Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
1204 results(16 / 49)
Urban gardening as a risk-reduction strategy – an intersectional analysis of top-down gardening initiatives
2023Emelie Larsson, Katarina Giritli Nygren · Journal of Risk Research · Global
This study analyzed strategy documents and municipal website information to examine how municipalities frame urban gardening as a risk-reduction strategy, using critical discourse analysis. It identified two discourses: an eco(no)logical risk discourse addressing ecological risks within a capitalist market logic, and a social risk discourse focusing on gardening for work training. The findings reveal that top-down urban garden initiatives highlight contemporary inequalities in urban spaces.
Equity & displacementPolicyCommunityEconomicsWelfareFirst Report of a Rust Fungus (Puccinia sp.) Infecting Lemongrass in Minnesota
2023Nicholas Greatens, Nick Klejeski, Les J. Szabo, Yue Jin, Pablo D. Olivera · Plant Disease · United States (Minnesota)
In July 2021 and July-October 2022, rust disease was observed on all 20 lemongrass plants in a community garden near Mankato, Minnesota, USA, causing 5-50% leaf loss. Molecular analysis of the rust fungus identified it as Puccinia cesatii or a closely related species. Although P. cesatii has been reported on Cymbopogon species, lemongrass is not generally considered a host, indicating an unusual infection.
Limited or null effectCommunityHealthChallenges and potential solutions in developing community supported agriculture: a literature review
2023Catharina Any Sulistyowati, Suraya Afiff, Muhammad Baiquni, Mia Siscawati · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Global
A literature study conducted from October 2021 to June 2022 identified challenges in the development of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Farmers face expenses for sustainable practices and labor shortages, while CSA members encounter issues with time commitment, cost, and adapting food consumption habits. Organizational challenges include member recruitment and retention, competition, and CSA sustainability.
Economic viabilityCSA & TeikeiEconomicsCommunityPolicyPEOPLE’S REASONS NOT TO PARTICIPATE IN COMMUNITY GARDENS IN DISADVANTAGED NEIGHBORHOODS OF ROANOKE, VIRGINIA
2023Sinan Kordon, Patrick Miller · ArtGRID - Journal of Architecture Engineering and Fine Arts · United States (Roanoke)
A survey in five disadvantaged neighborhoods of Roanoke, Virginia, identified primary reasons for non-participation in community gardening. Using descriptive statistics, T-test, and factor analysis, the study found that "theft and damage," "difficult access," "too much effort," and "no personal interest" were the main deterrents. These findings highlight specific barriers to public involvement in community garden projects.
Limited or null effectCommunityPolicyEconomicsHealth« Nous sommes la montagne qui ressent »
2023Victorine Dréau · EcoRev · Colombia
In Bello Oriente, Medellin, Colombia, displaced peasant communities resist extractivist expansion and neoliberal territorial reconfiguration through practices like urban agriculture, reasserting collective land use. This research reveals a struggle to reclaim land from the control and speculation logics of criminal gangs and urban planning institutions, indicating critical governance issues.
Governance failureCommunityFood sovereignty & justicePolicyDevelopment of Urban Farming as a Strategy to Support Food Security
2023Diana Hertati · MIMBAR Jurnal Sosial dan Pembangunan · Indonesia
This study investigated the development of urban farming as a strategy to support food security in Indonesia using descriptive and qualitative methods. While the community understands urban farming (P2L), inhibiting factors include perpetrators' lack of technical understanding, insufficient capital, and extreme weather. Local government strongly supports food security policies through urban farming.
Economic viabilityFood sovereignty & justicePolicyCommunityEconomicsPracticing ecological citizenship through community supported agriculture: Opportunities, challenges, and social justice concerns
2023Manoj Misra · Culture Agriculture Food and Environment · Canada
A qualitative study of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) participants in the greater Edmonton region of Canada examined how this local food initiative promotes ecological citizenship. The study concluded that discursive and structural limitations prevent the Edmonton CSA community from achieving meaningful diversity and addressing social justice concerns within its realm.
Equity & displacementCSA & TeikeiCommunityFood sovereignty & justicePolicyAgroecología y construcción de ciudadanía en los huertos urbanos de la Ciudad de México
2023Nehiby Alcántara Nieves, Rosa María Larroa Torres · Iztapalapa(en línea)/Iztapalapa · Mexico (Mexico City)
This article identified agroecological practices in 10 urban gardens (hu) in Mexico City and their relationship with the construction of food citizenship. Data was collected through interviews with garden managers and users, and participant observation. The study found a tendency to prioritize responsibilities over rights within these urban gardens.
Governance failureFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityPolicyA Double-Edged Sword: Examining the Structures That Afford and Limit Practices of Environmental Learning and Community Building in an Urban Community Garden in South Korea
2023Saerom Ahn, Gyeong Mi Gi, Sonya N. Martin · Asia-Pacific Science Education · South Korea
This study examined specific structures that both afford and limit practices of environmental learning and community building in an urban community garden in South Korea. The analysis illustrated the importance of understanding the dynamic relationship between gardening practices and supporting structures. The research identified how structures can provide and also restrict learning opportunities and community building within the community garden setting.
Governance failureCommunityFood educationPolicyPlanting Commons through Art ?
2023Mareike Schwarz · Street Art & Urban Creativity · Global
This paper analyzes the intersection of urban art and community gardens to explore whether commons can emerge from this collaboration. Through a comparative study of two community garden projects in Berlin and Dakar, the research examines the impact of funding structures, accessibility, artistic concepts, and design on commoning. Findings reveal that the two projects differ significantly in their development context and underlying structures, affecting their ability to function as commons. Furthermore, the paper argues that the dependency of artistic involvement on third-party funding contradicts the principles of commoning.
Governance failureCommunityPolicyEconomicsThree gardens as places of performative resistance and resilience
2023Pekka Ilmari Niskanen · Ruukku Studies in Artistic Research · Global
This paper examines three gardens—a Sahrawi sandoponic garden in Algerian refugee camps, a Helsinki Sandoponic Garden, and the Jardin Truillot in Paris—as sites for community gathering and addressing trauma. The Helsinki garden, a project by PHOSfate, highlights injustices faced by the Sahrawi population and the Baltic Sea, linking refugee status to phosphate mining and eutrophication. The study argues that recognizing injustice is central to the activism in these gardens and related practices.
Equity & displacementCommunityFood sovereignty & justiceClimate changeDampak Ekonomi dan Lingkungan Pertanian Perkotaan
2023Ane Novianty, Muhamad Nurdin Yusuf, Muhamad Arif Rizki Mauladi · MAHATANI Jurnal Agribisnis (Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics Journal) · Indonesia (Tasikmalaya)
This qualitative study explored the economic and environmental aspects of urban farming activities among 12 farmers in Kelompok Tani Taruna Tani Muara Hurip, Tasikmalaya City, Indonesia. The findings indicate that urban farming activities have not significantly contributed to the income of farmers or landowners, based on the investment ratio. However, environmentally, most farmers practice eco-friendly farming using organic fertilizers.
Economic viabilityEconomicsOrganic cycleCommunityEqualizing urban agriculture access in Glasgow: A spatial optimization approach
2023Amy Russell, Ziqi Li, Mingshu Wang · International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation · United Kingdom (Glasgow)
This study investigated the distribution of urban agriculture in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, finding that existing projects are mostly centrally located, covering 36% of the total population (approximately 635,000) within a 10-minute walk. A positive correlation was found between walking travel time to the nearest urban agriculture project and food desert status, indicating access disparity. Using the Maximal Covering Location Problem model, the research identified that a minimum of 15 new urban agriculture projects on vacant and derelict land could increase population coverage to 49% and equalize access disparity to a statistically non-significant level.
Equity & displacementCommunityHealthFood sovereignty & justicePolicyWork in progress: power in transformation to postcapitalist work relations in community–supported agriculture
2023Guilherme Raj, Giuseppe Feola, Hens Runhaar · Agriculture and Human Values · Portugal
This comparative case study of three Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiatives in Portugal analyzed how power shapes transformations to postcapitalist work relations. Results showed that while CSA creates non-alienated, non-monetized, and care-filled postcapitalist work relations, they insufficiently unmake unbalanced power relations established in capitalist work relations. The selected CSA initiatives could benefit from actively deconstructing internal hierarchies, decentralizing decision-making power from farm owners, and addressing oppressive power relations ossified in their local and cultural context when establishing postcapitalist work relations.
Equity & displacementCSA & TeikeiCommunityEconomicsFood sovereignty & justiceImplementation, Benefits, And Challenges of The Gulayan Sa Paaralan Program in Lila District, Bohol
2023Imelda Cahiles, Ricardo Bullecer · ACADEME University of Bohol Graduate School and Professional Studies · Asia
A study assessing the implementation of the Gulayan sa Paaralan Program (GPP) in schools in Lila District, Bohol, Philippines, revealed that the overall program implementation was less implemented. While roles and responsibilities at the school level and the establishment and maintenance of school gardens were implemented to a moderate extent, capability building, program monitoring, sustainability mechanisms, and program evaluation were less implemented. Respondents generally perceived the program as moderately beneficial and reported that implementation-related problems were less serious.
Governance failureFood educationFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityPolicyInvestigação Parasitológica de Hortaliças e Microbiológica de Água de Irrigação Oriundas de Hortas Comunitárias em Londrina, Paraná
2023Nathália Miasato Pimont, Rafael Alves Santomauro, Carolina De Abreu Pianta, Pablo Menegon Castilho, João Gabriel Neves Viana, Giovanna Carolina Silva Boscolo, Letícia Santos Balbino, Juliana Izidoro Lucas, Aline Ticiani Pereira Paschoal, Italmar Teodorico Navarro, Regina Mitsuka‐Breganó, Fernanda Pinto Ferreira · Ensaios e Ciência C Biológicas Agrárias e da Saúde · Brazil (Londrina)
This study, conducted in Londrina, Paraná, Brazil, between 2019 and 2020, analyzed community garden vegetables for parasites and irrigation water for *Escherichia coli*. *Escherichia coli* and total coliforms were detected in 66.7% (6/9) of water samples. Parasites of *Ascaris*, *Ancylostoma*, and *Entamoeba* genera were identified in vegetable samples, demonstrating contamination of both community garden vegetables and irrigation water.
Contamination & food safetyHealthCommunityBrazil’s Return to the Hunger Map: An Analysis of Public Policies and Effective Measures for Food Security
2023Ana Tereza Souza Domingos, Carolina Oliveira Mesquita, Emiliano Lôbo de Godoi, Thiago Augusto Mendes · Laws · Brazil
This bibliographical and documentary research analyzed the effectiveness of public food security policies in Brazil between 2012 and 2022, also considering urban agriculture as an alternative. It concluded that public policies were gradually weakened, and from 2019 to 2022, the Brazilian government discouraged food policy implementation. Consequently, Brazil faces food insecurity and hunger due to disjointed policies, the pandemic, and an economic crisis.
Governance failurePolicyFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityToward Evidence-Based Local Food Policy: An Agroecological Assessment of Urban Agriculture in Rome
2023Davide Marino, Francesca Curcio, Francesca Benedetta Felici, Giampiero Mazzocchi · Land · Italy (Rome)
This paper proposes agroecological assessment as a tool for formulating evidence-based local food policies, adapting the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) model on a sample of 20 farms in the city-region food system of Rome, Italy. Data analysis showed that agroecological principles are not fully adopted by the majority of farms considered in Rome. Additionally, farms with the highest agroecological level are mainly driven by social factors and have a lower propensity for innovation, which could hinder the transformation process of food systems.
Limited or null effectPolicyFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityEconomicsPeriurbano/agricultura periurbana: tres perspectivas: ecológica, social y territorial
2023Juan Camilo Ochoa Céspedes · Entorno Geográfico · Colombia (Medellín)
This paper critically analyzes peri-urban and peri-urban agriculture, addressing problems of territorial tension resulting from the accelerated expansion of real estate into peri-urban areas due to low urban land availability. The discussion questions the economic, environmental, and social risks of this expansion, highlighting tensions and resistance. The paper illustrates these issues with examples from the peri-urban area of Medellín and its metropolitan area.
Governance failurePeri-urban agricultureEconomicsClimate changeCommunityEcosystem services of urban agriculture and prospects for scaling up production: A study of Detroit
2022Joshua Newell, Alec Foster, Mariel Borgman, Sara Meerow · Cities · United States (Detroit)
A study in Detroit's Lower Eastside (~15 sq. miles) examined the spatial extent, characteristics, and residents' perceptions of urban gardens using spatial analysis and interviews. Gardens covered less than 1% of vacant land and were often ephemeral. Primary obstacles to scaling up urban agriculture in Detroit include uncertainty over land tenure, environmental pollutants, potential ecosystem disservices, and a lack of government support and capital investment.
Governance failureCommunityBiodiversityPolicyEconomicsClimate changeHealthSeeds and the city: a review of municipal home food gardening programs in Canada in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
2022Janet Music, Lisa Mullins, Sylvain Charlebois, Charlotte Large, Kydra Mayhew · Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · Canada
This study compared 19 municipal urban home food gardening programs in Canada in 2020, which provided free gardening supplies and instructions. It found a complicated relationship between municipalities, gardening programs, and food security, and determined that gardening somewhat alleviated social and emotional challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, municipalities are limited in their policy capacities to adequately address food insecurity in Canada.
Governance failurePolicyFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityHealthThe Specter of Enclosure in School Gardens
2022Graham Slater, Robert G. Unzueta, Clayton Pierce · · Global
This chapter argues that much scholarly literature on school gardens is based on problematic assumptions or ignores histories of violence and dispossession. Without an ecocritical approach, school gardens risk replicating systems of domination, extraction, exploitation, and human supremacy. The authors propose integrating theoretical reflection into emancipatory action within a historical materialist framework to address colonization, land dispossession, labor exploitation, and anthropocentrism.
Equity & displacementFood educationCommunityPolicyCultivating inclusive public space with urban gardens
2022Melissa Anna Murphy, Peter E. Parker, Margot Hermus · Local Environment · Global
This article aims to unpack how urban settings, organizational forms, and municipal enabling affect urban gardening (UG) practices towards inclusion in public space. It draws on urban commons theory and research on inclusion in public space to understand multi-faceted UG governance and its exclusionary aspects. A comparative analysis of UG initiatives in three Northern European municipalities explores both municipal enabling and the co-production of inclusive public space.
Equity & displacementCommunityPolicyHealthCommercial Urban Agriculture in Florida: Needs, Opportunities, and Barriers
2022Catherine Campbell, Jorge Ruiz‐Menjivar, Alia DeLong · HortTechnology · United States (Florida)
This research characterized commercial urban agriculture (CUA) operations in Florida, United States, and explored urban farmers' perceptions of needs, barriers, and opportunities for CUA development. A cluster analysis identified three distinct groups of urban farmers with differing perceptions of barriers, opportunities, and informational needs. The study notes that the U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture does not report data on CUA operations, limiting knowledge about their status, including barriers to business operations and profitability.
Economic viabilityEconomicsPolicyCommunityInvestigation of Heavy Metals in the Urban Agricultural Soils Near Railway and Industrial Complex in Jinju, Gyeongsangnam-do
2022Myeong Suck Jeong, Mina Lee, Chaw Su Lwin, Kwon-Rae Kim · 한국토양비료학회지 · South Korea
This study investigated heavy metal contamination in urban agricultural soils near railway tracks and an industrial complex in Jinju, South Korea, to ensure food safety. While the average heavy metal values did not exceed soil contamination guidelines, some individual soil samples showed concentrations higher than the guidelines. Furthermore, the geoaccumulation index (Igeo) indicated that several soils were contaminated compared to background levels, with Cu, Pb, Zn, and Sb showing the highest contamination. Long-term monitoring of urban vegetable garden soils is recommended.
Contamination & food safetyHealthCommunityOrganic cycle