditional concept of the home garden is being resumed even by urban households which are turning to the pot gardening culture in lieu of the lack of gardening space,” says urban horticultural specialist Tissa Seneviratne who is a senior officer of the Sri Lanka Scientific Service. Together with his wife he runs plant nurseries that focus on both domestic food security and landscaping requirements.

Speaking of his academic and practical area of expertise which is the use of edible plants in urban landscape and design, Seneviratne focuses on changes in agriculture under trends of urbanisation, taking into consideration evolving attitudes based on lifestyle changes.

“The current situation is one in which urbanisation could adapt once again to be food producing, innovating upon space limitations and incorporating aesthetic horticulture with edible and medicinal plants,” says Seneviratne who states that knowledge of edible plants should be integrated into the knowledge structure and syllabuses in general education.

“Sustainability should not just be a buzzword. It should be a word that integrates the culture of a nation with values which are both spiritual and material. This knowledge we have within us but most of the time it is made dull by the rote education system we are in. Our current education system separates us from the natural environment whereas the education system of our ancestors connected us with nature,” he states. 

He goes on to narrate an incident where a teenager from the village once came upon a complex problem of a townsman wanting desperately to pluck a coconut from the tree in the garden but not knowing how. The problem had been solved by this teenager who had picked up a large stone and aimed it directly at a particular point which held the bunch of coconuts which had resulted in one falling with ease to the ground. “When he was asked how exactly he did it, he just shrugged his shoulders and sauntered off,” recalled Seneviratne who had witnessed the incident and who explains it as a knowledge inherently and instinctively held in the subconscious.

“We are part of our environment and our knowledge is also shaped by it. This is the difference between us and our forefathers. The ultimate objective of a society is happiness but our modern society seems to be moving away from it rather than towards this goal. Thus, when serious challenges are faced to material comfort we realise that the root of the solution is in the environment itself; land should be put to productive use in a country with an agrarian culture such as Sri Lanka and the economic link thereby seriously analysed,” says Seneviratne.

In his career he has worked with diverse local and foreign stakeholders and is the recipient of international awards for horticulture innovation. Supplying edible, medicinal and aesthetic plants especially to urban dwellers, he advises families towards urban food sustainability. He can be reached at [email protected].