Research & reports

Haley Stanko, Lindsay Naylor · Local Environment · United States

A paper examining Philadelphia's 2008 prioritisation of healthy food access as part of sustainable development, in a city where almost 25% of the population is considered food insecure, prompting government agencies, NGOs, and community leaders to try to increase food access through expanded food production and land access. The paper argues that urban agriculture, gradually incorporated into sustainability narratives over the preceding decade, both provides advocates a platform to inform policymaking and risks stripping away the political and activist origins of the struggle for access to food, land, and green space, contending that this depoliticisation through incorporation into sustainability planning may serve to increase existing inequities in the city. Examining measures enacted under the Philadelphia Greenworks Sustainability Plan at the policymaking level, the paper's preliminary findings suggest a disconnect between urban agriculture advocacy and policymaking, and it states that further work is needed to understand the impacts of formalising urban agriculture in Philadelphia.

K. Michelle Glowa, Monika Egerer, Vicki Jones · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · United States

This case study of the Beach Flats Community Garden in the United States theorizes an "agroecologies of displacement," arguing that farmers are increasingly uprooted through involuntary displacement and that this displacement and dispossession actively reshape agricultural practices in farming communities. The authors argue that food movements, and transformative agroecology in particular, cannot be understood without a historical analysis of displacement and dispossession under capitalist land systems — framing land loss and forced relocation, not secure access, as a structuring condition of the garden's agroecology.

Mayrina Firdayati, Peni Astrini Notodarmojo, Barti Setiani Muntalif, Didit Trihartomo, Inat Shani Fathuna, Kiki Somantri · INDONESIAN JOURNAL OF URBAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY · Indonesia

Against a background of high helminth-infection prevalence in Indonesia — which led the government to issue a 2017 ministerial regulation on preventing soil-transmitted helminths (STH) — this study investigated the potential presence of helminth eggs capable of causing STH infection in two urban agricultural areas in the northern and southern parts of Bandung City. Samples of inlet and plantation-area water, soil, and harvested water spinach from both areas were analyzed for helminth eggs using a modified Bailinger method, and egg counts of 1–119 eggs/L were found across the water, soil, and vegetable samples. The results confirmed that irrigation water in both areas was contaminated with feces, with average fecal coliform counts exceeding the allowable value for irrigation water under Indonesia's Grade 4 water-quality criteria; variation in egg counts was attributed to environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, and soil type. Helminth-egg levels in the irrigation water and land samples exceeded the values recommended by the WHO's 2006 guidelines for safe use of wastewater in agriculture, which the study links to an increased risk of helminth infection among consumers, agricultural workers, and residents near the farmland.

Bas Spierings, Ilse van Liempt, Emiel Maliepaard · Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie · Europe

A study of social inclusion and exclusion processes in and around the Wijsgeren community garden in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Positioned against a literature that has largely emphasized and celebrated community gardening's benefits, it examines the practices and experiences of both gardeners and non-gardeners, and identifies specific exclusionary barriers based on non-ownership and non-membership operating in and around the garden.

FX Andy Sutrisno, Bakti Setiawan · Jurnal Perencanaan Pembangunan The Indonesian Journal of Development Planning · Indonesia

This case study of Surakarta, Indonesia's sustainable agricultural land protection policy -- focusing on conservation within the urban environment -- used field observations, stakeholder interviews, and secondary data to analyze the local government's policy and how urban farmers and landowners perceive it. It found that the policy is not well understood by the farmers and landowners directly affected, that the local government itself views urban agricultural land mainly from an economic standpoint and is less supportive of conservation, and that farmers and landowners, while believing the policy is essential, reject it because designation requires relinquishing some land rights and the incentives offered are not economically sufficient to compensate them.

Franklin Ginn, Eduardo Ascensão · Antipode · Europe

This article examines collective gardening spaces that have existed for decades across Lisbon, Portugal, analyzing the racialized urban geography revealed by the differing fortunes of makeshift gardens built by black migrants from Portugal's former colonies compared with white Portuguese community gardening spaces. Framing urban gardens as commons-in-the-making, it sets subaltern urbanism and the emergence of autonomous gardening commons against state erasure, overwriting, or top-down construction of commons. While urban gardening produces commons of varying persistence, the commons are shown to be closely entwined with processes of enclosure; the article argues these gardening commons are divergent, cannot be judged against any single abstract ideal, and ultimately do not share a "common" in common.

Hok Bun Ku, Yan Hairong · · China

China's food-security crisis, caused by unsustainable development, has diminished the country's farmland through large-scale land acquisitions, ecological restoration projects, agricultural structural adjustments, natural disasters, and pollution, among other factors. This chapter argues that local producers and consumers are not passively waiting for government policy changes but, organized by green social workers, are actively searching for alternatives to achieve self-sufficiency and food security through a new initiative called the "rural–urban alliance." Framed within the social economy perspective advocated by green social work as a way to rethink economic development and consider alternatives to capitalism, the rural–urban alliance and community-supported agriculture (CSA) are positioned as a potential new route for China's sustainable development that could change the pathway of economic development forms that cause inequality and undermine livelihoods. This is a proposed, forward-looking argument, however; the abstract does not report empirical evidence that CSA or the rural–urban alliance have actually mitigated the food-security crisis.

Illana C. Livstrom, Amy Smith, Mary Rogers, Karl Hackansan · Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies · Global

A qualitative case study of "Grounding Roots," a community-based collaborative educational program that aims to build food, environmental, and cognitive justice through sustainable urban agriculture and horticulture via intergenerational communities of practice. Drawing on Linda Tuhiwai Smith's framework of decolonizing methodologies, the study examined both the ways a Community-University partnership engaged in decolonizing work through research and practice, and the ways the same partnership served to preserve colonizing practices, using deductive coding grounded in decolonizing-practice theory. Identified decolonizing practices included implementing a program of worth to the community and youth, building from community-led agendas, and prioritizing community healing and transformation over academic research agendas. Identified colonizing practices included inequitable power hierarchies within the leadership team and in garden groups, deficit-oriented talk about minoritized youth, and the devalorization of youth voice. The study concludes that researchers doing community-based work need to examine the white supremacist roots embedded in their own practices, embrace decolonizing and humanizing approaches, engage in community-driven agendas that prioritize process over product, facilitate distributed leadership in collaboration with community members, and produce work of genuine value together with the community.

Abiodun Olusola Omotayo, Ijatuyi Enioluwa Jonathan, Olorunfemi Oluwasogo David, Agboola Peter Temitope · Acta Universitatis Danubius. OEconomica · South Africa

A structured-questionnaire survey of urban agricultural households in Limpopo Province, South Africa, analyzed food security using descriptive and inferential statistics. Respondents were predominantly male with an average age of 46, mainly relying on public tap water, and households had an average monthly income of R2,668.75 against average monthly food spending of R1,284.75 — food costs consuming nearly half of household income. The study suggested interest-free credit for small-scale farmers to improve access to risk-management technologies.

Kra Kouakou Valentin · European Scientific Journal ESJ · Africa

A study of Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire, analyzes new land-use dynamics around intra-urban shallow lowlands (bas-fonds) and their effects on market gardening. It finds that rising stakes over these lowlands have drawn in new actors, reducing cultivated areas and making market gardening more unstable and casualized. The operating rules for the floodplain plots previously allocated to gardeners have been redefined, and public servitude land and unbuilt areas are increasingly subject to illegal land transactions and unauthorized construction — indicating a breakdown in land governance and the neglect of urban agriculture within public policy and city management in Côte d'Ivoire.

David Ceaser · Agritecture · United States

In this December 7, 2018 article for Agritecture, horticultural consultant David Ceaser reports on the challenges facing agrihood development, using The Cannery in Davis, California (500+ homes, 150 acres, with a 7.4-acre organic farm) as a case study. He notes that residents held unrealistic expectations about how the farm would be run and their role in it, and that poorer-than-expected soil quality required amending with organic matter, delaying farm development. Farm Director Sri Sethuratnam described the aging farmer population and food-production challenges as "a national security issue."

Michael J. Roy, Neil McHugh, Stephen Sinclair · Stanford Social Innovation Review · United Kingdom

Published 1 May 2018. The authors argue that Social Impact Bonds look like an ideology-neutral financing fix but carry significant technical problems and a troubling ideological shift. At the time of writing the UK had 32 SIBs; government had put in $28 million in 2012 and a further $113.4 million through the Life Chances Fund in 2016, with the UK market predicted to reach $1.4 billion by 2020, while the US had at least 10 SIBs and 19 more existed across 14 other countries. The Peterborough prison SIB's initial result was an 8.4 per cent reduction in reoffending. They find little evidence that SIBs encourage innovation, note the heavy administrative burden, and contend that prioritising investor returns over service users turns citizens into commodities.

Jennifer Wilhelm, Richard G. Smith · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · Global

This 2017 global review analyzed 320 peer-reviewed papers on urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) published between 2000 and 2014, focusing on UPA's impact on ecosystem services (ES) and land sparing potential. The review found that while UPA research is growing, few studies (n=15) place UPA in the context of ES, and no studies explicitly quantify its land sparing potential. Additionally, few studies (n=19) quantify UPA's production potential, indicating a significant data gap.

Jana Spilková, Jiří Vágner · Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography · Czechia

This study examined the historical context, current spatial patterns, and recent trends of urban food gardens in Czechia using literature review, geographical mapping, and semi-structured interviews in Prague. It found a strong tradition of urban agriculture, with gardens concentrated in major cities and industrial areas. However, uncertainty regarding land tenure and long-term sustainability were identified as major obstacles for the future of allotment and community gardens.

Tiantian Xiong, Camille Dumat, V. Dappe, Hervé Vezin, Eva Schreck, Muhammad Shahid, Antoine Pierart, S. Sobanska · Environmental Science & Technology · Global

This study assessed the phytotoxicity of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO-NPs) in lettuce and cabbage, exposing them via leaves for up to 15 days to various CuO-NP concentrations. High foliar Cu uptake occurred, leading to decreased plant weight, net photosynthesis, water content, and necrotic Cu-rich areas. The findings highlighted a potential health risk associated with consuming vegetables contaminated with CuO-NPs.

Simone Tappert, Tanja Klöti, Matthias Drilling · Landscape and Urban Planning · Switzerland

A qualitative study conducted in the Swiss cities of Basle, Berne, Geneva, and Zurich analyzed the political negotiation processes of urban gardening within the compact city framework. Findings demonstrated that urban growth strategies, aiming for efficient and resource-saving reorganization of urban space, are discursively rationalizing current transformation processes. This has led to traditional forms of urban gardening being closed down, displaced to less significant locations for urban development plans, or spatially and functionally transformed, while new forms of urban gardening are emerging in inner-city areas.

Andrew Butt, Elizabeth Taylor · Geographical Research · Australia (Victoria)

This paper analyzes planning appeals and media from 2011–2016 in Victoria, Australia, regarding intensive poultry developments, revealing tensions between planning processes and local politics. Planning for intensive farming assumes stability and agricultural primacy, but concerns about agricultural industrialization are live local issues in dynamic peri-urban areas. Code-based planning's certainty does not negate the ongoing, inconvenient politics of intensive peri-urban agriculture.

Elizabeth W. Cotter, Carla Teixeira, Annessa Bontrager, Kasharena Horton, Deyanira Soriano · Public Health Nutrition · United States (Washington, DC)

This study conducted focus groups with 28 adults in three affordable housing communities in Washington, D.C., USA, to understand low-income adults' attitudes towards participating in farmers' markets, community-supported agriculture (CSA), and nutrition education programming. The results revealed that adults living in urban, affordable housing communities desire access to healthy foods but are limited by cost. Programs could have a higher likelihood of success if they accept benefits like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), are heavily marketed, and incorporate culturally relevant nutrition education components.

HENKE Roberto, VANNI Francesco · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Italy

This 2017 article analyzed the role of peri-urban agriculture in Italy through a comparative study of seven metropolitan areas, using micro-data from the sixth Italian agriculture census. It identified six typologies of market-oriented farms. The study found that a significant share of farms in Italian urban poles are passively absorbed by urban expansion, indicating a challenge to their economic viability. However, the most reactive farms are diversifying and supplying social and economic services.

Hanna Hilbrandt · Urban Studies · Germany (Berlin)

This paper investigates the powers at play in informal housing practices and their regulation within Berlin's allotment gardens, where residency is prohibited. It argues that gardeners' ability to remain in these sites depends on their mediation of regulatory practices through relationships with state actors or institutional frameworks. This process highlights the co-construction of order and the establishment of boundaries for inclusion and exclusion.

Kenna McMurray, Kelsey Hall, Roslynn Brain · Digital Commons - USU (Utah State University) · United States

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) growers in the United States may experience legal concerns and liabilities. This fact sheet aims to guide growers through steps to minimize these liabilities and manage possible risks associated with CSA operations. The presence of such concerns highlights a governance challenge for CSA growers.

Virginia Webb · New Zealand sociology · New Zealand (Palmerston North)

This research in a Palmerston North, New Zealand community garden examined the struggle over norms and power relations, specifically regarding tobacco cultivation. It found that the garden hierarchy's reluctance to accommodate alternative perspectives on tobacco cultivation revealed a troubling politics of race and class. This reluctance meant the garden's potential to disrupt social hierarchies was unrealized, highlighting how health notions can become a basis for social control.

Michael Kennedy · OpenSIUC (Southern Illinois University Carbondale) · Global

Community gardens can serve as important local greenspaces to address environmental degradation and educate individuals about the importance of food and the environment. However, certain barriers need to be overcome and addressed before community gardens are successfully implemented. Participation and interaction within community gardens may provide a pathway to long-term commitment to sustainability, encouraging individuals to adopt more environmentally supportive behaviors and a deeper commitment to environmentalism.

Georgia Pollard, James Ward, Barbara A Koth · Horticulturae · Australia (Adelaide)

A study in Adelaide, Australia, investigated the social acceptance of aquaponics and its role in urban food planning through focus groups and interviews with urban food opinion leaders and local government officials. Most participants were unfamiliar with aquaponics, and perceived negatives received more attention than benefits. Urban growers' views on overcomplicated urban food planning aligned with mixed policy responses from local government areas towards urban agriculture, indicating a lack of consistent governance.

Annalisa Lodigiani · · Europe

This research addresses the ineffective governance of peri-urban agricultural territory in Europe, noting that spatial planning lacks the tools to guide agricultural sector forces influencing landscape transformation. Public action, through agricultural and rural development policies, significantly transforms the environment and territory but does not directly target space. The study finds that the separation between spatial planning and rural development policy creates ineffectiveness and stalemates in governing peri-urban agricultural land, concluding that integration of these two fields is required.