147 results
DEBerlin, Germany
A mobile community garden reviving a vacant lot in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Its DIY container growing and composting made it a flagship example of reusing idle urban land through citizen participation.
prinzessinnengarten.net+2
USBerkeley, United States
A food-education program founded in 1995 by chef Alice Waters at a public middle school, using an organic garden and kitchen as classrooms to teach academics and the values of nourishment.
edibleschoolyard.org+1
AUMelbourne, Australia
Established in 1982 on a reclaimed 10-acre former landfill near Melbourne, CERES is an environment park and urban farm combining environmental education, urban agriculture, and social enterprise.
ceres.org.au+1
New cases are added every week
The case you are looking for may land next week. A free digest of new cases worldwide, every Wednesday.
JPFukuoka, Japan
A bag-type home composter from Fukuoka-based Local Food Cycling, whose founder Yuiko Taira has promoted kitchen-waste composting for over 20 years, linking food-loss reduction and local soil-building through a 'nutrient cycle within a 2 km radius'.
lfc-compost.jp+1
JPKamakura, Japan
A community-composting pilot launched in Kamakura's Zaimokuza district in 2023, where residents bring food scraps to a worm composter built from scrap wood, generating neighbourly exchange and resource circulation through composting.
prtimes.jp+1
JPTokyo, Japan
An urban-farming NPO that began on a Shibuya rooftop, building farms and rice paddies on rooftops and urban gaps around Harajuku, Shibuya and Ebisu so that citizens can cultivate together and turn Tokyo into an 'edible forest'.
urbanfarmers.club+1
CUHavana, Cuba
Born of the food and fuel crisis after the Soviet collapse, Havana's organopónicos are organic urban gardens that residents started on vacant lots and old parking sites in the early 1990s, spreading from the grassroots and, with state support, growing to supply much of the city's fresh produce.
en.wikipedia.org+1
FRParis, France
A shared-garden framework based on the City of Paris's 2003 'Main Verte' (Green Hand) charter, under which resident associations run gardens on city plots, committing to public access, events, composting and organic growing to spread social bonds and greenery.
paris.fr+1
HKHong Kong, Hong Kong
Founded in 2015, this Hong Kong social enterprise turns underused spaces such as rooftops into organic farms, having built 50+ urban farms across the city, and links food-loss reduction with education by composting building food waste back into the farms.
rooftoprepublic.com+1
ZACape Town, South Africa
Founded in 1982, this Cape Town non-profit supports small-scale citizen farming in the townships. True to its name 'farmers of the home', it provides training and supplies so residents of poor areas can grow organic vegetables, underpinning food security and livelihoods.
abalimibezekhaya.org.za+4
ESSeville, Spain
A permaculture garden on about 5,000 m2 of vacant land in Seville's historic centre, occupied by residents in 2004 for communal use. Grounded in recycling and self-management, it remains a rare green space and site of environmental education downtown.
una.city+1
USSeattle, United States
Seattle's municipal community-garden program, P-Patch, dates to the 1970s. Residents grow food organically at sites across the city, and each garden's 'Giving Garden' donates its harvest to food banks.
seattle.gov+3
JPTama, Japan
In 2014 Aiwa Elementary in Tama became Japan's first Edible Schoolyard, modeled on Alice Waters' Berkeley program. The school garden and kitchen serve as 'living classrooms' where children learn through all five senses, from sowing to harvest, cooking and eating, as a formal subject. Pupils experience nutrient cycles, the interconnection of life and ties to their community.
edibleschoolyard-japan.org+2
JPFukuoka, Japan
A Fukuoka-based citizen group that has researched and spread the 'cardboard-box compost' method—decomposing kitchen waste using only microbes—for over two decades, turning household food scraps into compost within the neighborhood to build a 2-km-radius nutrient cycle.
jun-namaken.com+2
JPTokyo, Japan
A community-compost project hubbed at an Omotesando food court where residents within a 2-km radius bring household food scraps to compost together; the finished compost and vegetable-growing foster 'neighborly ties starting from soil' in central Tokyo.
corp.4nature.co.jp+2
JPTokyo, Japan
A public-private food cycle in central Tokyo where Taito Ward, the Daimaru Matsuzakaya department store, and Local Food Cycling partner to compost household food scraps and grow vegetables at the Matsuzakaya Ueno rooftop garden.
matsuzakaya.co.jp+2
USBrooklyn, New York, United States
A fossil-fuel-free, bike-powered community-compost enterprise founded in Bushwick, Brooklyn, that collects and composts food scraps while creating good jobs for youth and green space, countering environmental racism and gentrification.
bkrot.org+2
USSeattle, United States
A hyperlocal cycle in Seattle's Chinatown-International District that turns neighboring restaurants' food scraps into compost for the Danny Woo Community Garden—the area's only green space—supporting elderly immigrant gardeners growing culturally significant foods.
restaurant2garden.com+2
NZAuckland, New Zealand
A neighborhood compost hub in Auckland's Kaipatiki that accepts residents' bokashi food scraps, turns them into compost for a teaching garden, and offers free workshops via Compost Collective in pursuit of the city's 2040 zero-waste goal.
kaipatiki.nz+2
GBLondon, United Kingdom
A movable organic garden built inside builders' skips in the middle of the King's Cross redevelopment in London. Made largely (~90%) from reclaimed materials, with beehives and bug hotels, it turned a gap space into a site for youth education and community.
globalgeneration.org.uk+1
USNew Orleans, United States
Founded in 2006, this was the first replication of Alice Waters' Berkeley Edible Schoolyard. Gardens encircling the school and a kitchen classroom serve as living classrooms where students at low-income public charter schools learn from seed to table as part of the regular curriculum, now spread across four FirstLine schools.
edibleschoolyard.org+1
USBrooklyn, New York, United States
Opened in 2010 by transforming a concrete parking lot at Brooklyn's P.S. 216 into a half-acre organic garden and kitchen classroom, this is the NYC demonstration school. Children learn from seed to plate while growing about 160 crops, and the model has expanded to network schools in East Harlem and the Bronx, reaching thousands of students.
edibleschoolyard.org+1
JPChuo, Tokyo, Japan
Opened in spring 2022 on a building rooftop in Tokyo's Nihonbashi-Kayabacho, this urban community garden grows about 200 species of edible plants. Run by Heiwa Real Estate with Edible Schoolyard Japan as an 'edible schoolyard' in the city, it hosts food education for the nearby Sakamoto Elementary School and community exchange, and has won green-city awards.
edibleschoolyard-japan.org+1
JPHino, Japan
A community garden in Hino City, Tokyo, started by citizens who believe 'kitchen waste is a treasure.' It collects and composts the kitchen waste of around 200 households and grows vegetables and flowers pesticide-free as a food-cycle garden. Naomi Shimpo studied its management and governance in detail in her 2021 and 2024 papers.
acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com+3
JP東京都世田谷区 / Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
The corridor created by undergrounding the Odakyu line (Shimokita Senrogai) was regenerated as continuous green infrastructure of a rain-garden plaza, open meadow and planting strips. The municipal Shimokita Rain Garden Plaza is designed so people can cross on stepping stones even when water pools, delivering stormwater management, biodiversity and community. The citizen group Shimokita Engei-bu is deeply involved through planting, beekeeping and composting.
shimokitazawa.info+2
JPTokyo, Japan
A project turning a 1,500㎡ plot of national land in Harajuku into a citizen-built organic community garden for under a year (opened April 2025) — a flagship case of interim use before redevelopment.
project.nikkeibp.co.jp+1
CNShanghai, China
Opened in July 2016 as Shanghai's first open-community urban farm. A narrow vacant lot, left unused because a major municipal tunnel runs beneath it, was transformed into a resident-participatory permaculture garden.
journal.hep.com.cn+1
CNShanghai, China
Baicaoyuan ('herbal garden') is a roughly 200 m² resident-run garden in the central square of a Yangpu neighbourhood. Supported by Clover Nature School, it is a representative resident-managed community garden.
archive.shine.cn+1
CNShanghai, China
Completed November 2019, a ~450 m² community 'habitat garden' reclaimed from a rubble dump, with native plants, a pond and vegetable beds that provide habitat for urban wildlife while connecting residents to nature. It is the first of Shanghai's habitat-garden network (24 gardens by 2023).
nature.org+1
CNShanghai, China
Completed July 2020, a large ~5.2-hectare community garden in Zhuanghang Town, Fengxian District. Drawing on the area's rice-farming identity, it is an open agricultural park centred on children's farming experiences and food education.
mooool.com+1
CNShanghai, China
A citywide movement begun in 2014 to spread resident-participatory community gardens across Shanghai. Led by the non-profit Clover Nature School, co-founded by Tongji University's Liu Yuelai, it turns neglected spaces into citizen-built edible green areas.
theworldofchinese.com+1
CNShenzhen, China
Launched by the Shenzhen government in 2019, the 'We Garden' program is a government-led participatory model in which residents jointly turn idle urban land into green spaces and community gardens; several hundred had been built by the end of 2023.
mdpi.com+1
CNChengdu, China
A resident-led, environment-friendly rooftop vegetable garden launched in 2014 by the Xingrong Community Committee in Chengdu. It practises an organic cycle using rainwater irrigation and kitchen-waste compost, with 23 households growing vegetables together.
c40.org+1
JOAmman, Jordan
A rooftop-garden project aiming to create a green oasis in dense, concrete refugee camps and reconnect refugees with their agricultural heritage. It offers a low-tech response to food insecurity and fosters community self-reliance, expanding from a prototype on the Jadal rooftop in Amman to implementation in Jerash refugee camp.
jordantimes.com+3
ILTel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
A network of community gardens spreading across Tel Aviv and Israel where residents grow organic vegetables together, reviving a lost sense of neighbourly sharing and fostering more sustainable living. Gardens in poorer neighbourhoods are supported by several civic organisations and serve as places of social inclusion.
communitygardensisrael.org+1
COMedellín, Colombia
Medellín's urban agriculture program. The 2005 'Ecohuertas Urbanas' is its flagship project, and together with the successor 'Huertas con Vos' it advances food security and social cohesion.
medellin.gov.co+1
CLSantiago, Chile
Inaugurated in 2007 as the first urban community garden in the Santiago metropolitan area by the municipality of La Pintana; with a 700 m² parcelled garden and pioneering composting, it sustains agricultural traditions in a low-income commune.
eldesconcierto.cl+1
BRRio de Janeiro, Brazil
Rio de Janeiro's urban agriculture program, launched in 2006, establishing agroecological gardens in schools and vacant lots and supporting food security in favelas and vulnerable areas through composting, seedling production and food education.
carioca.rio+1
CAMontreal, Canada
A Montreal non-profit founded in 1995 to connect youth and seniors, linking a rooftop garden, composting and bicycle-based meal delivery. It is described as the only Meals-on-Wheels service in Canada that grows its own food.
santropolroulant.org+1
CAToronto, Canada
A community food centre in Toronto's west end, founded in 1982, running a food bank plus four community gardens and two farmers' markets. Its Green Barn is an urban-agriculture hub with a greenhouse and compost demonstration centre.
thestop.org+1
ZACape Town, South Africa
A non-profit urban farm started in 2012 on the slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town. It regenerated a historic farm site into an organic farm and community hub celebrating local food, culture and community.
ozcf.co.za+1
ZAJohannesburg, South Africa
A rooftop farm started in 2019 in Braamfontein, central Johannesburg. It turned an unused rooftop into a green oasis and has established more than 15 food gardens across the inner city.
witsvuvuzela.com+1
ZASoweto, South Africa
A food garden started around 2021 by youth in Orlando West, Soweto. They transformed a dumping site into a plot growing cabbage and spinach to support the area's elderly residents.
foodformzansi.co.za+1
LSMaseru, Lesotho
A household compost-integrated raised-bed garden developed in drought- and erosion-prone Lesotho by the Consortium for Southern Africa Food Security Emergency (C-SAFE), based on a design CARE used in Zimbabwe, and spread widely across southern Africa.
tandfonline.com+1
INBengaluru, India
A Bengaluru organic terrace-gardening movement begun in 2011 that runs recurring events to spread rooftop food growing among urban dwellers. It brings seeds, saplings, compost, tools and know-how together in one place with demonstrations and consultations.
gardencityfarmers.org+2
INMumbai, India
A Mumbai city-farming movement that opened a community farm on space offered by the director of Maharashtra Nature Park. Aiming for a community farm in every suburb, it spreads organic growing through terrace farms and school programmes.
cityfarmer.info+2
INChennai, India
A Chennai rooftop-gardening initiative launched in 2014 whose founder grows 500+ plants on her own roof and has helped 1,500+ people start their own rooftop gardens. It teaches citizens organic growing through consultations, workshops and internships.
thebetterindia.com+2
INDelhi, India
A Delhi-based eco-initiative teaching urban dwellers organic growing that has set up 500+ kitchen gardens since 2015. Its 'Farmlets' programme lets citizens rent plots to grow their own food, broadening urban-farming participation.
edibleroutes.com+1
INHyderabad, India
A Hyderabad urban-farming scheme run by the Telangana Department of Horticulture that gives citizens subsidised kits to grow vegetables on their terraces. Kits include soil, manure and grow beds to help households build nutrition gardens.
horticulture.tg.nic.in+1
INPune, India
A Pune community-farming group formed in 2019 that creates space for people without land to grow organically together. Its ~800 members share plots and knowledge and turn household kitchen waste into compost.
india.mongabay.com+1
INKochi, India
An urban homestead-farming initiative in the Kochi Corporation area in which households grow organic vegetables on terraces toward self-sufficiency. It uses grow bags and vermicompost to recycle household waste efficiently into cultivation.
cityfarmer.info+1
IDBandung, Indonesia
Launched by Bandung in 2020, 'Buruan SAE' (Sundanese for 'good yard') is an integrated urban-farming programme combining vegetables, livestock, fishery, medicinal plants and organic-waste composting. By 2022 it had grown to 335 groups across 151 villages.
buruansae.bandung.go.id+1
IDYogyakarta, Indonesia
In the dense Bausasran neighbourhood ~500 m from Yogyakarta's Malioboro centre, urban farming grew out of the 2005 Proklim (climate village) programme. Using tiny plots and alleyways, residents grow diverse vegetables (cauliflower, lettuce, chili, eggplant, etc.) organically.
kesra.jogjakota.go.id+1
IDSurabaya, Indonesia
A city-driven urban-farming programme. Through frameworks such as 'KASUR BOYO' (Kampung Sayur Suroboyo), the DKPP supports residents across kampungs in producing vegetables, fruit, fish and livestock on limited urban space for food security, greening and organic-waste management.
dkpp.surabaya.go.id+1
IDJakarta, Indonesia
The 'Gang Hijau' (Green Alley) movement greens and cultivates the narrow alleys of Jakarta's dense neighbourhoods. In areas like RW 16 Tomang, residents built nutrition gardens and a 'Hijau Lestari' sustainable-food zone. The programme grew from ~150 alleys to nearly 600 city-wide, with about 200 in North Jakarta.
barat.jakarta.go.id+1
IDMakassar, Indonesia
Launched in 2014 by Makassar mayor Danny Pomanto, the 'Lorong Garden (Longgar)' flagship programme had residents—especially women—use the city's narrow alleys (described as the cells of the city) to grow ornamental and food plants, transforming them into clean, green spaces. It later evolved into 'Lorong Wisata'.
makassar.terkini.id+1
JPKobe, Hyogo, Japan
A co-creation farm on leased Kobe city land with a view of the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Ougiden, Tarumi-ku, Kobe. Themed on 'play', it runs on three pillars—an organic rental farm, hands-on permaculture workshops, and a shared farming place—emphasizing organic-matter cycling and composting, jointly operated by Minna no Uen, Sorabatake and Hoshi no Aima.
minnanouen.jp+1
JPKobe, Japan
A Tanemaki LAB venture, centered on Kobe, that multiplies urban gardens on rooftops, idle land and in parks. With small empty-handed gardens and dispatched farmers, it spreads greening, community exchange and the joy of urban farming, and has expanded into local distribution such as the KOBE Veggie Bus.
tanemakilab.jp+2
JPKobe, Japan
A community garden at Zaimokucho Plaza along Kobe's Hyogo Canal. Using planters made from reused maritime wooden pallets, it grows strawberries, over ten kinds of herbs, figs, citrus, hops and radishes, creating a place for community farming and exchange on the canal bank.
city.kobe.lg.jp+3
MYKuala Lumpur, Malaysia
An approximately 8-acre urban farm regenerating neglected land in central Kuala Lumpur. Addressing the climate crisis, lack of open space and food insecurity, its harvest is donated to soup kitchens and the underprivileged. In 2022 DBKL recognised it as a model community garden under LA21KL.
kebunkebunbangsar.org+2
MYKuala Lumpur, Malaysia
A resident-led community garden in Sri Hartamas, Kuala Lumpur. A former DBKL officer living locally connected community gardens to LA21, and it is featured as one of 21+ community gardens flourishing across the Klang Valley.
kebunhartamas.wixsite.com+1
THBangkok, Thailand
A citizen urban-agriculture network overseeing 450+ community gardens centred on Bangkok. During COVID-19 it converted wasteland into food sources, launching 210 new gardens starting with 30 high-risk communities across six provinces.
thaicityfarm.com+2
THPathum Thani, Thailand
A rooftop farm inspired by traditional rice terraces that produces about 20 tons of organic food a year, equivalent to some 80,000 campus meals. Its 12 sloped areas act as outdoor classrooms, making it a learning hub where 40,000 students and nearby residents can study sustainable agriculture.
sdgs.tu.ac.th+2
JPKitanakagusuku, Okinawa, Japan
An organic community garden run by Sunshine Farm in Kitanakagusuku, reviving the traditional Okinawan home plot 'atai-guwa' as an edible garden. Across fields, a paddy and a plaza, residents of all ages grow vegetables, rice and herbs and share the harvest.
note.com+1
JPKanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
Kanazawa City's food-waste recycling loop that collects citizen-made compost at neighborhood points and uses it at community farms. It advances food-loss reduction and organic-resource circulation through citizen participation.
www4.city.kanazawa.lg.jp+1
JPMoriyama, Shiga, Japan
'Oishii Niwa,' run in Moriyama by NPO Aoi Biwako (focused on Lake Biwa conservation). Through home gardening, composting, and parent-child SDGs learning, citizens engage with food-farming and organic-resource cycling.
moriyama-ecopark.net+2
AUSydney, Australia
A case where citizens turned an inner-city disused lot into a place for food and learning, built on three pillars — local food, education and community — aiming to make urban farming a normal part of city life.
camperdown.commons.com.au+1
NZAuckland, New Zealand
An organic city farm on council land just a few kilometres from downtown, linking welfare, education and organic cycling to give citizens hands-on contact with farming and food.
kelmarna.co.nz+1
CUHavana, Cuba
Popular gardens movement in Havana starting in 1991. Community groups and individuals cultivate state-owned land. Emerged as a grassroots food security response when Soviet Union collapse in 1989 led to oil shortage and economic crisis. Government provides support via composting facilities, veterinary clinics, and subsidized agricultural supplies. About 300 community organopónicos use 8% of Havana's land (35,000 acres), producing organic food that supplies each citizen with ~280g of fruits and vegetables daily.
unesco.org+2
MXMexico City, Mexico
Mexico City community project integrating vegetable gardens, chicken coops, trout farm, and compost program with emphasis on youth environmental education and engagement.
foodtank.com+1
DEBerlin, Germany
One of Germany's largest community gardens, created on Berlin's iconic former airport field, Tempelhofer Feld. Cultivating public open space with movable raised beds, it embodies the idea of the urban commons (Allmende) and doubles as a knowledge and networking hub for urban gardening.
allmende-kontor.de+1
DEBerlin (nationwide), Germany
A German education program built on the idea that the field is the best classroom, fostering children's understanding of food and nature through school gardens. Its hands-on curriculum, cultivating a corner of the schoolyard or school grounds, builds appreciation of food, healthy eating and awareness of food waste. It has grown into the largest school-garden network in the German-speaking world.
gemueseackerdemie.de+2
FRGennevilliers, France
The flagship example of the R-Urban strategy, turning vacant suburban land near Paris into citizen-run agro-cultural hubs. AgroCité, combining urban agriculture, recycling and low-energy building, was born in Colombes, dismantled in 2017 to make way for a car park, and rebuilt in Gennevilliers after a residents' campaign. It is internationally known as a model of the urban commons.
urbantactics.org+2
ITFlorence, Italy
Located on Borgo Pinti in Florence's historic centre, said to be the only urban garden inside the UNESCO World Heritage zone. It regenerated a disused athletics track, practising sustainable growing with recycled materials and water-saving irrigation alongside food and environmental education. It is known for creating community space and greenery in the heart of a tourist city.
ortidipinti.it+2
DKCopenhagen, Denmark
A vacant plot in Copenhagen's former industrial district of Refshaleøen transformed into one of Scandinavia's largest urban farms. Integrating fields, bees and chickens with a restaurant, it models regenerative agriculture and food experiences in the city, carrying forward the ØsterGro legacy of connecting people and nature through farming and food.
oenshave.dk+2
FIHelsinki, Finland
A symbolic hub of Finnish urban agriculture, regenerating a historic railway turntable in Pasila, central Helsinki. It turned a leftover piece of rail infrastructure into a greenhouse, garden and event space—a laboratory for sustainable food production, peer learning and urban culture.
kaantopoyta.fi+2
CZPrague, Czechia
The first community garden in Prague and the pioneer of the Czech urban-gardening movement. Combining small bag/bed plots with a café, it became popular as a place to 'grow relationships along with vegetables' and triggered the spread of community gardens to other districts of the city.
sharingandcaring.eu+2
IEDublin, Ireland
A collective garden in inner-city Dublin bearing the name of the old 'Mud Island' area mentioned in James Joyce's Ulysses. Residents transformed a derelict site that had cost the city thousands to clear each year into a green community hub, notable for fully collective cultivation with shared harvests. It has won multiple awards as a leading Dublin community garden.
mudisland.ie+1
HUBudapest, Hungary
A pioneering example of interim use of vacant infill plots in central Budapest. Despite having to relocate four times as development advanced, the garden has kept going and now refreshes the 8th district from its current site on Magdolna Street. It is emblematic of Hungary's urban community-garden movement.
kozossegikertek.hu+2
MXMexico City, Mexico
A citizen-run urban garden in Mexico City's Roma district that turned an earthquake-scarred vacant lot into a laboratory for permaculture and the solidarity economy. Styling itself a 'biosocial lab', it works as a community centre spanning farming, environment, culture and health.
huertoromaverde.org+2
MXMexico City, Mexico
A 1,650 m² urban farm on an earthquake-cleared site in Mexico City's Tlatelolco district. Growing by agroecological principles, with an edible forest and seed bank at its heart, it delivers food education as a model of agrarian urbanism.
cultivaciudad.org+3
BRSão Paulo, Brazil
An experimental community garden created by citizens in Praça das Corujas in western São Paulo. A forerunner of a new movement in which a social-media-born citizen network cultivates public space, it inspired gardens across the city.
hortadascorujas.wordpress.com+1
PELima, Peru
In an arid peripheral district of Lima, older women turned wasteland into a 1,400 m² agroecological garden. A resident-led response to food insecurity and the climate crisis, it puts urban agriculture at the heart of neighbourhood food and social life.
es.wikipedia.org+2
ZWHarare, Zimbabwe
A pioneering centre on the outskirts of Harare that has taught permaculture and organic farming for over three decades. Credited with influencing nearly every related project in Zimbabwe, from urban and peri-urban gardens to rural farms, it trains practitioners of climate-resilient agriculture around the capital.
fambidzanai.org.zw+2
CAToronto, Canada
A 2024 resident-led composting stewardship program in Thorncliffe Park with City of Toronto support. Since launch, the program has collected over 3,000 pounds of organic waste, demonstrating strong community engagement in circular economy practices.
thorncliffeparkurbanfarmers.ca+1
USDetroit, United States
Community-led composting initiative diverting food scraps from landfills and teaching sustainable waste management; diverted 3,300+ pounds of food waste between Aug–Nov 2025; supports circular urban food systems.
planetdetroit.org+1
MXMexico City, Mexico
Founded by three young women, Sembradores Urbanos opened Mexico's first urban agriculture demonstration center in August 2007. Teaches residents how to connect with food, care for land, and create green spaces.
cityfarmer.info+1
LBBeirut, Lebanon
A sustainable urban farming model launched in 2020 by the Food Heritage Foundation at a New Doha residential complex near Beirut, combining production with composting and egg farming
food-heritage.org
NPKathmandu, Nepal
An initiative by ENPHO with Kathmandu Metropolitan City, RUAF and UN-Habitat to integrate rooftop farming into the city's climate strategy
ruaf.org+1
USNew York, United States
A pioneering for-profit rooftop soil farm operating across several NYC buildings, balancing commercial production with education and community, and widely cited as a model for urban rooftop agriculture.
brooklyngrangefarm.com
THBangkok, Thailand
Bangkok Rooftop Farming transforms unused rooftops and empty spaces into circular urban farms powered by organic compost from food waste. Closes the loop by converting waste from hotels and communities into nutrients for rooftop production. Addresses Bangkok's daily 9,000 tons of waste, 60% of which is organic food waste.
bangkokrooftopfarming.com+1
INBengaluru / Pune, インド
Primary research study (2024-2026) in Bengaluru and Pune. Urban agriculture practices are diverse across crop varieties, composting methods, and water reuse strategies. Active knowledge-sharing networks among practitioners enhance sustainability.
ibef.org+1
PELima, Peru
30-month initiative to boost Lima's local food production. Transforms gardens into hubs with composting and organic cycle training, plus fair trade labeling to support sustainable local agriculture.
cusointernational.org
MXMexico City, Mexico
Cultiva Ciudad manages school gardens in Mexico City and converts 1,500+ kg of food waste annually into fertile soil. Huerto Tlatelolco project features a 1,650 m2 edible forest with 45 tree varieties plus a seed bank, advancing food sovereignty and organic recycling.
zeahungrygoods.com
ESMadrid, Spain
Joint initiative between Madrid Agroecologico and municipal government managing organic waste from schools, residences, and markets. Local farmers produce compost, closing urban nutrient cycles
link.springer.com
ESEl Robledo, Spain
Small town south of Madrid (pop. ~2,000) where over 100 families operate a community composting facility, processing organic waste collectively and supporting local agriculture
sciencedirect.com
CUHavana, Cuba
An organic urban farm in Havana started in 1997 by five cooperative members against the food crisis of the post-Soviet 'Special Period'. Around 150 members collectively manage about 11 ha, and it is regarded as one of Cuba's most successful examples of urban agriculture (organopónico).
en.wikipedia.org+2
BDDhaka, Bangladesh
FAO's Dhaka Food System project (2019–2023) trained and equipped 440 mostly-female residents of poor Dhaka neighborhoods to grow vegetables and fruit on rooftops and small surface plots. Local NGO Proshika supplied seeds, saplings, tools and fertilizer, and participants received gardening and nutrition training. It is a citizen/community gardening program, not agritech.
fao.org+1
NPKathmandu, Nepal
A citizen-focused rooftop farming program led by ENPHO and Kathmandu Metropolitan City (with RUAF and UN-Habitat technical support), launched in 2013. Households are trained to grow vegetables on their roofs using vermicompost, waste segregation, nursery management and rainwater harvesting, framed as a climate-adaptation and urban food-security strategy. Its demonstration gardens and training manual helped spread rooftop farming across the Kathmandu Valley.
enpho.org+1
CZPrague, Czechia
A Prague social enterprise turning unused urban land into community gardens and composting hubs, spreading composting and gardening among citizens, businesses and government while offering work and inclusion to people with mental illness.
inherit.eu+2
IEDublin, Ireland
A citizen-led community garden created by residents in 2005 on a corner plot in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7. Doubling as a composting demonstration site, it has won several Dublin City Council awards for waste management and environmental design.
desireland.ie+1
DKCopenhagen, Denmark
Denmark's first rooftop farm, built atop a five-storey former car-auction building. Run as a CSA in which citizens invest and participate, with an on-site restaurant serving the harvest.
oestergro.dk+1
NLAmsterdam, Netherlands
A self-harvest urban farm on a former sports-park site in Amsterdam-Noord, run by a collective of eco-entrepreneurs where members harvest weekly from naturally-farmed beds.
stadstuinderijnoordoogst.nl+1
SEGothenburg, Sweden
A neighbourhood urban-farming project begun in Gothenburg's Högsbo and Bergsjön that combines cultivation with citizen 'foster' sponsorship of goats and pigs.
stadsjord.se+1
USMilwaukee, United States
An urban agriculture nonprofit founded in Milwaukee in 1993 by Will Allen, a former professional basketball player. Based on what was described as the last functional farm inside Milwaukee city limits, it ran aquaponics, composting and soil-reclamation operations together with a large training programme for city residents, and also maintained a Chicago office. It became one of the best-known symbols of the US urban farming movement.
en.wikipedia.org
JPKobe (須磨区), Japan
A multi-generational community garden on the rooftop of the Suma Patio shopping centre in Suma Ward, Kobe. Rather than simply growing vegetables, it treats "eating" as a year-round, whole-cycle experience, with regular hands-on workshops. Weeds and plant residues from the rooftop beds and workshops are composted and returned to the garden's planters and to nearby fields, closing a small local resource loop.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+2
JPKobe (垂水区), Japan
An urban garden run by the incorporated association Tanemaki LAB. With the cooperation of Kobe International University High School, previously unused land inside the school grounds has been brought back into use as a place where local residents gather, work the soil and meet. It is framed not as a plot-rental service but as community-building linking "people to people" and "everyday life to nature", with workshops that let anyone experience the loop from household food scraps to compost, vegetables and the table.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+3
JPKobe (中央区), Japan
A citizen-participation community garden based in Ikutacho Park, near Shin-Kobe station, created as part of Kobe City's "Kobe Saien Project". Alongside vegetable growing it focuses on making sustainable living tangible — composting, resource cycling and soil building. The operators describe composting not as waste disposal but as "a small doorway into the cycle that connects people, neighbourhood and nature", aiming to start local cycling from curiosity and enjoyment rather than from environmental problems framed as difficult.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+3
JPKobe (兵庫区・長田区), Japan
A come-empty-handed rental garden run at two sites in Kobe — Kanda-cho in Hyogo Ward and Komagabayashi-cho in Nagata Ward — by Akisuke Nagata, a group that turns vacant houses and lots into neighbourhood assets. Its distinguishing feature is that vegetable waste and prunings are recycled into compost with a local type-B employment support workshop rather than incinerated, with the goal of getting people to use fully matured "craft compost", made entirely from local plant material and inputs, as a matter of course.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+4
JPKobe (兵庫区), Japan
A community complex created by renovating Minatoyama municipal primary school, closed in 2015, around the theme of "making nature and everyday life". An aquarium, an edible botanical garden, a herb shop, a brewery, a supported-employment facility, childcare and after-school care and welfare services sit side by side, cultivating a place where people, nature and neighbourhood connect. As a partner organisation of the Kobe Compost Project it sets out to work with users to find forms of cycling that are easy to sustain in daily life.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+3
JPKobe (北区), Japan
A community group based in Ogo-cho, Kita Ward, Kobe, that since 2019 has been clearing neglected bamboo groves and putting the bamboo to use. Left alone, bamboo encroaches on fields, degrades the landscape and shelters crop-raiding animals, so continuous cutting is needed to return the hills to open, managed satoyama. Under the motto "tasty and fun", bamboo and shoots are upcycled instead of discarded — into domestic menma, bamboo craft and the transmission of those skills, and fertiliser made from bamboo chips. Its bamboo-chip compost is used in the Kobe Compost Project's public workshops.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+3
JPKobe (長田区), Japan
A group based at a community garden in Mano, Nagata Ward, Kobe, where children and local residents learn hands-on how food, farming and the environment connect. Using a small garden inside a residential area, it runs a "sixth-industry" model covering not just growing and harvesting but processing and selling. Spent coffee grounds collected from local cafés are composted in a community composter and returned to the garden.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+4
JPKobe (須磨区), Japan
An open space on the edge of the Tainohata settlement in Suma Ward, Kobe, run by the workers' co-operative Hata, whose proposals for daily life include "a life that makes soil". Since the previous year it has run a cycling garden: vegetable scraps from its kitchen are broken down by microbes in the garden composter into soil, that soil goes back to the beds, the beds become habitat for a range of living things, and flowers and vegetables are harvested and eaten. It invites neighbours and users to compost at home too, using the compost themselves or bringing any surplus back to Hata, so the cycle is shared.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+2
JPKunitachi, Tokyo, Japan
An NPO community garden in Yaho, Kunitachi, offering both private and shared plots. Layers farm living with childcare and neighbourhood belonging, linked to the group’s wider farm-experience sites.
k-nouennokai.org+4
JPKobe (東灘区), Japan
An organic rental farm on the Kobe Bay Sheraton rooftop on Rokko Island, run with local farmers so city residents can grow, learn and build community around food.
city.kobe.lg.jp+2
JPKobe (中央区), Japan
A citizen garden on Motomachi shopping street rooftops, run by Sorabatake / Tanemaki LAB with organic growing and farmer support.
city.kobe.lg.jp+1
JPKobe (垂水区), Japan
Residents jointly steward a former municipal housing site in Shioya, Tarumi—not private allotments but club-style growing of veg, herbs and grapes with shared harvests and picnics.
city.kobe.lg.jp
JPNagoya, Aichi, Japan
Started April 2023 on vacant land at Nagoya’s Higashi Betsuin. Regenerative edible gardening aims to make Nagoya an edible city; about fifty people drop in between work and childcare, practising urban carbon sequestration.
greenjourney.net+2
ROBucharest, Romania
A community garden in the middle of Bucharest, said to be the only place of its kind for the 240,000 inhabitants of the surrounding quarter. Residents grow vegetables, herbs and flowers there and learn organic growing and composting hands-on. This database already holds the corporate-led Grădinescu network and the citizen-founded Urban CULTOR as Bucharest cases; this one is a single resident garden rooted in one neighbourhood, notable both for its small scale and for having no alternative nearby.
una.city
HKHong Kong, Hong Kong
A campus rooftop farm the University of Hong Kong has run since 2013. Hong Kong imports over 98% of its fresh vegetables, and the farm is framed as a way for city dwellers to reconnect with food production and nature, fostering environmental responsibility through organic and sustainable practice.
holisticurbanfarming.hku.hk
NPKahare (near Kathmandu), Nepal
A foundation on the outskirts of Kathmandu that builds a community-wide cycle around an organic and biodynamic farm, combined with a school, medical care, a café and a workshop. Cows and chickens are kept, and food waste and manure are routed through composting and biogas to supply the farm's own fertiliser.
kathmandupost.com
UAKyiv (Podil), Ukraine
A community garden that opened in spring 2025 in Kyiv's historic Podil district — the first of its kind in the city centre — in the middle of wartime. Residents and volunteers cleared a plot that had sat walled off since a building was demolished there in 1985, and turned it into a garden with raised beds, rainwater collection, compost bins and a tool shed. It was formally opened in May 2025.
colville-andersen.com+1
SILjubljana (Resljeva cesta, Tabor), Slovenia
A landmark 'meanwhile use' project: from 2010 to 2022 an unbuilt, municipally owned construction site on Resljeva cesta in central Ljubljana served as a community garden. Some 40 plots on 650 m² supported not only growing but public talks, cultural events and ecological learning. It wound up in 2022 when the city began building non-profit housing on the site.
interlace-hub.com+2
LKColombo (southern suburbs), Sri Lanka
A small patch of degraded wasteland used as a dumping ground, regenerated from 2013 by the environmental NGO ECO-V. Soil was rebuilt by composting organic waste, and the site was divided into two zones — an 'Eco Garden' urban forest and a 'Metta Garden' for pollinators and insects — combining a butterfly garden of native host plants with organic vegetable beds.
iucn.org
HRZagreb, Croatia
Launched by a mayoral decision of 4 April 2013, the scheme develops city-owned arable land and lends plots to residents free of charge for growing vegetables, berries, medicinal herbs and flowers for their own use. It started from three locations in spring 2013, reached 12 by 2017, and now covers 14 gardens, more than 2,152 plots and 23.03 hectares. Growing to ecological principles is required across all sites, with plot inspections and soil analyses.
zagreb.hr+2
GETbilisi, Georgia
A small community garden in the Georgian capital started by Salome Popiashvili, who first encountered community gardening in Berlin on a Georgian Youth for Europe project and, back home, obtained land free of charge by putting a proposal to the municipality. Community gardening is not yet widespread in Georgia, and this is one of the few working examples (as reported in October 2021).
jam-news.net+1
LKColombo, Sri Lanka
Metta Garden is a plot of degraded land in Colombo that the Sri Lankan environmental NGO Eco Friendly Volunteers (ECO-V) has been converting into a garden since 2013. Grounded in the Buddhist idea of metta (loving-kindness), it combines mixed vegetable beds, a butterfly corner, pollinator planting and areas left to native wild plants. Opened to the public in 2015, it now serves as a training site for organic growing and biodiversity.
eco-v.org
TRIstanbul, Turkey
A collective garden run by students and academics on the South Campus of Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey, started in spring 2012. It grew out of a 2011 occupation protesting the commercialisation of campus food and rising food prices, where participants proposed producing their own food, and it grew vegetables from heirloom seed without synthetic chemicals. After the 2013 Gezi Park protests it influenced a wave of similar community gardens across Istanbul.
en.wikipedia.org+1
EETallinn, Estonia
An allotment garden the city billed as Tallinn's largest community garden, built as an extension of an existing community space. Construction began on 1 August 2023 with a February 2024 completion deadline. It has raised beds and garden plots, a greenhouse, compost bins, water connections, street lighting, toilets and a roofed gathering area.
greentallinn.eu+1
MACasablanca, Morocco
An 1,600 m² educational garden in Casablanca irrigated with treated wastewater. In the water-stressed Greater Casablanca region it demonstrates in practice that treated effluent can water green space and, in some cases, produce food — and takes that message to schools, government and business.
climate-chance.org
NAWindhoek (Goreangab), Namibia
Started in 2018 on roughly three hectares of municipal land at Windhoek's north-western edge, next to the informal settlements of Goreangab. The point is to work out permaculture methods that survive Namibia's harsh dry climate and hand them to residents. It combines three things on one site — individual plots, a production centre making compost, seedlings and natural pest repellents, and a training centre — so it functions as an urban-agriculture training hub rather than just a garden.
worldfuturecouncil.org+1
MKSkopje (Novo Lisiče), North Macedonia
The first citizens' community garden in North Macedonia, in the Novo Lisiče park in Skopje. The civic association The Green Ark prepared it over two years from late 2019, opened it in August 2021, and opened it to the general public on 2 May 2022. The name "Bostanie" fuses "bostan" (a Turkish-derived word for cucurbits) with "vostanie" (uprising).
zivotnasredina.skopje.gov.mk+1
HRZagreb, Croatia
Zagreb's municipal allotment scheme, launched by a mayoral decision on 4 April 2013, divides city-owned land into plots where residents grow vegetables, berries, herbs and flowers for their own use. It has spread to 16 locations — including Stenjevec, Novi Zagreb (east and west), Peščenica-Žitnjak, Sesvete, Trnje, Maksimir and Podsused-Vrapče — with more than 2,252 plots. The city issues a gardening manual that encourages organic practice.
zagreb.hr+1
NZWellington, New Zealand
An urban farm and composting initiative in Wellington started in 2015. Staff collect food scraps from offices and apartments by e-bike, hand-process them into compost, and use it on their own farm. The farm grows vegetables on Māori-led organic and regenerative principles, donating most of the harvest to community groups supporting people in need. The society was renamed Kaicycle Incorporated Society in 2018.
kaicycle.org.nz+1
MTFloriana, Malta
An urban garden inside the hub that Friends of the Earth Malta established in Floriana. Built as a place where residents and activist groups pool environmental knowledge and skills, it hosts gardening and climate-adaptation workshops in the garden itself, and its Bee Cause Hub lends out honey-harvesting equipment to connect visitors to pollinators.
foemalta.org+1
TTCouva, Trinidad and Tobago
A community greenhouse run by residents in the Cashew Gardens neighbourhood within the Couva-Tabaquite-Talparo Corporation of Trinidad. Short-cycle crops are grown hydroponically, harvested rainwater is used for irrigation, and agricultural and household food waste is composted to recycle nutrients. It grew out of the neighbourhood's recycling work: outside funders and universities supply money and know-how, but residents do the daily growing.
habitat-tt.org+1
ILJerusalem, Israel
A programme turning Jerusalem's vacant and neglected land into resident-tended gardens and green space, spanning over 120 acres. Alongside food growing, its pillars are tree planting, preservation of native vegetation and composting. Run jointly by the Jerusalem Foundation and the municipality's Department of Social Sustainability, it spans neighbourhoods across the city's religious and ethnic divides.
jerusalemfoundation.org
CRCurridabat (San José), Costa Rica
A community garden in Curridabat, in Costa Rica's greater San José area, created by three young residents on unused urban land. It pairs organic-growing and permaculture workshops with gatherings such as film nights and bonfires, under the idea that cultivating land harvests not only food but community.
segib.org
PKKarachi, Pakistan
A citizen network in Karachi promoting organic urban growing in pots, on rooftops and in leftover spaces. Its core is the "learning garden": in schools it anchors a curriculum, and in homes it closes the loop by composting household organic waste back into the beds. In a city where vegetation covers only about 7% of the land area, it aims to grow both food and green space through residents' own hands.
cityfarmer.info+1
SVSan Salvador, El Salvador
An urban and peri-urban agriculture programme launched in 2020 by the City of San Salvador and FAO in response to deepening urban food insecurity during COVID-19. Demonstration centres placed across the city act as places to see and learn, and from there the programme spreads know-how on family gardens, growing vegetables in small spaces and composting.
fao.org
NPMadhyapur Thimi, Nepal
A project in Madhyapur Thimi Municipality, Kathmandu Valley, that used rooftop farming to address food security, waste, water conservation and climate change at once. Its distinctive feature is treating urban agriculture less as a source of produce than as a way to cycle water and organic matter within the household.
unhabitat.org.np
QADoha, Qatar
A community garden run at the Micro-Farm inside Education City, Doha, where residents can register for a bed and grow their own food. The name Hadiqaa (حديقة) is Arabic for "garden". To make growing possible in a Gulf climate that nears 50°C in summer, it runs a year-round programme of workshops on soil, sowing, composting and winter vegetables, treating growing skills themselves as a shared asset.
hadiqaa.com+2
QADoha, Qatar
A former school courtyard in Doha — the Qatar Preparatory School — converted into a community garden open to residents. It opened on 13 November 2025 as an event tied to a Qatar Museums exhibition, designed so that visitors learn hands-on about growing vegetables in Qatar's climate, composting and cutting food waste. The enclosed courtyard also provides a microclimate that suits growing in a hot, windy setting.
qm.org.qa+1
CZPrague (Krč, Prague 4), Czechia
A community garden opened on about five hectares of unused grassland beside the Velký háj woods in Krč, Prague 4. Inaugurated on 13 May 2026, it is described as the largest of its kind not only in Prague but in Czechia. Dozens of fruit trees and bushes have been planted, along with raised beds, a tool container and a fire pit; a wildflower meadow and vegetable plots are planned.
prazskypatriot.cz+1
CACalgary, Canada
A 30-acre urban farm on public land in southeast Calgary, formerly a construction site. Run by the settlement agency CCIS, it teaches newcomers to Canada how to grow food in southern Alberta's climate. Guided by Blackfoot Elder Herman Many Guns, its programming acknowledges the site as Treaty 7 territory. Soil restoration, biodiversity, composting, honey production and pollinator stewardship are central.
youngagrarians.org+2
HTPort-au-Prince (Cité Soleil), Haiti
In Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince, residents turned over an acre of former rubbish dump into a community garden. Started in 2012 by three local men, it now holds more than 500 brightly painted tyre gardens, plus a flower garden and a moringa nursery, and is described as Haiti's largest urban community garden.
sakala-haiti.org+1
SLFreetown, Sierra Leone
A roughly two-hectare community garden in a mangrove swamp in Freetown, worked by 35 men and women of a farmers' association on one plot per household. Soil and pests are handled with nothing but compost and ash — an example of the urban growing that has underpinned food and cash income in the post-conflict city.
fondazioneslowfood.com