Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
964 results(28 / 39)
Urban Cultivation and Its Contributions to Sustainability: Nibbles of Food but Oodles of Social Capital
2016George Martin, Roland Clift, Ian Christie · Sustainability · Global
This exploratory study examined three urban cultivation sites in New York, London, and San Francisco to assess their nutritional, ecological, and social sustainability contributions. Field analysis revealed very low food outputs relative to the populations of their catchment areas, indicating that most urban food will continue to come from outside urban peripheries. The study concluded that urban food growing's sustainability benefits are more social than agronomic or ecological.
Limited or null effectCommunityEconomicsHealthClimate changeThe Black Bear Food Guild: Student-Run Community Supported Agriculture From Roots to Fruition
2016Sara L. Lyons · DigitalCommons (California Polytechnic State University) · United States
The University of Maine Black Bear Food Guild is an entirely student-run Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operation that offers student learning and work opportunities. Despite providing various benefits, the Black Bear Food Guild requires financial support to expand its program and ensure its sustained success, indicating a critical need for funding to maintain its future viability.
Economic viabilityCSA & TeikeiCommunityFood educationEconomicsUrban farming in the North American metropolis: Rethinking work and distance in alternative food networks
2016Diana Mincytė, Karin Dobernig · Environment and Planning A Economy and Space · North America
This article examines manual work in urban farming within alternative food networks in the Northeastern United States, based on ethnographic fieldwork and 40 interviews. The analysis reveals that while manual work counters alienation, it also reproduces consumer society institutions and reinforces neoliberal values like productivity and self-improvement. Urban farms function as "experiential production" sites, where the farming experience is continuously commodified despite re-embedding in community and environment.
Economic viabilityCommunityEconomicsUrban–rural linkageFood sovereignty & justiceAppropriating a People’s Movement: The Relationship Between Community Gardens and Gentrification in New York City | Appropriating a People’s Movement: The Relationship Between Community Gardens and Gentrification in New York City
2016Lal, Prita · Academic Commons (Stony Brook University) · United States (New York City)
This dissertation studies the relationship between community gardens and gentrification in New York City. It argues that low-income people's efforts in revitalizing their blighted neighborhoods by building community gardens in the 1970s and 1980s contributed to gentrification in the 1990s and beyond. The research points out that real estate developers preyed on people's efforts, and the people subsidized the city's revitalization. It concludes that while gardeners did not cause gentrification, their efforts played a significant role in the process, and stronger policy protections for gardens are needed as city policies permitted gentrification.
Equity & displacementCommunityPolicyEconomicsFood sovereignty & justiceLocal food security initiatives: systemic limitations in Vancouver, Canada
2016Alfred Wong, Alan Hallsworth · Kobra (Universitätsbibliothek Kassel) · Canada (Vancouver)
This paper examines urban/community gardening in Vancouver, Canada, from the perspective of basic farming realities such as growing season and land availability. It was found that securing low-cost land within dense urban limits, insufficient ambient temperature and water supply during the growing season, and contemporary societal structures pose significant obstacles to community gardening producing affordable food. Overcoming these fundamental hurdles carries significant negative environmental and economic consequences.
Economic viabilityCommunityEconomicsFood sovereignty & justiceClimate changeUrban agriculture up-scaled: economically and socially productive public green space
2016Joshua Zeunert · UNSWorks (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia) · Australia
Urban public green spaces typically require external budgets for maintenance, with most projects costing municipal authorities more money than they generate, making them economically unproductive. For instance, the Adelaide Parklands annually costs AU$9 million for maintenance while generating less than AU$1 million in income. Maintenance spending on public green spaces in the USA, UK, and Australia has been declining, a trend accelerated since the 2008 global financial crisis.
Economic viabilityEconomicsCommunityPolicyUrban agriculture: why "one size fits all" approached don't work
2016Charlotte Prové, Joost Dessein, Michiel De Krom · Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) · Belgium; Poland
A study evaluating urban agriculture in Belgium and Poland argues that current governance approaches fail to reflect the importance of local context. The authors found that considering city-specific factors is crucial for urban agriculture to reach its full potential. They recommend a broader policymaking strategy that acknowledges benefits beyond food production.
Governance failurePolicyEconomicsFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityClimate changeHistoric Landscape vs. Urban Commodity?: The Case of Yedikule Urban Gardens, Istanbul
2016Elifnaz Durusoy · MEGARON / Yıldız Technical University Faculty of Architecture E-Journal · Turkey (Istanbul)
The Yedikule Urban Gardens in Istanbul were studied as an example where cultural conservation and social inclusion have been challenged by economic development due to the growth of urban development. This study emphasizes both destruction and development within the context of physical, natural, economic, and social change. It demonstrates the hardships faced when attempting to sustain urban gardens during periods of urban growth.
Governance failureCommunityPolicyEconomicsFarmers' place identity and decision-making in a changing peri-urban environment: a case study of Wollondilly Shire Council
2016Laure‐Elise Ruoso, R. Plant, Brent Jacobs, Pierre Maurel · · Australia (Western Sydney)
This study, based on in-depth interviews with farmers in peri-urban Sydney, Australia, examines how changes in these areas impact farmers' place identity and decision-making. It analyzes how increasing urban development, land subdivision, rising land values, and environmental regulations threaten farming activities. The findings indicate that these factors influence farmers' practices, business management, and decisions to continue or relocate peri-urban farming.
Economic viabilityPeri-urban agricultureFood sovereignty & justiceEconomicsPolicyTowards an Expansion of the Salt City Harvest Farm: Exploring a Community Farm’s Impact, Challenges, and the Agricultural Ways and Aspirations of its New American Farmers
2015Rose Tardiff · Syracuse University Libraries (Syracuse University) · United States
The Salt City Harvest Farm (SCHF) in Kirkville, NY, is an all-volunteer project with limited capacity and concerns about long-term sustainability, despite providing benefits to New American participants. Research identified challenges and suggested organizational improvements, including clearly defining roles and integrating New Americans into decision-making. The study found that the SCHF would best suit participants' interests by remaining a place for growing their own food rather than transitioning to an incubator model.
Economic viabilityCommunityWelfareFood sovereignty & justiceEconomics目前我国都市农业空间格局上的“逆现代化”现象刍议
2015宋志军, 刘黎明 · Acta Scientiarum Naturalium Universitatis Sunyatseni · China
Chinese urban agriculture has developed against a backdrop of multifunctionality, urbanization, industrialization, and non-agriculturalization. Since the reform and opening-up, the development of non-agricultural functions has complemented and advanced the broad modernization of urban agriculture, while simultaneously inhibiting, delaying, and destroying narrow modernization. This has led to a "reverse modernization" phenomenon in the spatial pattern of urban agriculture, characterized by changes spatially "opposite" to narrow agricultural modernization. China's current urban agriculture exhibits an overall spatial state of "reverse modernization" with various agricultural forms interspersed.
Governance failureUrban–rural linkageEconomicsPolicyL'agriculture urbaine : de l'échelle territoriale à l'insertion architecturale
2015Amandine Joly · · France
This study characterized and strategically analyzed urban agriculture for the IETI external planning and environment consulting firm in Île-de-France, France. The analysis aimed to help IETI position itself commercially in urban agriculture, identifying both the benefits and the obstacles the firm might encounter. The study also briefly discussed the various scales of urban agriculture's integration into the territory and its advantages for the consulting firm.
Economic viabilityEconomicsPolicyPeri-urban agricultureDeterminants of Micro and Small Enterprises Growth in Ethiopia: The Case of Nekemte Town of Oromia Region, Ethiopia
2015Fikadu Goshu Fufa · European Journal of Business and Management · Ethiopia
A study of 96 micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Nekemte town, Ethiopia, found that educational status of MSE operators negatively affects business profitability growth. Additionally, the study revealed that microfinance institution (MFI) loan terms are too short for business operations, and most MSEs rely on personal savings for finance.
Economic viabilityEconomicsUrban–rural linkageFood gardening in Lavender Hill, Cape Town: using adoption rates to estimate the perceived benefit
2015Simon Hazell, Victoria Delbridge, Beatrice Conradie · UR UCT Undergraduate Research · South Africa
A study in Lavender Hill, Cape Town, South Africa, interviewed 50 participants in the Mothers Unite programme to assess the benefits and constraints of homestead-based urban agriculture. Despite the potential for food gardening to alleviate food insecurity and free up 11% of household income, two-thirds of the group had not tried it. Barriers to adoption included lack of space and limited cash flow, with respondents showing little concern for water or compost costs.
Limited or null effectFood sovereignty & justiceEconomicsCommunityFood (In)Security: Provisioning Strategies in a Northern Wisconsin Town
2015Margaret Ellen Kubek · UWM Digital Commons (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee) · United States (Wisconsin)
This thesis explored the food provisioning strategies of year-round and seasonal residents of Phelps, WI. Ethnographic data gathered in the summer and fall of 2011 found that Phelps, WI, is classified as food insecure, leading residents to modify routines for lengthy drives to purchase food, while year-round residents utilized self-provisioning strategies. Newly initiated farmers' market and community supported agriculture projects increased overall food availability, but these efforts were mostly utilized by seasonal residents, with year-round residents finding these options unaffordable and inconveniently scheduled.
Equity & displacementFood sovereignty & justiceCSA & TeikeiCommunityEconomicsRaumgefühle – Gefühlsräume. Perspektiven auf die Verschränkung von emotionalen Praktiken und Topografien der Moderne
2015Benno Gammerl, Rainer Herrn · sub\urban zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung · Global
This article outlines the theoretical, empirical, and political potential of the tension between affective disruptions of ordered structures and the emotional processing of power-infused spatial relations. It uses urban gardening practices and gentrification debates as examples to demonstrate how analyzing dynamic interactions between spaces and feelings can foster a critical perspective on urbanity, particularly regarding issues of equity. The study focuses on the ambivalent dynamics and effects of emotional-spatial processes.
Equity & displacementCommunityPolicyEconomicsTotal factor productivity of urban agriculture on the urban periphery of Cape Town
2015Martin Dyer, Richard M. Mills, Beatrice Conradie, Jenifer Piesse · Open University of Cape Town (University of Cape Town) · South Africa (Cape Town)
This paper investigates the efficiency relationships between inputs and outputs of urban micro-farms in two Cape Town townships, Nyanga and Khayelitsha. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) applied to 33 producers supplying a social enterprise box scheme revealed an average overall efficiency of 72.4%. Overall efficiency was negatively correlated with land holdings and the use of compost and seedlings, indicating efficiency losses with greater input quantities. Furthermore, it was not shown that mulching or operator experience increases profitability.
Economic viabilityEconomicsCommunityPeri-urban agricultureGardeners, Locavores, Hipsters, and Residents: An Alternative Local Food Market's Potential for "Community" Building
2015Yuki Kato · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (New Orleans)
This case study, based on ethnographic observation and interviews, examined an alternative food market in a New Orleans neighborhood to understand different views of "community." The study identified four distinct groups—community gardeners, locavores, hipsters, and local residents—each with different expectations for the organization. Findings did not demonstrate a unified community emerging around this organization, with no single group staking a claim on it.
Limited or null effectCommunityCSA & TeikeiEconomicsThe Bottleneck and Countermeasure of Dalian Urban Modern Agriculture Development
2015Qing Guo · · China (Dalian)
This paper, based on the China urban agriculture development report 2013 and a SWOT analysis, studied the development of urban modern agriculture in Dalian. The study found that the agricultural industrial structure, shopping basket program, agricultural management system, land circulation, and agricultural information technology have restricted the development of Dalian's urban modern agriculture.
Governance failurePolicyEconomicsDigital agricultureAgricultura urbana em Porto Alegre: dinâmicas socioeconômicas no espaço local
2015Elvis Albert Robe Wandscheer, Rosa Maria Vieria Medeiros · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Brazil (Porto Alegre)
This study descriptively and qualitatively analyzed the socioeconomic dynamics of urban agriculture in Porto Alegre, Brazil. It highlighted issues in the demarcation of urban and rural spaces, showing that many areas designated as urban possess distinctly rural characteristics. The most significant impacting factors were markets and real estate speculation. The study concluded that while urban agriculture is relevant to the municipality, it faces difficulties arising from competition for space, which can lead to the extinction or displacement of production activities to other areas.
Economic viabilityEconomicsPolicyUrban–rural linkageA agricultura urbana em Natal (RN): da produção convencional à orgânica
2015Rosangela Medeiros Hespanhol · Confins · Brazil (Natal)
This study analyzed the trajectory of farmers from AMIGS (Association of Friends and Producers of Vegetables Residents of Sitio Gramoré and Adjacencies), a significant vegetable supplier in Natal, Brazil, who have been transitioning from conventional to organic production since 2012. The organization of farmers through the association and partnerships with companies and institutions were crucial for enabling this change, reducing dependence on intermediaries through direct sales at ecological fairs. However, problems related to the individual acquisition of inputs and conflicts with farmers still using conventional systems were observed.
Governance failureOrganic cycleCommunityEconomicsFood sovereignty & justiceUse of soil amendments for urban horticulture in the savannah and forest areas of Ghana
2015Abdul‐Halim Abubakari, Laura Atuah, B. Banful, Hypolite Bayor · Journal of Soil Science and Environmental Management · Ghana
A study in Ghana reviewed literature and surveyed farmers on soil amendments for urban horticulture. The review found that research on soil amendments has been limited to land management and nutrient recovery, not addressing quality issues for specific production systems. Farmers adopt varying application rates due to lack of standardization, and barriers include technology for collection, funds for purchase, and labor employment.
Economic viabilityDIYCompostEconomicsEroding the Community in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): Competition's Effects in Alternative Food Networks in California
2015Ryan E. Galt, Katharine A. Bradley, Libby Christensen, Julia Van Soelen Kim, Ramiro Lobo · Sociologia Ruralis · United States (California)
A study of 111 CSA farms in California examined the effects of competition within alternative food networks. Analysis showed that perceived competition is negatively correlated with CSA farms' profitability, farmer satisfaction, various indicators of CSA's social embeddedness, and two community food security strategies. Competition was found to undermine some commonly held CSA values, specifically fair farmer compensation and strong member-farmer relationships.
Equity & displacementCSA & TeikeiEconomicsCommunityFood sovereignty & justiceSustainable Development for People or Profit?
2015Eric Weaver · Suburban Sustainability · Global
This review details the relationship between key planetary systems and the many adverse impacts of industrial agriculture, drawing from top-tier journals. Research indicates that industrial agriculture is a major force pushing environmental limits, with multinational corporations continuing to influence national environmental regulations. Current literature debates whether political systems can institute sustainable solutions, suggesting that grassroots efforts may be the most viable solution to displace the industrial agriculture model.
Environmental trade-offsClimate changeFood sovereignty & justiceEconomicsContesting urban agriculture: the politics of meat production in the License-Buy-Back Scheme (2006-2007) in Hong Kong
2015Kin Wing Chan · Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter) · Hong Kong
This study examines the politics of meat production in Hong Kong's 2006-2007 License-Buy-Back Scheme (LBBS), focusing on pig farming. It investigates how the LBBS served as a tactic to reduce and control the pig farming industry, contrasting it with urban vegetable farming which holds a more positive aesthetic image. The research highlights a scarcity of studies on why certain forms of urban agriculture are valued more than others.
Governance failurePolicyEconomicsFood sovereignty & justice