Research & reports

Mary Njoki Mwaura, Sabina Wangia, Japheth Ododa Origa, Lee Ernest Mbatia Oliver · Journal of Agricultural Extension · Kenya (Nairobi)

This study investigated the influence of urban extension workers' socio-economic characteristics on farmer empowerment in Nairobi County, Kenya, using data from 64 extension workers. While extension workers' characteristics positively influenced the choice of extension methods, explaining 37.2% of farmer empowerment, a significant finding was that 49.9% of extension workers were unaware of adult learning principles (ALPs). The study recommends training extension workers in ALPs and ICT techniques to improve extension methods.

Oso Adeola Abiola · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · South Africa

This review discusses vegetable production in South Africa, focusing on the impacts of root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne species) on small-scale farming communities. The review highlights that these nematodes are a primary pest, causing delayed crop maturity, reduced yields, poor quality produce, and escalating production costs. This leads to substantial income losses for farmers and the abandonment of community gardens, intensifying challenges for vegetable production and food security.

Lexi Earl, Pat Thomson · · United Kingdom (midlands in England)

This chapter examines a school garden with farm elements at a primary school in a deprived market town in the midlands of England, established as part of an 'eco-school' initiative driven by the former head teacher. The garden included various spaces like a farm, raised beds, a pond, and a herb garden, used for science learning and natural exploration. However, the study notes that the impetus for outdoor learning diminished after the initiating head teacher departed, as school priorities shifted due to other pressures.

Fatiha Hakimi, Mohamed Brech · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Morocco

This study assessed the practices, potentials, and constraints of peri-urban agriculture (PUA) in Rabat Metropolis, Morocco, using field observation, interviews, and surveys with 50 randomly selected farmers. While PUA contributes to economic development, employment, and food supply, the study found significant legal constraints, including the absence of regulating laws and the obligation for some farmers to pay housing taxes. Technical constraints such as insufficient workforce, high labor costs, difficult access to irrigation water, and lack of training also hinder PUA growth.

Maximilian Manderscheid, Valentin Fiala, Bernhard Freyer · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Global

This report D4.3 describes the status quo analysis and documentation of Edible City Solutions (ECS). Over 300 ECS were identified in Berlin and Montevideo, and online research was conducted in Carthage and Lomé, after which a total of 84 ECS were documented in detail using a mixed-method approach (online survey, interviews, workshops, etc.). Most documented ECS take the form of urban gardening and focus on social benefits like providing education and fostering social cohesion, but the report does not detail specific challenges or limitations regarding governance.

Remigio Paradelo, Antía Villada, María Teresa Barral · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · Global

A two-month pot experiment studied heavy metal transference from five metal-rich urban waste composts and a manure vermicompost to lettuce and Italian ryegrass under controlled conditions. Plant concentrations of Zn, Cu, and Cd increased with their concentrations in compost, while no such relation was observed for Pb. The study found that the ratio of element concentration in plant to compost was much higher for Zn, Cd, and Cu than for Pb, indicating lower bioavailability of Pb.

Justine Lindemann · New York University Press eBooks · United States (Cleveland)

This chapter explores how gentrification in Cleveland, Ohio, impacts Black urban farmers' and gardeners' access to land in disinvested neighborhoods. It examines the ancillary effects of development on alternative land reuse efforts. The study highlights that despite a seemingly endless supply of vacant lots, gentrification negatively affects land access for these communities.

Hayford Mensah Ayerakwa, Fred Mawunyo Dzanku, Daniel Bruce Sarpong · Agricultural and Food Economics · Ghana

Using a sample of 2,004 households in a small and a medium-sized city in Ghana, this study examined urban households' participation in agriculture by disentangling it according to the geography of production — urban versus rural areas — and its implications for food security. The analysis found no evidence that participation in agriculture in general was related to the food security of urban households in this sample. However, urbanites who produced food in both urban and rural areas had better food security in the medium-sized city.

Guillermo Olivera, Kenia Zavaleta · Repositorio Digital Institucional de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (Universidad de Buenos Aires) · Mexico

This study argues that urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA), along with intra-urban open spaces, constitutes a "second best" land use for 21st-century cities pursuing sustainable growth aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals — whether through FAO's Greener Cities Strategy, which promotes garden-based UPA against poverty and food insecurity, or through UPA absorbed by city expansion, much of it commercial in nature. Based on analysis of official statistics and fieldwork in the Ejido Tejalpa in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, the study finds that UPA persists there due to its historical trajectory and access to water and land, existing in commercial form rather than as urban gardens, but not without problems. Its main threat is identified as excessive urbanization and generational change among producers, and its main challenge as achieving greater involvement of urban governments through land management and urban planning, following the experience of other countries where agriculture is given more weight in metropolitan planning.

Ada Górna, Krzysztof Górny · Miscellanea Geographica · Cuba

An exploratory, classification-based study combining fieldwork with satellite and aerial imagery analysis characterized urban agriculture across the built-up areas of Havana, Cuba. It found urban gardens distributed unevenly across the city, concentrated in lower-density districts where land was intentionally left between buildings by modernist planners, with organopónico (organoponics) as the most common production technique — but found that the material commonly used to build the bordering walls of these plots is asbestos, posing a significant health threat to both producers and consumers.

Achamyeleh Gashu Adam · IntechOpen eBooks · Ethiopia

A case-study and desk-review analysis of how new urban built-up properties form in the transitional peri-urban areas of Ethiopia. These areas are described as sites of intense competition between agricultural and non-agricultural land use, where rural agricultural land rights are vanishing. The study finds that both formal and informal actors play a significant role in converting peri-urban agricultural land into non-agricultural urban built-up property, and that these properties result from land-use conversion through both formal and informal channels.

Abraham Verghese, Rakshitha Mouly · Pest Management in Horticultural Ecosystems · India

A report documenting the giant African snail (Achatina fulica) in urban and terrace gardens in Bengaluru, India (12°57'N, 77°38'E, 965 MSL) over a six-month observation period, in peri-urban horticulture. Its occurrence in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) was first reported in 1979, more than a century after two specimens were introduced into a garden in Calcutta (Kolkata) by William Henry Benson in 1847, after which it is assumed to have spread across India and much of Asia; the paper cites the genetic closeness of current snail populations to the original Kolkata specimens as evidence for this spread.

Charlotte Glennie · New York University Press eBooks · United States

This chapter traces the history of Seattle's P-Patch community garden program, which resident-activists have kept insulated from development pressure by advocating for it at critical moments. Advocates pursued a pro-growth strategy, framing the gardens as good for a growing city, which fed Seattle's image as green and livable and helped attract high-income residents and raise property values; while the gardens themselves remain secure, low-income and other vulnerable residents are being displaced by this green gentrification.

Pamela Arnette Broom, Yuki Kato · New York University Press eBooks · United States

This chapter examines the gentrification of foodways in post-Katrina New Orleans, combining the author's own experience as a long-term urban gardener with grower interviews. It argues that the emerging narrative presenting urban agriculture as a new idea obscures the city's long-standing tradition of local food production and procurement, and that the new geographic notion of local tends to dissociate from the social and cultural dimensions of preexisting folk foodways; it concludes that the popularity of urban agriculture among newcomers, though well-intended, had the adverse effect of discouraging many long-term residents from engaging with urban agriculture and from opportunities such as entrepreneurship, community health and urban sustainability.

Zach Mortice · Landscape architecture · Canada

This article covers landscape architect Alexander Cassini's (ASLA) involvement with the Carré Casgrain community garden in the Little Italy neighborhood of Montreal, Canada. The city and Le Carré et sa Ruelle began a process of establishing the site as a real estate reserve, transferring ownership to the city with management handed to the community members who had rehabilitated the land, but the piece reports that the battle over the vacant lot left the community garden in ruins.

Andrea Colantoni, Gianluca Egidi, Giovanni Quaranta, R. D’Alessandro, Sabato Vinci, Rosario Turco, Luca Salvati · Land · Europe

Using statistical data analysis and a literature review covering 1961-2017, a regional study in Greece examined the relationship between wildfire frequency/extent and the decline of nomadic livestock (mainly sheep and goats), comparing Attica — the peri-urban region that includes the capital Athens — with the rest of the country. Attica showed a markedly faster decline in nomadic livestock than the rest of Greece, a decline associated with higher wildfire risk in that region. The findings indicate that nomadic livestock grazing helps prevent fuel (biomass) accumulation in forests and unmanaged natural land, contributing to sustainable management of peri-urban land.

Caren Freitas de Lima, Silvia Regina Nunes Baptista, Susana Arruda, Cristhiane Oliveira da Graça Amâncio · Revista Campo-Território · Brazil

This article analyzes Henri Lefebvre's concept of the "right to the city" in the context of Rio de Janeiro, a Latin American city, combining Lefebvre's framework with a historical bibliographical review of urban requalification and removals in Rio, analysis of official institutional data, and field research. In the 2000s, neighborhoods with a history of agricultural activity in Rio's West Zone — mainly Planning Area 4 (AP4), covering the Vargens region (Vargem Grande, Vargem Pequena, Camorim, and parts of Recreio dos Bandeirantes, Barra da Tijuca, and Jacarepaguá) — became targets of real estate expansion. The State enabled this expansion through urbanistic instruments such as the Vargens Urban Structuring Plan (PEU das Vargens) and the Land Use and Occupation Law (LUOS), which reduce agricultural areas. Although generally neglected in debates over urban struggles, the agroecology-based Carioca Urban Agriculture Network (Rede CAU), acting through the Articulação Plano Popular (APP Vargens), takes up the struggle for the right to the city and for urban planning, asserting that the right to the city is also the right to plant.

Małgorzata Ćwieląg‐Drabek, Agata Piekut, Klaudia Gut, Mateusz Grabowski · Scientific Reports · Europe

A study of family allotment gardens (FAGs) in Silesia Province, one of the most polluted regions in Poland, analyzed 219 soil samples and 64 edible plant samples to link the geochemical disturbance caused by past mining and smelting activity to consumer exposure to toxic and carcinogenic metallic trace elements. Contents of these elements in topsoil were spatially diverse and depended primarily on the location of industrial pollution sources. Average cadmium (0.52 mg/kg fresh weight) and lead (0.57 mg/kg fresh weight) content in vegetables exceeded maximum permissible concentrations under European quality standards. A human health risk assessment based on three dietary exposure scenarios found that, in every scenario, potatoes — a staple of the Polish diet — carried the highest average daily dose for all three elements. The study concludes that consuming vegetables grown in Silesia Province's family allotment gardens may pose a significant health risk to consumers.

Salsabila Nur A, Ir. Irham, S.P. Anung Pranyoto · · Indonesia

This descriptive study, using purposively sampled primary data from 30 farmers in Danurejan sub-district and 25 farmers in Jetis sub-district, Yogyakarta City, Indonesia, examines the contribution of urban farming income to household income through farm income analysis, a one-sample t-test, household income analysis, and multiple linear regression. Urban farming produced a positive annual income (Rp 112,883/year), but its contribution to total household income (Rp 46,579,988/year) was only 0.24%. This low share was attributed to the very small quantity of crops cultivated per household — for example, 4 polybags/year of bird's-eye chili, 10 polybags/year of large chili, and 11 polybags/year of mustard greens. Farmer age, education level, quantity of crops grown, and seedling price were the factors significantly affecting urban farming income.

Dorothée Boccanfuso, Marie-Ève Yergeau · Cahiers de recherche · Africa

This study presents a diagnostic assessment of the urban and peri-urban agriculture (AUP) sector in Mali, based on a literature review and individual interviews with stakeholders in Bamako, forming the first stage of a research project intended to measure AUP's impact on poverty and food security. The literature review found that few studies measure AUP's impact, that existing results are mixed and inconsistent, and that there is a lack of solid evidence on the topic. The Bamako interviews surfaced the sector's economic, social, and environmental issues in the Malian context and confirmed, from key stakeholders, the relevance and necessity of the planned research project.

Delphine Manka’abusi, Désiré Jean‐Pascal Lompo, Christoph Steiner, Mariko Ingold, Edmund Kyei Akoto-Danso, Steffen Werner, Volker Häring, George Nyarko, Bernd Marschner, Andreas Buerkert · Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science · Sub-Saharan Africa

To quantify carbon and nitrogen losses in urban and peri-urban agriculture soils in West Africa, this study measured CO2-C, N2O-N, and NH3-N fluxes from irrigated fields in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and Tamale, Ghana, under different fertilization and (waste)water regimes. Compared with unamended controls, fertilizer application increased average cumulative CO2-C emissions by 103% over eight cropping cycles in Ouagadougou and by 42% over seven cropping cycles in Tamale. Total emissions across all cropping cycles reached 14 t C/ha in Ouagadougou — 73% of the carbon applied as organic fertilizer over two years at that site — and 9 t C/ha in Tamale. Fertilizer application increased N2O-N emissions in Ouagadougou by 37-360% across cropping cycles and NH3-N losses by an average of 670%, but had no significant effect on N2O-N losses in Tamale. Wastewater irrigation did not significantly raise CO2-C emissions in Ouagadougou, but in Tamale CO2-C emissions were 71% higher on wastewater plots (1.6 t C/ha) than on controls (0.9 t C/ha); wastewater had no significant effect on N2O-N or NH3-N emissions at either site. Biochar did not affect N2O-N or NH3-N losses but could help reduce CO2-C emissions from urban garden soils.

Kyle Richardville · Purdue e-Pubs (Purdue University System) · United States

With Purdue University's campus and much of its surrounding area classified by the USDA as a food desert, this study surveyed graduate students using a voluntary 33-question online Qualtrics survey distributed campus-wide, to identify barriers to purchasing and consuming fresh produce and to participating in local urban agriculture, and to assess how the COVID-19 pandemic affected food access and motivation for healthy eating and community garden engagement. Results show many Purdue graduate students face both individual and structural barriers to accessing fresh fruits and vegetables, with international students particularly vulnerable to structural barriers; lack of access to a personal vehicle was the primary predictor of vulnerability, especially during the pandemic. Students expressed interest in participating in local urban agriculture initiatives but most were unaware such initiatives existed. A second objective of the study tested whether leaf mold compost could improve degraded urban soils.

Georgette N. Ngweme, Dhafer Mohammed M. Al Salah, Amandine Laffite, Periyasamy Sivalingam, Dominique Grandjean, Konde Nkiama Numbi Joël, Crispin K. Mulaji, Florian Breider, John Poté · The Science of The Total Environment · Africa

This study investigated levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in irrigation water, soil, and Amaranthus viridis from gardening sites in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, to assess environmental and human health risks. A survey of pesticide and fertilizer use was conducted with 740 market gardeners, and POPs (organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, PBDEs, and PAHs) were analyzed in irrigation water and 144 vegetable samples. The highest PAH levels were found in A. viridis at all sites studied; the sum of seven PCB congeners ranged from 15.89 to 401.36 ng/g; chlorpyrifos-ethyl and p,p'-DDE were the predominant OCPs detected; and among PBDEs, only BDE47 was quantified at notable concentration in the plants, with none detected in irrigation water. Higher estimated daily intake values indicated that consuming the leafy vegetables could be associated with increased health risks, though calculated incremental lifetime cancer risk values indicated no potential carcinogenic risk for the local population. The study recommends implementing urban agriculture control programs for POPs and fertilizer use in Kinshasa to protect public health.

Kheir Al‐Kodmany · · Global

A book chapter arguing that cities will need internal food production to meet demand from growing urban populations and to avoid congestion, pollution and unaffordable food prices, and examining vertical farming — using hydroponics, aeroponics and aquaponics — as an approach suited to urban settings where land is limited and expensive. After reviewing these technologies and project prototypes, the chapter closes by stating that economic feasibility, building codes and regulations, and a lack of expertise remain major obstacles to implementing the vertical farm.

Samantha Senda-Cook · Argumentation and Advocacy · United States

Gifford Park, a neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, has been recreating itself through urban agriculture like many neighborhoods across the country. This case study conceptualizes urban agriculture as a "place ballet" — describing interactions between places and bodies — extending the idea that places can function as spatial arguments. The analysis found that urban agriculture reveals a complex material argument about the positive impacts places and bodies can have on communities and their members, while simultaneously overlooking the economic and racial privileges inherent in these efforts, and concludes that the place-ballet concept itself carries its own implications of economic and racial privilege.