Research & reports

Matilda Thelin · · Sweden

This qualitative study in peri-urban Uppsala, Sweden, identifies driving forces influencing land use decisions by commercial farmers and institutional landowners. It notes that approximately 700 hectares of land in Sweden are diverted from food production annually, with Uppsala Municipality showing the greatest change in 2013. The expropriation of agricultural land for urban development leads to farmers losing land resources and increased competition for remaining land, resulting in high land prices.

최정석 · 환경정책 · South Korea

This research from South Korea identifies legal and institutional problems in securing space for urban agriculture, noting that the 2013 Urban Agriculture Promotion and Support Act has not boosted urban agriculture due to a lack of space. The study focuses on urban planning regulations, parks, green areas, the Urban Agriculture Promotion and Support Act, and other related policies to suggest solutions for these issues.

Matt Murray · Journal of Political Ecology · United States (New York City)

Efrat Eizenberg's book "From the Ground Up" explores New York City's community gardens as spaces that resist the commodification of land. The book details the history of these gardens, including their emergence during the 1970s economic crisis when primarily Black and Hispanic residents transformed vacant land into communal green spaces. As the real estate market recovered in the 1980s, land values increased, and many gardens were threatened by gentrification pressures. Eizenberg analyzes these transformations at individual, collective, and institutional levels, highlighting how gardeners create common spaces, solidify interpersonal ties, and organize to defend their gardens.

Chiara Tornaghi, Barbara Van Dyck · Local Environment · United Kingdom

This paper explores the "spheres of influence" and contradictions that shaped the trajectory of the Edible Public Space project in Leeds, UK, drawing on the authors' personal experience. It analyzes the dynamics and contradictions at play in the formation of an urban gardening group stemming from scholarly and committed action ambitions. The study focuses on the role of spatial interventions in fostering social innovation in the public food and land agenda, aiming to capture learning elements for scholarly activism, political gardening, and radical urbanism.

Eric Vaz, Marco Paìnho, Peter Nijkamp · European Planning Studies · Europe

This paper presents a spatial analysis integrating agricultural land use data inventories for Portugal with CORINE Land Cover data to assess change in the Algarve region. By overlaying the appropriation of agricultural land for urban use with population and urban data, it focuses on the consequences of specific regulations for the dynamics of land-use change. An integrated assessment of agricultural land loss found that agricultural land was being undermined by the consequences of urban sprawl. Building on this finding, the paper reviews existing decrees supporting sustainable development in the region, provides a qualitative assessment of future roles based on ethical values and economic efficiency, and offers a framework for policymakers regarding trends in the urban/agricultural dichotomy.

Jonathan Crush · · Global

This article argues that cities of the Global South are experiencing a deepening crisis of food inaccessibility, marked by growing food poverty, hunger and malnutrition, lack of dietary diversity, child wasting and stunting, increased vulnerability to infectious and chronic disease, and a growing obesity epidemic. It states that this urban crisis remains largely invisible to the policy and research communities concerned with global food security, noting that there was more research and policy debate on urban food insecurity in the 1990s, when the Global South was less urbanized than today, and that concern with urban food security has since been displaced by the new international food security agenda and its pervasive anti-urban bias. It observes that the only aspect of urban food security currently commanding significant attention is urban agriculture, which it describes as widely, but improbably, seen as the key to achieving food security in cities of the Global South.

Joann Lo · Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis · United States

A first-hand essay by the executive director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) in the United States argues that despite growing interest in sustainable food production and systems — including community gardens, urban agriculture and "slow" food — the broader food movement has not fully integrated the voices and leadership of the workers who bring food from farm to table. It states that food workers, numbering almost 20 million in the U.S. alone, face multiple injustices including low wages, lack of benefits and dangerous working conditions that intersect with the sustainable-food movement's own concerns about food insecurity and access to healthy, affordable food, and recounts the FCWA's history and work from the author's own position.

Jennifer Vansteenkiste · Development in Practice · Global

This paper examines the social and gender politics of a women's urban garden project in Cap Haïtien, Haiti, supported by the International Organisation for Migration. The study finds that the development process created an unmonitored symbolic space in which society's normalized gender processes were reproduced, importing broader social inequalities that in turn prevented the project from meeting the women's practical and strategic goals. It discusses how an ecohealth approach, as an alternative design framework, could make this symbolic space visible for critical engagement and analysis by participants.

Achamyeleh Gashu Adam · African review of economics and finance · Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, all land is state-owned and granted to residents only as a holding right, with separate systems for rural and urban areas. Focusing on peri-urban agricultural land under growing pressure from urbanisation, this desk-review study analyzed existing survey research together with property-rights literature, theory, and current land-rights laws and policies. It found that new recipients of peri-urban land under the urban land-lease system obtain better and more extensive bundles of land rights than the indigenous, local peri-urban landholders who previously held that land.

Y. Saleh, Amul M. Badr, F. El Banna, A. Shahata · Science World Journal · Nigeria

Using a combination of remote sensing and GIS, this study assessed the rate of agricultural land-use change in the Kaduna metropolis, Nigeria, between 1980 and 2012, classifying and comparing four satellite images (Landsat MSS 1980, Landsat TM 1990, Landsat ETM+ 2005, and Nigeria Sat X 2012). The study found a significant reduction in agricultural land and continued disappearance of farmland over the period, which it links to loss of livelihoods, reduced food supply, and increased poverty. It states that this has raised concerns about the sustainability of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) production in the study area, with small-scale farmers the most affected.

Da Wang · · China (Beijing)

This study evaluates and analyzes urban agriculture in Beijing by focusing on the relationships among its subsystems and their relative influence. Results show that the comprehensive evaluation index of urban agriculture has risen steadily with a positive trend, but that the comparative advantages of both the population subsystem and the social subsystem have weakened, due to the loss of agricultural labor force and the urban-rural income gap. Meanwhile, the function of the environment and resource subsystems has strengthened, promoting a shift in Beijing's urban agricultural mode from one led by the economic subsystem toward one led jointly by the environment and economic subsystems. Given increasing pressure on environment and resources, the study concludes Beijing needs to build an ecological urban agriculture system and move away from an industrial development approach.

Oliver Moore, Olive McCarthy, Noreen Byrne, Michael Ward · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Europe

This paper examines one of the earliest and most prominent community supported agriculture (CSA) initiatives in Ireland, focusing on its organizational restructuring under productivity pressure. CSA is built on sharing risk and reward, and some uncertainty is treated as acceptable, but in this case the realized risk of insufficient produce, once pushed to its limits, became in fact unacceptable to members. The process by which this member-owned and member-operated CSA critically self-assessed and restructured after this shortfall is termed "reflexive resilience" — a description of an initiative that had to acknowledge a real produce shortfall and rebuild, not merely one that anticipated shocks in the abstract.

David Adams, Michael Hardman · Urban Studies · United Kingdom

This paper uses ethnographic data from 'F Troop', a guerrilla gardening group in an English midland city, to re-examine urban guerrilla gardening practices. It argues that these practices may not be as "resistant" or "celebratory" as often suggested in existing literature. The study highlights that the social backgrounds and motivations of participants, along with their relationships with other users of the space, are important but largely unacknowledged aspects of guerrilla gardening.

Zakir Hussain, Markus Hanisch · Journal of Environmental Planning and Management · India

This paper describes the adaptation of agricultural management practices in the urban periphery of Hyderabad, India, due to structural changes. Based on 120 farmer interviews, the study found that increasing costs for agricultural inputs like labor and land motivated farmers to intensify water, machine, and chemical use, which created problematic environmental impacts. Farmers also adapted by resorting to part-time farming and organizing efforts to share family labor.

Sarah James · Geographical Research · Australia (Sydney)

This paper examined the failure of Sydney's 'green zones' farmland protection policies, which were abandoned due to protests. The failure was attributed to a lack of consultation with Sydney's diverse small-scale farmers, rather than a rejection of farmland protection itself. Farmer interviews suggested that a bottom-up policy-making approach would have been more successful in maintaining farming in peri-urban areas.

Soraya Pourjavid, Hassan Sadighi, Hossein Shabanali Fami · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · Iran (Tehran)

This study identified constraints affecting urban agriculture in Tehran, Iran, by surveying 320 city dwellers across 22 municipal districts. The most important constraints identified were "high start-up costs" and "lack of knowledge among managers and authorities." Factor analysis revealed seven factors explaining 67.36% of the variance, including financial-economic and technical aspects.

Lijie He · · China

This article analyzes the current situation and problems of urban agricultural development in small towns of China. It identifies severe problems hindering progress, including decreasing agricultural land, severe waste of land resources, serious agricultural pollution, low quality and income of agricultural labor, limited transport capacity, insufficient funding, and a lack of related policies and regulations.

Kirstie Cadger, Thembela Kepe · Development in Practice · Botswana

Challenges facing community garden initiatives among the San of Botswana were analyzed through semi-structured interviews and participant observation in two San communities. The study found that the failure of the gardens related to how the San are treated and how they view their situation as destitute people. Forced resettlement, historical livelihood disruption, and government and NGO policies of development through welfare neglecting genuine empowerment were concluded to be responsible for the limited success of the community gardens.

N E Etim, J J Dukiya · International Journal of Advanced Remote Sensing and GIS · Nigeria (Abuja)

A study in the Kuje area council of Abuja, Nigeria, used questionnaires and multi-temporal satellite images from 1975–2010 to assess urban encroachment on agricultural lands. It found that urban encroachment into agricultural lands is occurring at an alarming rate of 15.7 km² annually, resulting in a total loss of 509 km² of agricultural land to urbanization over 35 years.

Josiah Taru, Hardlife Stephen Basure · Russian Journal of Agricultural and Socio-Economic Sciences · Zimbabwe (Harare)

This study applied Norman Long's interface analysis to understand the causes of conflicts and struggles among urban agriculture (UA) actors in Kuwadzana Extension, Harare. Intensified competition for scarce land and water escalated conflicts, particularly in off-plot agriculture due to its contentious nature outside institutional frameworks. Actors with different power bases used them to dispossess and marginalize others. Conflict resolution mechanisms (mediation, litigation, conciliation) often lacked legal binding or institutional backing, tending to generate more disputes.

A. Bryan Endres, Rachel Armstrong · · United States

This article discusses Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and 'community labor,' where customers participate in food production on farms. It highlights a paradox: traditional employment law, envisioning autonomous competition, makes little room for these novel relationships, potentially undermining CSA values and limiting its viability and growth. The authors suggest that employment law should develop a more nuanced view of relationships in the CSA context, supporting mutual gain and shared values over competition-based rules.

Yuki Kato · Sociological Inquiry · United States (New Orleans)

This case study of a community-supported agriculture (CSA) organization in New Orleans focused on the lack of participation by local residents in the CSA market despite its intentions. Interview and ethnographic observation data indicated a general consensus on economic constraints, while some non-resident supporters attributed the issue to a lack of knowledge about the food system. Residents, however, pointed to spatial and sociocultural barriers, including produce selection, purchase options, market access convenience, and the race-related historical and spatial context of the market's location, making the market less accessible to them.

Àngels Viladomiu Canela · AusArt · Global

This article reviews artistic interventions that address urban land uses and farming methods. These actions, through planting and cultivating, generate spaces for the expression of artistic, political, and social identities, often in urban interstices like abandoned lots or non-urbanized areas. The study identifies these practices as spaces for social critique and ecological activism.

Mariana Iftisan · · Indonesia (Bandung)

This study investigated community perceptions and participation in an urban farming program in RW 04 Tamansari, Bandung, Indonesia. Findings indicated that community perception of the urban farming program was good, with residents understanding its types and benefits. However, community participation in the program was not maximal, as not all residents of RW 04 were involved.

Priyanie Amerasinghe, R. M. Bhardwaj, Christopher A. Scott, Kiran Jella · · India

This study analyzed the current status of wastewater generation, its uses, and livelihood benefits, particularly in agriculture, in India. It was based on national data and case studies from Ahmedabad, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Kanpur, and Kolkata. A lack of systematic data collection by municipalities makes it difficult to accurately assess wastewater generation or estimate the total urban area under wastewater irrigation.