Research & reports

Amy Laura Cahn, Paula Z. Segal · ˜The œFordham urban law journal/Fordham urban law journal · United States

This paper argues that the invisibility of community-stewarded spaces, such as community gardens, within urban governance frameworks in North American cities leads to their enclosure and loss. It highlights that marginalized residents often have the least acknowledged claim to urban space. The study suggests that making existing community-stewarded places visible and exposing pathways to access is crucial to prevent enclosure and promote equity.

Elizabeth 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.

Rosalie M. Sharp · Wellesley College Digital RepositoryWellesley (Wellesley College) · United States

Through an interdisciplinary literature review and interviews with stakeholders in the Boston, Massachusetts urban agriculture network — including The Food Project — this study examines the social and historical context of lead exposure in urban gardens in the Dudley neighborhood. It shows that products of structural racism, particularly redlining and disinvestment, created the social and physical environments that allow lead contamination to persist in low-income communities of color like Dudley. An alternate growing material or soil amendment was found to dilute lead concentrations, reduce lead bioaccessibility, and limit fine particle resuspension, and working with The Food Project, these findings shaped gardeners' behavior to reduce lead exposure. The findings on urban soil lead bioaccessibility are presented as contributing to a broader body of research that informs policy decisions such as benchmarks for safe soil or compost lead levels.

Elizabete Cristina Ribeiro Silva, Alexandre Brasil Carvalho da Fonseca, Fernanda Pereira Dysarz, Ernani Jardim Reis · Alexandria Revista de Educação em Ciência e Tecnologia · Brazil

This research identifies parameters for school gardens in Brazil, analyzing various experiences and an urban public school case. The study correlates the health of students and farmers in agricultural activities, explicitly pointing out negligences in this regard. It argues that a healthy eating concept from school gardens requires an equally healthy production system, and attention to student safety can highlight farmers' working conditions, which is crucial for food and nutritional education.

Sabine Lefkowitz · · United States (Portland)

This thesis examined the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and outdoor time in Portland, Oregon public elementary schools. The study found that higher SES elementary schools spend more time outdoors than low SES schools. This disparity amplifies existing disadvantages for children in high-poverty schools, suggesting an inequity in outdoor time provision.

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern · Antipode · United States

Research on farmworker food insecurity in the USA points out that food assistance providers often treat farmworkers' inability to afford healthy food as a lack of knowledge, reinforcing racialized assumptions that people of color do not know "good" food. This study argues that food security and healthy eating are not a matter of consumers making healthy "choices," but rather a matter of class-based and racial differences within the food system.

LaShonda M. Stewart, Steven A. Miller, R. W. Hildreth, Maja V. Wright-Phillips · New Political Science · United States (Chicago)

A preliminary analysis of Chicago's 49th Ward, the first participatory budgeting experiment in the United States, examined whether it resulted in different budgetary priorities and met social justice outcomes. Citizens chose projects classified as low priority by research literature, and while there was no clear pattern of projects only in affluent areas, geographic clustering was evident. Select areas received projects like community gardens, while others were limited to infrastructure repairs, indicating mixed social justice outcomes.

Melvin Delgado · Columbia University Press eBooks · United States

This chapter focuses on community gardening as an intervention aimed at addressing obesity, tracing its history in the United States back to the late nineteenth century as a response to social and economic crises. While community gardens can achieve various social, economic, political, educational, and health-related goals, the chapter also discusses potential pitfalls of community gardening. It emphasizes a social justice perspective for community gardens, particularly regarding community inclusion and participatory democracy.

David DyckFehderau, Nicholas L. Holt, Geoff D.C. Ball, Noreen D. Willows · PubMed · Canada

A study in Alexander First Nation, central Alberta, Canada, used asset mapping with children to understand how community factors shape the lifestyle behaviors of First Nations children living on reserve, who are estimated to be 4.5 times more likely to be obese than Canadian children generally. Participants were a convenience sample of two high school students working at the local health centre and seven grade six children, who used maps, photographs and a town tour to identify 25 activity- or food-related places and spaces. Breakfast, lunch and snack foods (such as chocolate bars and potato crisps) were obtained at school, food and snacks at cultural gatherings, and snacks at the local store, with healthy food choices found to be limited; only two locations beyond the town site were identified for physical activity, and youth recommended building a leisure centre, selling healthier food at the local store, and developing a community garden and berry farm.

Sjsu ScholarWorks, Gabriel R. Valle · · United States

This paper explores the self-valorization of work in community gardens as a path to environmental justice, arguing that community gardens disrupt capital's system by removing food as a commodity and revaluing time outside market-driven speed. The Chicano community, being susceptible to workplace inequalities, has a particular stake in this self-valorization, as these inequalities are reflected in unhealthy communities, economies, and environments. The study suggests that self-valorization through work creates natural wealth, reconstructing time, oppression, and communities.

Mahbubur Meenar, Brandon Hoover · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (Philadelphia)

This paper examines urban agriculture (UA) projects' role in addressing food insecurity in lower-income neighborhoods of post-industrial U.S. cities, using Philadelphia as a case study. While UA projects are vital, findings indicate concerns regarding their geographic, economic, and informational accessibility, social exclusion, and spatial mismatch between participants and neighborhood demographics. Challenges also exist in distributing fresh produce to impoverished populations and UA's economic contributions in underprivileged areas.

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.

Prebus, Olivia · Occidental College Scholar (Occidental College) · United States (Los Angeles)

This work addresses the gross inequity of food access in low-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles, such as MacArthur Park, where grocery stores are scarce. The author's internship at the Center for Food and Justice involved projects like a Community Food Assessment and organizing a community garden, all focused on empowering communities to tackle complex food access issues. The abstract highlights the severe problem of limited healthy food options leading to simultaneous obesity and malnutrition.