Karachi learning gardens: reclaiming urban food heritage

Crops in Pots — Our Story

In 2008, in the concrete sprawl of Karachi, Zahra Ali Syed asked a simple question: what if every rooftop, balcony, and courtyard could feed someone?

That question became Crops in Pots — Pakistan's first organic urban farming community. Not a company. A movement. Built over a decade with ordinary people, in ordinary spaces, growing extraordinary food.

For fourteen years, Crops in Pots trained families, teachers, and community members to grow chemical-free vegetables using traditional and heirloom varieties that commercial agriculture had all but abandoned. We didn't just teach people to farm — we restored their relationship with food, with soil, and with the ecological knowledge their grandparents carried. In a city of 20 million people with almost no arable land and deepening food insecurity, that knowledge became an act of quiet resistance.

Then life intervened. In 2022, a health crisis forced a pause. The work slowed. But the need didn't.

Karachi's food vulnerability has only grown. Climate shocks, rupee collapse, and supply chain fragility mean that urban families — particularly low-income ones — are more exposed than ever. The communities we worked with never stopped asking when we were coming back.

Now we are.

The revival of Crops in Pots begins where it matters most: a school for children with hearing and speech disabilities. These are young people rarely centered in sustainability conversations, rarely given the dignity of growing their own food. We are starting here deliberately — because food sovereignty belongs to everyone, including those the system overlooks.

With MA Earth's support, we will re-establish active growing sites, restore heirloom seed cultivation, and rebuild the community educator network that once made Crops in Pots a living, breathing urban food ecosystem. Zahra brings 18 years of work in human ecology, environmental education, and community development — including partnerships with UNICEF, WWF, and NED University — to this revival. The institutional knowledge was never lost. It was resting.

This is not a new project. It is a living one, resuming.