Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
2115 results(61 / 85)
Growing Gardens in Shrinking Cities: A Solution to the Soil Lead Problem?
2016Kirsten Schwarz, Bethany B. Cutts, Jonathan London, Mary L. Cadenasso · Sustainability · Global
This paper proposes reframing the issue of soil lead contamination and urban gardening in shrinking cities from a potential conflict to a potential solution. Many shrinking cities face high soil lead burdens from their industrial past and the historic use of lead-based paint and leaded gasoline, which is often seen as a barrier to urban agriculture. The paper argues that urban gardening can be a solution to the soil lead problem through soil management, including soil testing and the addition of amendments, and through social network and community building.
Contamination & food safetyCommunityHealthLinking Food Insecure Patients With Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
2016Daniel Orlins Trigg · ScholarWorks -A service of University of Vermont Libraries (University of Vermont) · United States
This study investigated food insecurity screening among clinicians in Vermont, where 76% of residents experience some level of food insecurity. It found that physicians and physician assistants prefer using an established two-item screen for food insecurity. However, these clinicians tend to underestimate the actual prevalence of food insecurity in their practice communities.
Limited or null effectCSA & TeikeiHealthWelfareANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING FOOD SECURITY IN RURAL AND URBAN FARMING HOUSEHOLDS OF BENUE STATE, NIGERIA
2016G. A. Abu, A. Soom, Abu, Godwin Anjeinu, Soom, Aondonenge · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Nigeria
This study examined factors affecting food security in 180 rural and urban farming households in Benue State, Nigeria, using structured questionnaires. It found that 53.3% of rural and 62.2% of urban households were food secure based on calorie intake. Key constraints to food security included lack of access to credit, inadequate land, poverty, soil infertility, and storage/processing problems.
Economic viabilityFood sovereignty & justiceEconomicsUrban–rural linkageReappearance of the Public: Placemaking, Minoritization and Resistance in Detroit
2016Alesia Montgomery · International Journal of Urban and Regional Research · United States (Detroit)
A case study of downtown Detroit theorizes that the history of clashes between racial capitalism and social movements in public space reappears in the contradictory design of market-driven placemaking. This placemaking subordinates the black urban poor, even while incorporating black entrepreneurs and culture. Consequently, it suppresses the ability of African Americans to shape public space, despite the return of the white middle class to central cities.
Equity & displacementCommunityPolicyEconomicsInventing Eco-Cycle
2016Sandy Smith‐Nonini · Anthropology in Action · United States
This article discusses lessons learned from Eco-Cycle, a social enterprise supporting sustainability education in central North Carolina, U.S.A., since 2011. Eco-Cycle faced the challenge that many social justice-oriented green initiatives emulating urban agriculture models are grant-dependent in early years and achieve economic sustainability with difficulty. However, this non-profit co-op of upcycler crafters and vintage vendors grew from the production and marketing of upcycled rain barrels, pursuing economic sustainability through a social enterprise approach.
Economic viabilityEconomicsCommunityPolicyUrban 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 changeIdentifying opportunities and hurdles for food security: a critical examination of the City of Edmonton's food and agriculture strategy
2016Lorelei L. Hanson, Deborah Schrader · Interdisciplinary Environmental Review · Canada (Edmonton)
This case study critically examined the development of a food and urban agriculture strategy in Edmonton, Canada, using survey data and semi-structured interviews with citizens and stakeholders. It explored the transformative potential of local urban food initiatives and identified hurdles in moving beyond maintaining the status quo. The study aimed to identify leverage points for long-term local food system transformation within conceptualizations of sustainability.
Governance failurePolicyFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityA Story of Urban Farming and the Cultivation of Community and the Human Spirit
2016Matthew M. Mars · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Canada (Vancouver)
Michael Ableman's book "Street Farm" tells the story of how an urban farm transformed vacant lots in Vancouver, Canada's Low Tracks neighborhood into sites for food production, partial community restoration, and nurturing the human spirit. The narrative reveals a tenuous balance between the promises of urban farming and the harsh realities of addiction, hunger, homelessness, and violence often characterizing inner-city conditions. Urban agriculture is presented as a means to sustainably produce food for a city while also feeding the souls of disenfranchised individuals and communities.
Equity & displacementCommunityWelfareFood sovereignty & justiceGrowth Responses of Eggplant (Solanum melongena) to Hydrophilic Polymer Mixture Ratio in Growing Medium for Lower Maintenance Urban Agriculture via Green Roofs
2016Jin-Hee Ju, Won-Tae Kim, Hui Xu, Young-Han Yoon, Eun‐Young Choi · Journal of Environmental Science International · Global
This study investigated the influence of hydrophilic polymer (HP) mixture ratio on the growth of eggplant (Solanum melongena) for lower maintenance urban agriculture via green roofs. As the hydrophilic polymer mixture ratio increased, the growth index, number of leaves, leaf length, leaf width, and dry weight of shoot and root decreased. Specifically, these values were significantly lower in HP5.0% and HP10.0% treatments compared to the control, and the survival rate was lowest at 56% in the HP10.0% treatment.
Limited or null effectDIYClimate changeUrban–rural linkageThe 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 educationEconomicsMedia Frames and Shifting Places of Environmental (In)Justice: A Qualitative Historical Geographic Information System Method
2016Bethany B. Cutts, Danqi Fang, Kaitlyn Hornik, Jonathan London, Kirsten Schwarz, Mary L. Cadenasso · Environmental Justice · United States (California)
This study introduced a Qualitative Historical Geographic Information System (QHGIS) method to investigate how newspapers reflect changing meanings of place in relation to environmental burden and benefit. Applying QHGIS to urban gardening and soil lead issues reported in Sacramento, California, the method revealed the distribution of public narratives of environmental concern across the city, the politics embedded in location names, place name-changes, and how locations serve as framing devices for environmental concerns.
Contamination & food safetyCommunityHealthPolicyUrban 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 & justiceAgricultura urbana como crítica e alternativa: Práticas comunicativas em torno da alimentação no contexto de crises socioambientais || Urban Agriculture as Criticism and Alternative: Communication Practices around Food in the Context of Social and Environmental Crises
2016Thaís Cristina Schneider, Paulo André Niederle, Myrian Regina Del Vecchio-de Lima · Razón y Palabra · Brazil
This article analyzes urban agriculture from a communication perspective, focusing on how practitioners and non-practitioners understand its critical and alternative role regarding the modern food system. The study of Quinta da Videira in southern Brazil found that while urban agriculture is used to counter conventional food production and associated lifestyles, there are also resistances to integrating agricultural practices into the urban environment.
Governance failureFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityClimate changeUrban–rural linkageGender, resilience and resistance: South Africa’s Hleketani Community Garden
2016Elizabeth Vibert · Journal of Contemporary African Studies · South Africa
This article examines the Hleketani Community Garden in Limpopo Province, South Africa, highlighting the successes of women farmers in reducing poverty and improving health outcomes. Despite these benefits, the research identifies significant structural barriers, including lack of access to resources, unfavorable policy frameworks for small-scale agriculture, and worsening climate change, that hinder small-scale farmers, particularly women.
Equity & displacementCommunityWelfareHealthPolicyClimate changeFood 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 & justiceUrban Agriculture and the Neoliberalization of What?
2016Marion Ernwein · Open Collections · Switzerland (Geneva)
This paper critically examined municipal involvement in community garden and urban agriculture development in the canton of Geneva, Switzerland, focusing on a case study in Vernier. It found that the municipality's urban agriculture program serves contradictory functions, being simultaneously progressive in reversing space privatization and nature commodification, yet also reinforcing the neoliberal production of individualized, self-responsible, and self-entrepreneur subjectivities. The highly-regulated nature of these municipal community gardens complicates their categorization as either grassroots or purely institutional projects.
Governance failurePolicyCommunityLocal 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 viabilityEconomicsCommunityPolicyEcosystem services and tradeoffs in the home food gardens of African American, Chinese-origin and Mexican-origin households in Chicago, IL
2016John Taylor, Sarah Taylor Lovell, Sam E. Wortman, M.K. Chan · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · United States (Chicago)
In Chicago, semi-structured interviews and plant inventories were conducted with 59 African American, Chinese-origin, and Mexican-origin households regarding ecosystem services and tradeoffs in their home food gardens. A total of 387 plant species were identified; gardens of African American households were rich in ornamental species, while those of Chinese-origin households had a depauperate flora. Shade trees and a developed shrub layer were absent from most gardens, suggesting a tradeoff in ecosystem services favoring food production. Only 9.6% of the inventoried species were native to the Chicago area.
Environmental trade-offsCommunityBiodiversityOrganic cycleHealthA faecal exposure assessment of farm workers in Accra, Ghana: a cross sectional study
2016Prince Antwi-Agyei, Adam Biran, Anne Peasey, Jane Bruce, Jeroen H. J. Ensink · BMC Public Health · Ghana (Accra)
This cross-sectional study in Accra, Ghana, assessed faecal exposure among 80 farm workers during dry and wet seasons, analyzing water and soil samples for E. coli. The results showed that while irrigation water was highly contaminated (5.6 Log E. coli/100 ml), exposure to farm soil (2.3 Log E. coli/g) was the key risk pathway due to soil-to-mouth events, with 53% of farmers experiencing such events daily. The estimated norovirus infection risk to farmers was found to be higher than guidelines set by the WHO, indicating that exposure to soil is a critical pathway of pathogen risk in wastewater farmers, exceeding recommended health targets.
Contamination & food safetyHealthUrban–rural linkagePolicyTeaching STEM through Horticulture: Implementing an Edible Plant Curriculum at a STEM-centric Elementary School
2016Leila A. Graves, Harrison Hughes, Meena M. Balgopal · Journal of Agricultural Education · Global
This case study examined the implementation of a horticulture-based curriculum by two 3rd grade teachers and two STEM coordinators. While one STEM coordinator found the curriculum addressed academic science standards and provided relevant inquiry activities, the other STEM coordinator and teachers believed garden plants did not address science standards and only supported enrichment. This highlights a divergence in perception regarding the curriculum's alignment with academic standards.
Limited or null effectFood educationCommunityPrompts to improve post-consumer waste composting behaviors in the SUB
2016Valerie Chiykowski, Guhan Chendurnathan, Jun S. Lee, Lius Daniel · cIRcle (University of British Columbia) · Canada
This project at the University of British Columbia's Student Union Building (SUB) aimed to reduce contamination in post-consumer organics bins using visual prompts. While the intervention successfully decreased both the percentage weight and level of contamination, the overall weight of compostable waste also decreased post-intervention. The study suggests considering confounding factors like a sustainability fair during baseline data collection and improved bins, and proposes an infrared sensor-based audio prompt system for future efforts.
Governance failureCompostOrganic cycleCommunityUsing Community-Based Participatory Research to Explore Backyard Gardening Practices and Soil Lead Concentrations in Urban Neighborhoods
2016Sheri L. Johnson, Dalila Cardona, J. H. C. Davis, Benjamin Gramling, Chelsea Hamilton, Ray G. Hoffmann, Sabrina J. Ruis, Douglas J. Soldat, Steve Ventura, Yan Ke · Progress in community health partnerships · Global
This study used community-based participatory research to explore backyard gardening practices and soil lead concentrations in urban neighborhoods. Interviews with 20 adult gardeners revealed perceived benefits but few initial concerns about lead exposure, despite children's active involvement. Soil lead concentrations from 17 residential properties ranged from 7 to 3,234 mg kg-1, significantly higher than commercial soils (6 to 13 mg kg-1), indicating a contamination risk.
Contamination & food safetyHealthCommunityFood educationTowards a Human Right to Food: Implications for Urban Growing in Baltimore City, Maryland
2016Becky Lundberg Witt · FLASH - Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship & History (Fordham University) · United States (Baltimore City)
This article argues that property law in Baltimore City, Maryland, creates a significant barrier to urban growing by prioritizing the right to exclude others from vacant and abandoned land. Thousands of fallow lots remain inaccessible to neighbors for community benefit due to property ownership laws, which can neglect the human rights of the poorest citizens. The paper examines how the universal right to adequate food might legally support urban farming and gardening.
Governance failurePolicyFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityUrban 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 change