Research & reports

Per-Anders Langendahl · Frontiers in Sustainable Cities · Global

This paper investigates the politics of smart farming expectations in urban environments, conducting exploratory case study research on early smart farming initiatives in Sweden. It explores the politics of knowledge claims at the project level and their performativity in envisioning more sustainable urban futures. The findings suggest that smart farming at the level of individual projects gives the appearance of change, but at the same time, it produces more of the same.

Damian Maye, Paul Swagemakers, J.S.C. Wiskerke, Heidrun Moschitz, James Kirwan, Ingrid Jahrl · European Urban and Regional Studies · Europe

This study utilized the 'sustainable innovation journeys' concept to trace urban food initiatives in Rotterdam (Netherlands), Vigo (Spain), and Zurich (Switzerland) over a six-year period from 2013 to 2018. While micro-level innovation practices can induce sustainability shifts, particularly when aligned with policy interests, the study also observed potentially negative impacts due to a lack of alignment at the initiative or city-region levels.

Camila Garcia Fernandes de Souza Margem, Néliton Marques da Sílva · Cadernos Metrópole · Brazil (Manaus)

This article analyzed the feasibility of implementing urban agriculture (UA) on idle land within the Tarumã – Ponta Negra Environmental Protection Area in Manaus, Brazil, as a tool for territorial governance and urban planning. Semi-structured interviews and card sorting techniques were applied to the target population. The study found that the use of idle land for UA is not envisioned as a territorial governance instrument, a situation exacerbated by municipal authorities hindering the legitimization of bills for such land use.

Sam Ramsden · Local Environment · United Kingdom (England)

This article analyzes a charity-led community gardening project in a disadvantaged northern English community, which operated for three years with external funding. While it successfully engaged marginalized people, leading to increased skills, confidence, reduced isolation, and improved wellbeing, the project faced significant challenges requiring professional management. Crucially, after the funding ended, the community garden's future was fragile, and the long-term sustainability of outcomes for marginalized participants was vulnerable due to economic viability issues.

Ricardo Theóphilo Folhes, Harley Silva, Raul da Silva Ventura Neto, Kevin Gabriel Leite Da Silva, Círia Cristiane Da Rosa, Aelton Dias Costa · Novos Cadernos NAEA · Brazil (Pará)

This article presents initial results from a bibliographic review on Urban Agriculture (UA) to support a research agenda in the metropolitan regions of Pará State, Brazilian Amazon. The review analyzed concepts, approaches, and challenges in national and international literature. It concludes that UA needs to be problematized within the phenomena of urban-regional space production, which cause socioeconomic and spatial inequalities, representing the greatest structural difficulties for urban agriculture.

Jonathan Hall, Isabel Shargo, Niya Khanjar, Jianna Howard, Laura Schmidt, Ashley Deng, Camryn Edwards, Isabelle Berman, Joseph Galarraga, Sacoby Wilson · Environmental Justice · United States

This study in Baltimore, Maryland, used GIS mapping and spatial analysis to assess the proximity of urban farms to environmental hazards, including those with heavy metal contamination. Analyses indicated that contamination of urban farms is a possibility due to proximity: more environmental hazards were found in census tracts with urban farms, and low-income communities of color had hazards near urban farms. Historically industrial areas showed a higher concentration of environmental hazards with heavy metal or unknown contamination.

Olga Domené-Painenao, Francisco Herrera · Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente · Venezuela

In Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution since 1999 has seen the unfolding of harsh class and food system contradictions. While the Program Degree in Agroecology (PDA) at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela has trained over a thousand graduates who contribute to agroecological scaling and urban agriculture, the abstract highlights the persistent "harsh class and food system contradictions" within the country. This indicates ongoing equity challenges despite agroecological efforts.

Viktoria Shchurova · Current problems of architecture and urban planning · Ukraine (Kiev)

This article highlights the problems of the negative impact of the agricultural sector integrated into the central and middle zones of large cities. A critical view was formulated on the practical implementation of scientific and legislative documents, using the example of the city of Kiev, and strategies for reorganization, restrictions, or a complete ban on estate development in urban environments were analyzed. Specific plots of estate development in Kiev were identified as requiring reconstruction or complete renovation in accordance with the city's strategic development concept.

Larissa Maas, Leila Amaral Gontijo · Saúde e Sociedade · Global

This case study investigated the cognitive demands and work complexity for urban organic farmers whose main economic activity is selling their products. The findings indicate that the cognitive load for these farmers is high, contributing to complex work. The study notes a lack of existing research on the cognitive load of organic urban agriculture workers, as it is still a nascent movement.

Christy Gene Somsen · Digital Commons - USU (Utah State University) · United States (Utah)

Farmers’ markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, and community gardens, while aiming to help low-income families access fresh produce, often assist more middle-class families. In Utah, these programs could be improved, as the state does not utilize the WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program or accept WIC Cash Value Vouchers, and has few Farm to School Programs.

Pastory Salvatory Thomas, Wilbard Kombe, Aldo Lupala · Urban and Regional Planning · Tanzania

This qualitative study examined perceptions of urban agriculture among 60 urban farmers and officials in Arusha City, Tanzania, through interviews, observation, and literature review. Findings revealed that negative effects of urban agricultural activities influenced negative perceptions, which city officials seldom managed. While urban agriculture is acknowledged in policy, the critical effects of negative perceptions among stakeholders are considered less crucial in policy implications and formal governmental proclamations, despite their real-world impact.

Rebecca Amato · Amsterdam University Press eBooks · United States (New York City)

This chapter discusses the historical production and perception of "empty space" in New York City, from settler colonialism to gentrification, driven by techniques like filtering and declaring vacancy. It highlights how the acceleration of development to maintain world city status threatens alternative visions like cooperative centers and community gardens. These alternative uses are presented as models for inclusive cities, despite being under threat.

Paul D. Jensen, Caroline Orfila · Food Security · United Kingdom

This case study used publicly available data to spatially analyze the urban food system of Leeds, UK, assessing its food security and resilience. The study found that while Leeds has a significant food production and provision system, it is not food secure in terms of providing sufficient energy or macronutrients, nor does it function equitably for all residents. Improving the system, including through urban farming, would require high investment, multi-sector cooperation, and strong governance.

Yuyang Zhang, Qilin Wu, Lei Wu, Li Yan · Land · China

A study noting that although exposure to green space benefits residents' physical and mental health, its spatial distribution is inequitable, and that existing green equity studies typically rely on administrative units, a macro-scale approach that overlooks the fine-scale green spaces (such as community gardens and lawns) residents encounter most often, risking biased estimates. Using the community as the unit of analysis, the study drew on three types of green-space data - fine-scale green spaces within communities, surrounding large-scale parks, and streetscape imagery - and applied a proposed set of 11 metrics across morphology, visibility, and accessibility to 4,544 communities in urban Beijing. Through spatial visualization, spatial clustering, radar plots, and correlation analysis, the study found large differences and complementary relationships between metric categories, similarities within the same category, and confirmed inequity in green space across regions of the city as urbanization proceeds.

Hamidullah Amin, Mansour Helmi · Environmental Science & Sustainable Development · Asia

A study of agricultural land in the Yakatoot area of Kabul, Afghanistan, examining the economic and environmental impacts of land-use change in the capital. It states plainly that, due to rapid population growth, population densification, and the city's inability to enforce its master plan and regulations, a large portion of agricultural land cover has been transformed into unplanned developments, shifting communities from productive societies into consumer and dependent ones. Using a qualitative approach combining field surveys, aerial photographs from Google Earth, and data from CRIDA, the study describes Afghanistan's land laws and identifies the social, economic and environmental impacts of this land-use change, while also reviewing international experience with land-use change and sustainable responses. The authors recommend incorporating urban agriculture practice into Kabul's master plan and other urban initiatives, though this recommendation is presented as the paper's own policy proposal rather than a measured outcome.

Perla Zambrano-Prado, Francesco Orsini, Joan Rieradevall, Alejandro Josa, Xavier Gabarrell · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Europe

A study developing a framework and overview of key factors, policies, and barriers associated with rooftop urban agriculture (RUA) integration, based on stakeholder perspectives in four European cities—Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, and Paris—via a two-phase workshop and stakeholder survey. While education, environmental, research, technological innovation, food production, and social factors were found to play an important role in implementing RUA, the cost of water and pollution emerged as major contextual factors constraining it. Policies related to food trade and urban planning were the most limiting to RUA development, and major architectural and technical barriers were identified around building height limits, historical buildings, lack of specific building codes, and roof accessibility, with high infrastructure costs and policies prohibiting RUA product sales acting as economic constraints. The cities differed significantly in the perceived effect of urban policy on RUA diffusion and the perceived relevance of economic and pollution factors, and the study concludes that wider dissemination of RUA information and new or revised regulations and building codes are needed.

André Ruoppolo Biazoti, Angélica Campos Nakamura, Gustavo Nagib, Vitória Oliveira Pereira de Souza Leão, Giulia Giacchè, Thaís Mauad · Sustainability · Brazil (São Paulo)

Amid a COVID-19 outbreak that caused 15,587 deaths in São Paulo city through December 2020, this study examined effects on urban agriculture from April to August 2020, drawing on two government surveys (2,100 farmers in São Paulo state, 148 in São Paulo city) and two qualitative surveys of volunteers from ten community gardens and seven urban farmers. Fifty percent of farmers reported being affected by the pandemic through drops in sales, particularly those who depended on intermediaries, and 22% said obtaining inputs had become difficult. No municipal support was provided to urban agriculture in São Paulo, and pre-existing problems worsened; activity in community gardens declined, though none closed permanently.

Elia Apostolopoulou · · Europe (Greece)

Focusing on the two largest Greek cities, Athens and Thessaloniki, this study examines why urban community gardening surged after the 2008 financial crash, drawing on urban political ecology, radical social and urban geography, and qualitative social research. Greece is treated as a distinctive case: it saw this post-2008 increase in community gardening without having a prior long history of the practice, unlike parts of the Global South. The author concludes that the creation of community gardens is tied to rising inequality in European cities in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, functioning both as an act of disobedience against the grabbing of public land and as a demand for reclaiming the urban commons.

Samuel Ziem Bonye, Gordon Yenglier Yiridomoh, Emmanuel Kanchebe Derbile · International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development · Africa

A mixed-methods study in Wa Municipality, Ghana, examined how peri-urban agricultural land use change affected farmers' food security, surveying 235 smallholder farmers with questionnaires, interviews and GIS-based historical data. Over the past three decades, peri-urban agricultural land was drastically lost to residential and infrastructural development, and this land use change resulted in food insecurity, with most smallholder farmers unable to meet their food needs over the past decade.

Bereket Geberselassie Assa · Civil and environmental research · Ethiopia

A study of Wolayta Zone Sodo Zuria Woreda in southern Ethiopia used GIS and remote sensing to analyze how human intervention affects the agricultural system. It found that urbanization driven by demand for residential land, a 2.66% increase over nine years, has produced food insecurity and raised crop production costs in local markets. Forestland declined at a rate of 0.295% per year, of which 0.09% was converted to residential land. Land use classification from 30 m Landsat 7 imagery was evaluated using the Analytic Hierarchy Process with a consistency ratio of 0.016%, and the study notes that the impact of deforestation on urban agriculture and livelihoods in this part of southern Ethiopia's highlands had not previously been scientifically studied.

Joshua Jonah Kunda, Ahmed Abubakar Jajere, E. A. Otabe, Chindo Musa Muhammed, Umar Muhammed Bibi, Yusuf Maina-Bukar · Environment and Pollution · Nigeria

This study in Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria, used geospatial technology to assess agricultural land vulnerability to flooding, deriving factor weights (rainfall 25%, elevation 22%, slope 20%, drainage density 13%, land use/cover 12%, soil type 8%) through pairwise Analytical Hierarchy Process comparison (consistency ratio 0.078) and a weighted overlay model in ArcGIS 10.4. Farmland along the floodplains of the River Benue fell within the very highly vulnerable category, with elements at risk totaling 537.6 units of farmland (66.1%), 40.5 units of irrigation land (5.0%), and 125.8 units of built-up land (15.5%).

Sai Balakrishnan · Cornell University Press eBooks · India

This chapter analyzes the regional class and caste politics of large-scale land investment in Maharashtra, India, through the case of the Khed Special Economic Zone (SEZ), where peri-urban agricultural land was converted into urban real estate. Dominant agrarian castes, long invested in commodity agriculture and closely tied to urban capital, protested vociferously against land acquisition for the SEZ, while Adivasi ("tribal") and Dalit groups historically dependent on land classified as "waste" embraced the forced acquisition. Historic narratives linking poor land quality to the social backwardness of those occupying "wasteland" were leveraged by these lower-caste and lower-class groups themselves to frame land expropriation as a path into the urban economy. The chapter concludes that fictions of "waste" that had previously excluded the most socially subordinated groups from commodity agriculture became, in this case, an instrument of urban inclusion.

Carolina Baldini, Mariana Edith Marasas, Andrea Alejandra Drozd · Journal of Environmental Planning and Management · Colombia

A land-cover change study (Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2021) applied a supervised classification of Landsat satellite imagery from 1986, 1996, 2005, and 2015 to Argentina's largest peri-urban horticultural region in South America. Between 1986 and 2015, open-field horticulture extent decreased by 51.47%, while greenhouse area increased by 2652.83%, high-density urbanization expanded by 111.58%, and low-density urbanization increased only between 1986 and 2005—expansion that came at the expense of natural grassland, herbaceous parks, and livestock land. The authors conclude this reflects a regional process of urban growth and productive intensification that has caused losses of open-field horticultural areas and produced a non-equitable distribution of remaining semi-natural areas, and they call for territorial planning that prioritizes ecologically resilient, semi-natural land cover.

Paola Branduini, Elena Colli · Landscape Research · Italy

A qualitative sociological analysis examined a policy tool used by public landowners in peri-urban Milan, Italy, who introduced new lease agreements transferring the maintenance costs of built rural heritage to tenants, aiming to avoid degradation and add value to unused buildings. Analyzing the tool through the lens of social justice and its impact on quality of life, the study found that the same policy tool produces very different outcomes for landscape preservation and quality of life depending on the implementation strategy used, and on the elements of social justice considered along with contextual and individual characteristics.

Aamir Mehmood Shah, Gengyuan Liu, Fanxin Meng, Qing Yang, Jingyan Xue, Stefano Dumontet, Renato Passaro, Marco Casazza · Energies · Global

This review article examines knowledge gaps regarding small-scale urban green-blue infrastructure (GBI) from the perspective of the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus, focusing on the literature on urban ecosystem services (positive effects) and dis-services (negative effects) associated with different GBI typologies. It found that GBI can contribute environmentally, socially, and economically to FEW security and urban sustainability, but that these positive effects must be weighed against ecosystem dis-service tradeoffs: urban food production is commonly connected with heavy water and energy consumption, particularly under dry climate conditions, and is sometimes linked to excessive use of manure, pesticides, or fertilizers that can pose risks to water quality and local insect survival, or to enhanced mosquito breeding from irrigation. The review also found that few nexus modeling techniques have been discussed in terms of their benefits, drawbacks, and applications.