FAO’s work within the Framework of the Urban Food Agenda includes technical support to subnational governments, to promote their adoption of measures able to guarantee adequate food for citizens, sustainable food production, and generally driving positive changes in consumption habits and lifestyles.

This is the case of Manabí, in Ecuador, where the local government is creating a specific urban and peri-urban agriculture strategy, within the framework of the Feeding the City Project.
This strategy includes community agro ecological spaces within the urban areas as one of its axes and it is being developed in coordination with the Municipal Government of Portoviejo, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, alongside academia and civil society representatives.

In 2021, around 200 urban gardens and 4 community agro ecological spaces were implemented in three urban sectors of the capital of Manabí, where the population could have access to Capacity Building Programs in sustainable production, nutritional food education and community management.

These spaces constitute a measure of the city's resilience, which contributes to healthy food environments and demonstrates the benefits of daily consumption of vegetables and greens for health, in addition to the support it provides to the family economy of the inhabitants working in this area.

As a result of this first phase, on February 23, 200 families have been recognized as the first community of urban gardeners of the Picoazá, Colón and Andrés de Vera parishes. Such recognition generated a source of income for the orchard farmers, through the sale of bio-inputs and fresh products in the Agro-ecological Bio-fairs that take place in the canton.