Research & reports

Alif Khair An Nassaj, Muhammad Luqman Hakim, Hanna Zharifa Marmu’asyifa, Liya Tsanyyatul Khishol, Andre Alfiansyah, Muhammad Afiq · Solusi Bersama · Indonesia

In Karangmulyo Village, Indonesia, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a decline in the quality and productivity of community gardens and parks. A village nursery revitalization program aimed to overcome these negative impacts, restore land function, and boost the morale of women farmer communities through infrastructure improvements, adaptive crop planting, sustainable agricultural techniques, and community involvement. However, this abstract does not report on the specific effects of this program, such as the improvement of overall community welfare or the ensured sustainability of the village environment.

Sean Olivia Nicholas, Niki Harré · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Singapore

A review of existing literature and a case study of three urban farms in Singapore were conducted to examine their community contributions. Content analysis of 27 interviews with employees and volunteers revealed that these farms empower participants, generate social capital, provide jobs, involve marginalized groups, and promote pro-environmental behaviors. However, the farms were limited by poor job prospects and lower-than-expected yield.

Efadul Huq · International Journal of Urban and Regional Research · Bangladesh (Dhaka)

This article argues that in the global South, ecological infrastructure often displaces marginalized urban dwellers by erasing existing informal agricultural practices, or "green informalities." Based on research with urban farmers facing eviction in Dhaka, Bangladesh, it highlights that these green informalities are crucial for understanding grassroots practices and collective power-building. The study advocates for recognizing the political and affective dimensions of informal urban agriculture as a socially just ecological infrastructure that prioritizes justice and dweller agency.

Huq, Efadul · Smith ScholarWorks (Smith College) · Bangladesh (Dhaka)

Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh, indicates that ecological infrastructure often erases existing informal agricultural practices, leading to the displacement of marginalized urban dwellers. Based on engaged research with a collective of urban farmers facing eviction, this paper argues that green informalities are crucial for understanding grassroots practices and can be appreciated as socially just ecological infrastructure.

Moses Wanyakha, Nancy Grudens‐Schuck, Ann M. Oberhauser · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (Iowa)

This study investigated resilience and vulnerabilities in fresh produce donation partnership programs to food pantries in Iowa during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings revealed a significant decrease in labor hours during the pandemic years of 2020–2021, attributed to government policies and social distancing requirements. Volunteer shortages, donation inconsistency, and exclusionary community practices appeared to be inherent vulnerabilities of volunteer-based food donation programs.

Lucas López Sosa, Gloria E. Casanova Molina · Revista Temas Sociológicos · Spain (Barcelona), Chile

This ethnographic study conducted in Barcelona and Santiago de Chile comparatively analyzed the social utilities, conflicts, and tensions faced in the daily management of urban community gardens. The study found significant symbolic and practical similarities between the gardens in both cities, despite geographical and cultural differences, highlighting their value as tools for urban and social regeneration.

Nevin Cohen, Michael H. Stein, Annie Hancock, Alfonso Morales · Urban agriculture · United States

This paper examined two housing authority-led urban agriculture projects in New York City and Denver, Colorado, highlighting their multidimensional benefits such as skill-building and community cohesion. While these projects improved residents' daily experiences, the study noted that social problems persist despite new interactions. The analysis emphasized the need to consider both stated and implicit goals in urban agriculture ethics, acknowledging that attempts to harmonize competing claims are at the root of urban agriculture practices.

Rosângela Míriam Lemos Oliveira Mendonça, Samantha de Oliveira Nery, Ediméia Maria Ribeiro de Mello · MIX Sustentável · Brazil

This paper presents a methodology applicable to sustainable community actions, developed from seven years of experience with low-income communities in a Brazilian community garden. The methodology is based on participatory action research, systemic design, agroecology, food sovereignty, and solidarity economy principles. The study demonstrates the importance of integrated work among the elements of the quintuple helix model (society, government, industry, academia, and environment), but it does not detail specific challenges or limitations regarding governance.

Ion Martínez Lorea · Revista Española de Sociología · Spain (Pamplona)

This article uses Henri Lefebvre's concept of concrete utopia to analyze the practices of community urban gardens in Pamplona-Iruña, Spain. It interrogates their potential and limitations in responding to various situations of social vulnerability and rethinking the relationship between the rural and the urban.

Linh Dinh Hong, Khiem Phuong Huu, Diep Vu Bach, Tien Vu Quyet · Transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Machinery · Vietnam

Using a national Vietnamese household living-standards survey dataset, this study applies a difference-in-differences (DID) approach combined with propensity score matching (PSM-DID) to assess the short-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban agricultural households in Vietnam. It finds that while the pandemic did not significantly affect household income, it reduced household expenditure -- both total household consumption and per-capita consumption -- and increased the number of household members participating in agricultural work as a short-term response.

Iman Mamnoon · GeoFocus Revista Internacional de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Información Geográfica · Global

Using a GIS-based risk assessment methodology, this study develops a quantitative food-insecurity scale for the most vulnerable urban populations, calculating risk as a combination of social vulnerability and hazard (difficulty of access to food distribution), and applying the model to two case studies: southeast Washington, D.C., in the United States and Puente de Vallecas in Madrid, Spain. A Social Vulnerability Index was computed from average income, education level, unemployment rate, and age, while hazard values were derived from proximity to supermarkets. The analysis identified high-risk food-insecurity areas in both neighborhoods requiring urgent intervention measures. In Puente de Vallecas, census tract 07913143 was identified as a high-risk hotspot with a Social Vulnerability Index of 1.646495 (range 0.901–3.223) and a risk value of 3 (range 3–10); in southeast D.C., tracts 7601 and 7605 were selected as high-risk zones for further study, with Social Vulnerability Index values of 2.221 and 1.737 (range 1.040–3.525) and risk values of 2 and 5 (range 0–10), respectively. The study also identifies a general shortage of areas combining residential and commercial use and limits on public transport availability in the food-insecure urban areas studied.

Tatiana Hlinka · Journal of Student Research · United States

In New Jersey, 50 food desert areas face the most severe food insecurity across both rural and urban contexts. This study identified nine barriers to implementing urban agriculture initiatives in New Jersey's urban food deserts, using a sequential quantitative analysis combining a survey of food systems professionals with a GIS-based spatial analysis to identify the most prevalent barrier. Working in partnership with New Jersey urban agricultural organizations, the study found that lack of funding was the most commonly cited barrier to expanding urban agriculture initiatives. The GIS-based spatial analysis found that high-priority barriers varied by region, but that all organizations identified funding, or lack of access to funding, as a significant barrier regardless of whether they operated in a low- or high-income neighborhood. The study concludes that policymakers must reevaluate the role of urban agricultural organizations in New Jersey's urban food deserts.

· LCR Diario Digital · Argentina

A regional Argentine newspaper report on the national Ministry of Human Capital's March 2024 discontinuation of ProHuerta, the national program providing free seed kits for household gardens. In the Villa Regina area of Río Negro province, the local Comisión de Fomento of Valle Azul stepped in to purchase and freely distribute 100 seed kits for the spring-summer season, while INTA (the national agricultural technology institute), though no longer funded to buy seeds, continues to offer free technical advice on soil improvement and pest control.

Shannon Doocy, Emily Lyles, Robert Kenyi Morjan, Kayla Pfieffer-Mundt, Courtland Robinson, Kevin Savage · Agriculture & Food Security · South Sudan

A prospective cohort study in South Sudan (2019–2021) examined the impact of cash assistance for work in community gardens on food security among 1213 cash-receiving, 582 non-intervention, and 300 later cash-receiving households. The study found no significant differences in changes over time in household hunger, coping strategies, or meal frequency between participants and the comparison group. Cash transfers did not appear to have lasting benefits on food security and livelihoods coping strategy use.

Sophie Kathrin Schaffernicht, Elisabeth Quendler · Merits · Austria

This study aimed to identify systemic barriers to inclusion in horticultural working life and potential solutions for people with disabilities within urban agriculture in Vienna, Austria. A pilot project was conducted from May to October 2019, involving a university, three social institutions, two horticultural farms, and fifteen people with disabilities. The findings suggested that urban agriculture opportunities should extend beyond simple cooperation between social institutions and horticultural farms.

Bethaney Turner · · Global

This chapter explored human-soil relations in urban home and community gardens through ethnographic fieldwork. While biodiverse soil offers direct health benefits, the presence of contaminated, toxic soils, prevalent in lower socio-economic neighborhoods, was shown to expose inequities in access to safe gardening sites and hinder the realization of potential therapeutic benefits. It argues that the therapeutic benefits of gardens are best realized when humans cultivate attentive relationships with myriad multispecies companions.

Svetlana Hristova-Vladi · Postmodernism Problems · Bulgaria

The book "Urban Agriculture for Improving the Quality of Life. Examples from Bulgaria," edited by Donna Pickard, explores the real versus potential effects of urban agriculture on the welfare of urban and nearby communities. This multidisciplinary study analyzes the interplay between urban agriculture practices and quality of life through social, educational, economic, spatial, and ecological aspects. It also delves into the historical dimension of urban agriculture in Bulgaria, including examples from Sofia in the 1930s.

Miriam Williams, Lillian Tait · · Australia (Sydney)

This chapter reflects on how attention to care helps understand the hopes and troubles shaping Community Food Initiatives (CFIs) in unequal worlds. Drawing on data from a 2019 research project documenting CFIs across metropolitan Sydney, Australia, the chapter analyzes two initiatives: the Addison Road Community Centre Organisation (ARCCO) Food Pantry and Five Serves Produce Community Support Agriculture Scheme (CSA). The analysis reveals expansive communities involving human and non-human others that are cared for, cared about, and cared with CFIs, highlighting the complexities of care in unequal contexts.

Emelie 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.

Deni Permana · ANTASENA Governance and Innovation Journal · Global

This analysis evaluated the impact of school garden programs on students' nutritional status and nutritious food intake, using surveys, interviews, and nutritional status measurements before and after program implementation. School gardens positively impacted students' nutrition knowledge and increased fresh fruit and vegetable consumption, contributing to a reduction in malnutrition prevalence with significant increases in children's weight and height. However, the program's success was constrained by budget limitations and a lack of training for educators, highlighting the need for adequate training, stable financial support, and curriculum integration.

Natalie Call, Elizabeth Silber, E. Binney Girdler · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

This GIS-based study of Kalamazoo, Michigan, analyzed how accessibility to different types of food access points — full-service grocery stores, farmers markets, community gardens, food pantries, and convenience stores — differed between low-income and higher-income census tracts. All full-service grocery stores were accessible via bus routes, but 11% of residents in low-income areas lacked adequate access, living beyond the 0.25-mile walkable distance to bus routes. "Positive" access points such as community gardens, food pantries, and farmers markets were found to be concentrated in areas that already had grocery store access, whereas "negative" access points — convenience and dollar stores, which provide lower-quality, highly processed food — filled the access gap in lower-income areas instead. More than twice as many low-income residents had walkable access to convenience stores as higher-income residents, with 81% of those convenience stores located within low-income tracts.

Caroline Verfuerth, Angelina Sanderson Bellamy, Barbora Adlerová, Amy Dutton · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · United Kingdom

Failures of the current food system are described as sitting at the core of multiple overlapping crises, shaping both consumption choices and food production, with low-income households disproportionately affected—their food security and access to healthy, sustainable food impacted as a result. Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is framed as a bottom-up response toward agri-food system transformation, an alternative food system built on locally sold, agroecologically grown food rooted in social values, and, alongside other food citizenship movements and alternative food networks (AFNs), driven by a vision of a democratic, socially and economically just, environmentally sustainable food system. Yet low-income households are underrepresented in the CSA community. This paper reports findings from a co-produced intervention between the research team, four CSA farms in Wales, United Kingdom, and two food aid partners, seeking ways to improve CSA membership accessibility for food-insecure households: 38 households received a weekly vegetable bag for two to four months, and 16 household members were interviewed at the project's start and at the end of the harvest season. Using a food well-being framework, the study found that CSA membership holistically improved food well-being by strengthening producer-consumer relationships, increasing availability of healthy foods, helping people care for their own and their families' well-being, and building place-based food capability and literacy—results the authors use to support calls for prioritizing food well-being interventions to benefit financially excluded, food-insecure households within localized AFNs.

Julie Cornfield, Harmonii Odinga, Jaleh Kermani, Katherine P. Theall, M. Pia Chaparro · American Journal of Health Promotion · United States (New Orleans)

An environmental assessment of 10 community gardens and interviews with 20 community members and administrators in New Orleans, Louisiana, explored factors affecting garden use. Gardens scored high in design and cleanliness but low in accessibility and information availability. While community members perceived gardens could increase fresh food access, administrators believed gardens could not produce enough food for community-wide impact, emphasizing social benefits instead.

Tomasz B. Falkowski, Bethany Jorgensen, Donald A. Rakow, Ashmita Das, Stewart A.W. Diemont, Theresa Selfa, Austin B. Arrington · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · United States

A study in four New York cities analyzed the benefits and challenges of community gardens during the COVID-19 pandemic through surveys and semi-structured interviews with community gardeners. Gardeners experienced benefits such as connection, mental and physical well-being, and a safe refuge, but the biggest challenge was limited socializing due to personal behavioral changes and garden rules. This research suggests that while community gardens can be resilient sites of reprieve during crises, the pandemic also exposed their vulnerabilities.

Marié J. du Toit, Olivia Rendón, Viktoria Cologna, Sarel S. Cilliers, Martin Dallimer · Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution · South Africa

A case study in a low-income former township area in South Africa, involving 140 home garden owners, found that gardens did not substantially contribute to household food security. Only 10% of households were completely food secure, and dietary diversity was very low. Key constraints included cultural practices, a focus on ornamental plants, and reliance on purchased food.