Research & reports

Marie-Christine Zélem, Zelem, Marie-Christine · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Senegal (Dakar)

This study identifies numerous constraints hindering the widespread adoption of organic waste utilization in agriculture in the peri-urban area of Dakar, Senegal. These constraints include the nature, availability, and accessibility of organic waste, poorly controlled urbanization, effects of seasonal variation, resistance to changes, and medical risks. The project, which combines agriculture with city waste management, faces these challenges.

Maura Neves Coutinho, Heloísa Soares de Moura Costa · Anais ENANPUR · Brazil (Belo Horizonte)

This paper discusses urban agriculture (AU) practices occurring in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, both through informal and spontaneous initiatives by residents in peripheral neighborhoods and as an object of public intervention by the local government for specific purposes. The study concludes that secure access to urban land for maintaining AU practices is difficult, and the discussion on AU remains fragile, facing challenges for its implementation as a social policy impacting urban policies.

José Luis Galdeano Tostado · Creatividad y sociedad: revista de la Asociación para la Creatividad · Global

This paper observes an increasing awareness of environmental issues and neighborhood action in city centers, with concepts like urban gardens and self-managed spaces becoming more familiar. It suggests that vacant lands and unused building sites in cities offer significant potential for citizens' creative initiatives. The abstract does not present any specific findings on governance challenges or critical interventions.

John James Okiror, Biryabaho Matsiko, Joseph Oonyu · Journal of Agricultural Education · Uganda

This study, conducted in eight primary schools in Uganda, compared the learning achievement of pupils taught using supervised home gardens and those taught using school gardens. Data were collected over four school terms using questionnaires, focus group discussions, interviews, observations, and a posttest examination, and analyzed with a t-test. Findings showed no significant difference in knowledge achievement between the two groups of pupils.

Siny Tsang, AM Holt, Eduardo Bessa Azevedo · Chronic diseases and injuries in Canada · Canada (Cobourg, Ontario)

This needs assessment in Cobourg, Ontario, interviewed food program clients to identify barriers to food access. Clients reported lack of transportation, insufficient food quantities, and inconvenient operating hours as barriers to using food programs. They also cited lack of available vegetables and fruit at home and income as barriers to consuming more produce.

Ari Jokinen, Ville Viljanen, Krista Willman · Alue ja Ympäristö · Finland (Tampere)

This article analyzes the social and ecological significance of the Pispala allotment area in Tampere, Finland, where nearly 300 plots are used for urban farming, despite city plans for building purposes. A mixed-method analysis, using field observation, planning documents, biological surveys, and questionnaires, found that farming practices make the place visible, foster social interaction, and link the site ecologically to rare plant species. However, these crucial features of urban diversity are frequently disregarded by local administrative bodies in planning.

Jonathan Crush, Alice J. Hovorka, Daniel Tevera · Progress in Development Studies · Africa

This article examines the contemporary importance of household food production in poor urban communities across 11 Southern African Development Community (SADC) cities. It finds that urban food production is not particularly significant in most communities, with many more households relying on supermarkets and the informal sector for food access. Furthermore, few households derive income from selling produce, though the situation varies considerably by city.

Marcos Antonio de Castro Marques Teixeira · Aleph UCLA Undergraduate Research Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences · Brazil

This study surveyed urban gardens in Santa Maria da Codipi and Dirceu Arcoverde, Teresina, Brazil, to assess their economic viability for gardeners. The study found that urban gardens in both areas do not provide income security for those who work them. Problems identified include petty theft, low education levels, lack of technical assistance hindering investment in new crops, and pesticide use creating a competitive disadvantage.

Michael Raleigh · eCommons (Cornell University) · United States (Buffalo)

The City of Buffalo has made progress in accepting urban farming on vacant land, but remains unwilling to take risks in this area. Policies restrict farmers' access to land, long-term security, food diversity (including animals), and sales. To foster urban farming, the City should amend these policies to grant farmers more freedom and could promote farming through a city-wide composting program and a demolition policy requiring vacant lots to be seeded with clover.

Shinichi TAHARA, Sayaka SHIOYAMA, Hideharu KURITA, Toru Terada · Journal of The Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture · Japan

This study in Japan aimed to identify the actual amount of agricultural production by measuring harvested products from two urban agricultural gardens. It found that production from an 'experience farm' was sufficient for annual household consumption, while allotment gardens could not reach these amounts. At the district scale (500m radius) in this study, urban agricultural gardens could cover more than 10% of all vegetable consumption by urban residents.

Hillary Anne Doerfler · D-Scholarship@Pitt (University of Pittsburgh) · Global

A literature review examined the use of school garden programs for health promotion among elementary school youth. The review found that school gardens successfully improved academic achievement, increased fruit and vegetable consumption, and enhanced social skills. However, significant barriers to implementation were identified, particularly in low socioeconomic status schools, including a lack of funding, insufficient gardening knowledge among teachers, and limited community and parent involvement.

Julian S. Yates, Jutta Gutberlet · Environment and Planning A Economy and Space · Brazil (Diadema)

This paper analyzes food waste flows in Diadema, Brazil, through an urban political ecology lens, focusing on integrated organic waste management for composting and urban food production. While presented as a means for positive socioecological change, the process is characterized by conflict and potential exploitation. Broader structural conditions also constrain the system's ability to offer an alternative to existing waste-management models.

Masao Makiyama, Mami Inoue · JOURNAL OF RURAL PLANNING ASSOCIATION · Global

This study examined kleingartens (stay-type allotment gardens) established by private organizations, finding an increasing number of such gardens. Case studies revealed that privately established kleingartens tend to have higher use fees compared to government-established ones. Furthermore, problems identified include the reduction of administrative and maintenance expenses, location conditions, and the succession of managers.

Sinan Koont · University Press of Florida eBooks · Cuba

An assessment of Cuban urban agriculture's production and distribution outcomes finds that the most successful subprogram is fresh vegetable production, which has grown rapidly island-wide, while other subprograms remain active but less developed. Distribution occurs through thousands of points-of-sale, MALs, self-provisioning, and MAEs, with social consumption at workplaces, hospitals, and schools. Urban agriculture plays a significant role in improving Cuban diets but has not led to food sovereignty; other outcomes cited include employment generation, environmental benefits, and community building.

Andrew Kimbrell · Tikkun · United States

This essay criticizes the dominant industrial food model, corporations turning agriculture into agribusiness through heavy chemical, mechanical and genetically altered inputs, as producing profound alienation between the public and food production; it argues that increasing urbanization widens this physical and psychological distance, obscuring the industrial food model's consequences, including forest destruction, animal cruelty, pesticide harm to farmworkers and wildlife, and devastation of farm communities, which together constitute a moral crisis as well as an environmental and health crisis. It also describes a growing organic-and-beyond movement over the past two generations, with millions of Americans joining community supported agriculture (CSA) and opposing pesticide misuse, factory farming and genetic engineering of crops.

Joshua M. Davis · School for International Training Digital Collections (School for International Training) · United States

This paper evaluates the sustainability of the Market Basket (MB), a modified Community Supported Agriculture program run by Post Oil Solutions in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA, that provided local, fresh vegetables to low-income consumers at wholesale prices across two locations over two years, drawing on the author's experience as market coordinator, focus groups, interviews, and secondary data. Over 60 people participated in the MB during that period, and the paper argues the MB was an effective approach for increasing produce consumption, but issues affecting its sustainability remained unresolved — most notably funding to support a coordinator and increasing participation among generationally low-income consumers — with steps to address both currently underway.

Tommy Bleasdale, Carolyn J. Crouch, Sharon L. Harlan · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

Researchers studied a struggling community gardening program in a low-income minority neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona, operated within a larger local food initiative led by a nonprofit community development organization. Based on interviews and participant observation used to build an exploratory survey, the study found that while residents had gardening interest and experience, awareness of the program itself was low, perceptions of gardening's benefits and burdens varied among current gardeners, ex-gardeners, and those who had never gardened, and the benefits residents cited often differed from the goals stated by the local food initiative.

Morongoa Rosina Pako · · South Africa

This qualitative study assesses the Mogabane Community Garden Project in South Africa to determine why it did not reach its objective of poverty reduction in the community. It situates the project against South Africa's poverty lines — roughly 33% of the population living on less than R271/month, 50% on less than R422/month, and 79.1% on less than R1,230/month, with the highest poverty rates in the Eastern Cape (68.3%) and Limpopo (60.7%) provinces and the lowest in the Western Cape (20%) and Gauteng (28.8%) — and the government's post-1994 anti-poverty programs spanning social assistance, employment generation, enterprise development, basic household security, social services, disaster relief, and employment-related social insurance. Against this backdrop, the study assessed the Mogabane project and confirmed that it failed to achieve its poverty-reduction objective.

Miranda Martinez · · United States (Lower East Side)

This work explores the dynamics of gentrification, community gardens, and their impact on the Puerto Rican community in the Lower East Side. It examines class cultures in conflict, neighborhood transformation, and the symbolic significance of the area.

Charles French, Mimi Larsen Becker, Bruce E. Lindsay · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Cuba (Havana)

This study examined urban agriculture in Havana, Cuba, using secondary data and interviews with 11 urban gardeners. It found that while agrarian reforms after 1991 led to the growth of private urban gardens and cooperatives, Cuba's integration with the global economy and adoption of free-market principles have since forced dramatic adjustments in the urban agriculture sector. This shift presents challenges to the sector's original role in food security.

Geoffrey Ross Owens · Africa · Tanzania (Dar es Salaam)

This article, using ethnographic and historical approaches, examines unplanned peri-urban settlements on Dar es Salaam's northern and western fringe, Tanzania, between 1975 and 2000. These districts were established by educated urban professionals who used urban farming as an economic diversification strategy. The study found that these settlements contributed to the reproduction of socio-economic inequality, attracting additional economically influential urban in-migrants after 1991.

Claire Nettle · Chain reaction · Global

This paper discusses how community gardening can contribute to food security. However, it finds that the potential contribution of community gardens to food security is limited by their insecurity of tenure.

Emma Schroeder, Almuth Koby · · United States

In a 2010 interview, Almuth Koby shared her memories of the Eagle Heights Community Garden, including her time as president of the Community Gardens Committee. She described challenges such as members failing to fulfill their duties and the issue of abandoned plots, indicating governance difficulties within the community garden. Koby also recounted her personal gardening journey, from being mentored to mentoring others and learning from diverse cultures.

Kevin C. Matteson, Gail Langellotto · Insect Conservation and Diversity · United States (New York City)

The ability of adding 70 plants of seven native wildflower species over two years to augment beneficial insect richness, including bees, butterflies, and predatory wasps, was assessed in New York City community gardens. Bayesian analyses failed to find a strong influence of the native plant additions on beneficial insect richness, even after correcting for prior floral abundance. Butterflies and megachilid bees were found to heavily utilize introduced ornamental and crop flowers in these gardens, even when native flowers were present.

M. Tshitangoni, A. Okorie, Joseph Francis · Scientific Research and Essays · South Africa (Limpopo Province)

A study conducted in Vhembe District, Limpopo Province, South Africa, assessed challenges faced by 30 poverty alleviation projects (community gardens, poultry, etc.). A survey of 108 beneficiaries identified numerous inception-based challenges, such as lack of training (90%), lack of funds (80%), and fraudulent use of funds (33%), as well as operation-based challenges like poor record keeping (70%) and unavailability of markets (60%). These challenges were found to significantly limit the performance of the poverty alleviation projects.