Research & reports

Naomi Reyes, Montserrat Ganderats‐Fuentes, Francesco Acciai, Jessica Eliason, Punam Ohri‐Vachaspati · Journal of School Health · United States (New Jersey)

This study examined school garden prevalence in 148 K-12 schools across four low-income New Jersey cities between 2010-2011 and 2017-2018, before and after the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) of 2010. Garden prevalence increased from 19% in 2010-2011 to 32% in 2013-2014, but this increase was not sustained over time. Furthermore, schools with a majority Hispanic student enrollment had approximately half the odds of having a garden compared to schools with a majority Black student enrollment.

Denise Misleh · The AAG Review of Books · Global

Organic stores, trendy coffee shops, and food initiatives generally associated with the alternative food movement, such as farmer's markets and community gardens, have become a clear symbol.

Héritier Mesa · Cahiers d études africaines · Congo (Kinshasa)

This article explores social trajectories and inequality dynamics among informal workers in Kinshasa, focusing on labor relations within the informal economy. Drawing from ethnographic data on street bread, second-hand clothing, and urban agriculture, the study finds that limited access to capital constrains many workers to sell their labor power with weakened bargaining power, revealing unequal social positionalities.

Kimberly Hill-Tout, Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder, Kiera E. B. McMaster, Megan Herod · Gastronomica The Journal of Food and Culture · Canada

In April 2021, a panel discussion on food security in Canada took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article aims to make visible the vulnerabilities and structural injustices embedded within Canadian foodscapes through different perspectives on food security and justice. COVID-19 rendered many of the structural injustices of food security in Canada more visible.

Gamuchirai Chakona · · South Africa

A study surveyed 314 randomly selected households in four peri-urban settlements in South Africa to assess dietary diversity and food security. Findings revealed generally low dietary diversity and high levels of food insecurity across all sites, with male-headed households experiencing worse conditions than female-headed households. Food insecurity was linked to high poverty, unemployment, and low education levels.

Contingent Horizons · Contingent Horizons The York University Student Journal of Anthropology · Canada (Winnipeg)

This paper uses the Rainbow Community Garden in Winnipeg as a case study to discuss the benefits and challenges of community gardening for new immigrant and refugee families. Through a literature review and interviews with gardeners, the study emphasizes the role of food and community gardens in facilitating cross-cultural interactions, providing culturally appropriate food, and expressing cultural identity. The main conclusion is that for new immigrant and refugee participation, a garden is not only physical soil but also an important place for practicing culture and engaging in meaningful cross-cultural interaction beneficial for adjusting to a new life in Canada.

Elizandra Flávia Araujo, Marcos Paulo Fuck · Cadernos de Ciência & Tecnologia · Brazil (Curitiba)

This study aimed to identify and characterize different categories of urban agriculture practitioners in Curitiba. A descriptive study using bibliographic and documentary analysis found that urban agriculture activities are concentrated in peripheral areas of the city, with most participants having a monthly family income of up to two minimum wages. Despite a wide range of actors engaging in these practices, their visibility and inclusion in the political agenda occur asymmetrically.

Hadaro Hando Filmon, Alemu Legesse Mitke · African Journal of Agricultural Research · Africa

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a household survey, interviews and case analysis of beneficiary women, using 10 indicators of women's empowerment in agriculture, assessed the effect of a program-based sustainable urban agriculture intervention. 80% of beneficiary women were empowered (to a score of 0.93), while the remaining 20% were not; disaggregating the "empowered" group by intersectional differences revealed further unintended negative impacts. While urban agriculture contributed to women's empowerment, the study found that a lack of tailored support and a uniform program approach excluded segments of women beneficiaries, and it calls for a rights-based approach and feminist gender analysis to address these intersectional barriers.

Susana Toboso‐Chavero, Cristina Madrid‐López, Gara Villalba, Xavier Gabarrell, Arne Björn Hückstädt, Matthias Finkbeiner, Annekatrin Lehmann · The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment · Global

A comprehensive environmental and social life cycle assessment of perlite, peat, and coir growing media, imported to Spain from Turkey, Germany, and the Philippines respectively, was conducted for urban rooftop farming. Environmentally, coir had the lowest burden, while perlite had the highest impacts due to mining and transport. Socially, peat performed best, but coir showed the worst scores in community infrastructure and human rights, and perlite performed lowest in health and safety.

Jamie Wang · Humanities · Singapore

This article explores the rise of urban farming in Singapore, following small- to medium-scale urban farms, including rooftop gardens, community farms, and organic farms, through the politics of localism and the notion of care. It investigates how localism, in some contexts, has been reduced to a narrow sense of geographic location. The study also examines what is being cared for in urban farming and how it might transform bio-cultural and social-technological relations.

Cecilia M. Tsu · Amerasia Journal · United States

This article examines community gardens established for refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in the United States during the 1980s. It argues that refugee gardeners perceived a significant disconnect between their rural lives in Southeast Asia and the role of vegetable growing in the U.S., despite advocates emphasizing continuity with their past. The gardens provided a measure of economic empowerment, but highlighted the disjuncture in their resettlement experience.

Camille Frazier · Hong Kong University Press eBooks · India (Bengaluru)

This paper examines motivations for organic terrace gardening among middle-class individuals in Bengaluru, India, who grow food for home consumption. Gardeners respond to worsening health and environmental conditions, but class and caste inequalities limit their engagement with a broader community of urban food producers. These inequalities restrict the transformative potential of organic terrace gardening as an intervention, indicating a critical finding regarding equity.

James J. Connolly, Isabelle Anguelovski · Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution · United States

This study used state sequence analysis to examine the historical trend of greening (including parks and community gardens) from 1975 to 2014 in nine U.S. cities, in relation to concentrations of white and non-white residents. Findings revealed that the relationship between greening and race/ethnicity varied by city-level growth trajectory. Cities with continuous high growth showed the strongest link between increased greening and whiter populations, while non-white areas in cities with contraction or punctuated growth exhibited uniformly low levels of greening, mostly in recent years.

Mkwela Hawa · Journal of Geography and Regional Planning · Tanzania

This study used a qualitative approach to examine land injustices faced by urban farmers in Mbweni-Mpiji, a sub-urban area of Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania. Findings indicated that farmers experience constant pressure from land insecurity, inferior land rights, informal land access, stiff competition from other land users, degrading land quality, and a continuous decrease in agricultural land size. These factors negatively impact the daily livelihoods, including food security, social status, and income, of those entirely dependent on urban farming.

Friederike Reents · Publication Server of the Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt) · Germany

This paper analyzes Thomas Kling’s poem „geschrebertes idyll, für mike feser“ as an "allotment garden idyll" within 'new nature poetry'. While Kling skillfully engages with the idyll genre and offers ecological, social, medial, and historical critique, the study finds that he presents a decidedly patriarchal self-image, which contemporary readers would likely find less acceptable.

Lucia Di Paola · · Italy

This paper examines Milan's Porta Nuova re-urbanization project (2004-2015), which features Vertical Forest skyscrapers as symbols of urban greening. Activists and resident groups strongly opposed the project, criticizing the privatization of a public park and high rents, arguing it represents a top-down privatization leading to exclusion and gentrification. In response, these groups developed a public community garden in the same neighborhood as an alternative model for democratic horizontal urban greening.

Kristan Majors · Educational Media Reviews Online · United States

"No Place to Grow" is a 2019 documentary film (27 mins) that captures the story of a longstanding LatinX community garden, its farmers, neighborhood protests, and negotiations with government officials in the United States. The film depicts the challenges faced by the community garden, leaving viewers disheartened. It is recommended for libraries collecting on community gardens and urban agriculture.

Salvatore Engel‐Di Mauro, George Martin · · Global

This chapter examines the global relationship between food growing and capitalism over 500 years, identifying three profit-seeking formats: mercantilism, industrialism, and global financialization. It argues that capitalism has led to a de-industrialization of cities and a commodification of agricultural products by corporate megafarms, contributing to green gentrification in urban redevelopment. This has incited a food resistance trend, leading to the emergence of community gardens and farms.

Christina Ergas · · United States

This chapter explores urban ecovillages in the United States, highlighting challenges faced by ecovillagers in a neoliberal context. It examines cultural conflicts between sustainability and consumer culture, and points out the exclusive, upper-class, white nature of the local food movement in the US. Monetary and time constraints have made local organic food an elite phenomenon, often cited as a first step to gentrification in urban communities.

Zachary Burt, C. Shambu Prasad, Pay Drechsel, Isha Ray · Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development · India (Karnataka)

A preference-ranking model was developed to understand the acceptance of fecal sludge-derived fertilizer (FSF) in Karnataka, India, by modeling farmowners and farmworkers separately. The study found that farmers willing to use FSF prefer to conceal its origins from workers and their caste group, especially caste-adhering, vegetarian farmowners. Workers were open to FSF if it resembled cow manure, revealing that the waste economy in rural India is shaped by unacknowledged caste hierarchies and practices.

Ricardo Theóphilo Folhes, Harley Silva, Raul da Silva Ventura Neto, Kevin Gabriel Leite Da Silva, Círia Cristiane Da Rosa, Aelton Dias Costa · Novos Cadernos NAEA · Brazil (Pará)

This article presents initial results from a bibliographic review on Urban Agriculture (UA) to support a research agenda in the metropolitan regions of Pará State, Brazilian Amazon. The review analyzed concepts, approaches, and challenges in national and international literature. It concludes that UA needs to be problematized within the phenomena of urban-regional space production, which cause socioeconomic and spatial inequalities, representing the greatest structural difficulties for urban agriculture.

Olga Domené-Painenao, Francisco Herrera · Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente · Venezuela

In Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution since 1999 has seen the unfolding of harsh class and food system contradictions. While the Program Degree in Agroecology (PDA) at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela has trained over a thousand graduates who contribute to agroecological scaling and urban agriculture, the abstract highlights the persistent "harsh class and food system contradictions" within the country. This indicates ongoing equity challenges despite agroecological efforts.

Christy Gene Somsen · Digital Commons - USU (Utah State University) · United States (Utah)

Farmers’ markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, and community gardens, while aiming to help low-income families access fresh produce, often assist more middle-class families. In Utah, these programs could be improved, as the state does not utilize the WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program or accept WIC Cash Value Vouchers, and has few Farm to School Programs.

Rebecca Amato · Amsterdam University Press eBooks · United States (New York City)

This chapter discusses the historical production and perception of "empty space" in New York City, from settler colonialism to gentrification, driven by techniques like filtering and declaring vacancy. It highlights how the acceleration of development to maintain world city status threatens alternative visions like cooperative centers and community gardens. These alternative uses are presented as models for inclusive cities, despite being under threat.

Yuyang Zhang, Qilin Wu, Lei Wu, Li Yan · Land · China

A study noting that although exposure to green space benefits residents' physical and mental health, its spatial distribution is inequitable, and that existing green equity studies typically rely on administrative units, a macro-scale approach that overlooks the fine-scale green spaces (such as community gardens and lawns) residents encounter most often, risking biased estimates. Using the community as the unit of analysis, the study drew on three types of green-space data - fine-scale green spaces within communities, surrounding large-scale parks, and streetscape imagery - and applied a proposed set of 11 metrics across morphology, visibility, and accessibility to 4,544 communities in urban Beijing. Through spatial visualization, spatial clustering, radar plots, and correlation analysis, the study found large differences and complementary relationships between metric categories, similarities within the same category, and confirmed inequity in green space across regions of the city as urbanization proceeds.