Research & reports

Gunwon Lee, Yunnam Jeong, Byunghak Min, Seiyong Kim · Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society · South Korea

This study investigated improving South Korea's Biotope Area Ratio system for urban agriculture vitalization. The research found that the existing Biotope Area Ratio indicators, which only consider soil depth and permeability, have limitations in managing plant growth for urban agriculture. Focusing on daylight conditions as a critical factor, the study concluded that the current Biotope Area Ratio indicators are insufficient for adequately addressing plant growth in urban agriculture.

· Hart Publishing eBooks · United Kingdom (England and Wales)

This paper explores the phenomenon of people in England and Wales returning to the land for various food-growing projects, including over 1,000 community gardens and 82 school farms. It examines the legal frameworks regulating these diverse projects and finds that the legal framework is fragmented, poorly signposted, and often absent, with projects sometimes depending entirely on landowner goodwill. The study concludes that there is little coherency in the law regarding these initiatives.

Sarah Legg · Figshare · United States (Wyoming)

ACRES Student Farm, a University of Wyoming organization, has grown significantly over six years, providing local produce, CSA shares, composting, and educational opportunities. However, the farm suffers from continuous losses in efficiency and acquired knowledge due to the transient nature of its student management and workforce, leading to unsustainable internal functioning. This project aims to develop a management plan and handbook to address these issues and improve the farm's operational efficiency.

Yuki Sampei, Yuji Hara, Akinobu Murakami, Armando M. Palijon, Kazuaki Tsuchiya, Makoto Yokohari · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · Philippines

This study assessed the nitrogen supply-demand balance in compost and vegetable production on vacant lots in subdivisions and barangays in Quezon City, Metro Manila, using GIS. It found that nearly half of the subdivisions experienced nitrogen oversupply, while others faced shortages. Although cooperation among subdivisions within a barangay could improve nitrogen balance, the current centralized composting facilities were deemed insufficient to support a continuous compost recycling system due to their distribution patterns. The study concluded that current barangay-based policies on organic waste management and urban agriculture need greater flexibility and attention to inter-subdivision coordination across barangay boundaries.

Benjamin Drury, Renee Laliberte, Jared Watson, Connor Wilgress · Digital WPI · United States (Worcester)

The city of Worcester, MA, faces health issues due to economic instability and low access to affordable healthy food. While urban farming has the potential to address these problems, the city lacks an effective policy.

Tian Lib · Chinese Journal of Tropical Agriculture · China (Hainan)

This paper summarized the status of protected horticulture in Hainan, China, identifying major problems such as a deficiency of special varieties, unsuitable introduced facility types, lack of a non-nuisance production system, and insufficient capacity for resisting natural disasters and environmental control. To achieve sustainable development, the local government needs to strengthen funding and policy support, enhance farmers' awareness of pollution-free production, and improve management techniques.

Matilda Thelin · · Sweden

This qualitative study in peri-urban Uppsala, Sweden, identifies driving forces influencing land use decisions by commercial farmers and institutional landowners. It notes that approximately 700 hectares of land in Sweden are diverted from food production annually, with Uppsala Municipality showing the greatest change in 2013. The expropriation of agricultural land for urban development leads to farmers losing land resources and increased competition for remaining land, resulting in high land prices.

최정석 · 환경정책 · South Korea

This research from South Korea identifies legal and institutional problems in securing space for urban agriculture, noting that the 2013 Urban Agriculture Promotion and Support Act has not boosted urban agriculture due to a lack of space. The study focuses on urban planning regulations, parks, green areas, the Urban Agriculture Promotion and Support Act, and other related policies to suggest solutions for these issues.

Chiara Tornaghi, Barbara Van Dyck · Local Environment · United Kingdom

This paper explores the "spheres of influence" and contradictions that shaped the trajectory of the Edible Public Space project in Leeds, UK, drawing on the authors' personal experience. It analyzes the dynamics and contradictions at play in the formation of an urban gardening group stemming from scholarly and committed action ambitions. The study focuses on the role of spatial interventions in fostering social innovation in the public food and land agenda, aiming to capture learning elements for scholarly activism, political gardening, and radical urbanism.

Achamyeleh Gashu Adam · African review of economics and finance · Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, all land is state-owned and granted to residents only as a holding right, with separate systems for rural and urban areas. Focusing on peri-urban agricultural land under growing pressure from urbanisation, this desk-review study analyzed existing survey research together with property-rights literature, theory, and current land-rights laws and policies. It found that new recipients of peri-urban land under the urban land-lease system obtain better and more extensive bundles of land rights than the indigenous, local peri-urban landholders who previously held that land.

Da Wang · · China (Beijing)

This study evaluates and analyzes urban agriculture in Beijing by focusing on the relationships among its subsystems and their relative influence. Results show that the comprehensive evaluation index of urban agriculture has risen steadily with a positive trend, but that the comparative advantages of both the population subsystem and the social subsystem have weakened, due to the loss of agricultural labor force and the urban-rural income gap. Meanwhile, the function of the environment and resource subsystems has strengthened, promoting a shift in Beijing's urban agricultural mode from one led by the economic subsystem toward one led jointly by the environment and economic subsystems. Given increasing pressure on environment and resources, the study concludes Beijing needs to build an ecological urban agriculture system and move away from an industrial development approach.

David Adams, Michael Hardman · Urban Studies · United Kingdom

This paper uses ethnographic data from 'F Troop', a guerrilla gardening group in an English midland city, to re-examine urban guerrilla gardening practices. It argues that these practices may not be as "resistant" or "celebratory" as often suggested in existing literature. The study highlights that the social backgrounds and motivations of participants, along with their relationships with other users of the space, are important but largely unacknowledged aspects of guerrilla gardening.

Sarah James · Geographical Research · Australia (Sydney)

This paper examined the failure of Sydney's 'green zones' farmland protection policies, which were abandoned due to protests. The failure was attributed to a lack of consultation with Sydney's diverse small-scale farmers, rather than a rejection of farmland protection itself. Farmer interviews suggested that a bottom-up policy-making approach would have been more successful in maintaining farming in peri-urban areas.

Lijie He · · China

This article analyzes the current situation and problems of urban agricultural development in small towns of China. It identifies severe problems hindering progress, including decreasing agricultural land, severe waste of land resources, serious agricultural pollution, low quality and income of agricultural labor, limited transport capacity, insufficient funding, and a lack of related policies and regulations.

Kirstie Cadger, Thembela Kepe · Development in Practice · Botswana

Challenges facing community garden initiatives among the San of Botswana were analyzed through semi-structured interviews and participant observation in two San communities. The study found that the failure of the gardens related to how the San are treated and how they view their situation as destitute people. Forced resettlement, historical livelihood disruption, and government and NGO policies of development through welfare neglecting genuine empowerment were concluded to be responsible for the limited success of the community gardens.

N E Etim, J J Dukiya · International Journal of Advanced Remote Sensing and GIS · Nigeria (Abuja)

A study in the Kuje area council of Abuja, Nigeria, used questionnaires and multi-temporal satellite images from 1975–2010 to assess urban encroachment on agricultural lands. It found that urban encroachment into agricultural lands is occurring at an alarming rate of 15.7 km² annually, resulting in a total loss of 509 km² of agricultural land to urbanization over 35 years.

A. Bryan Endres, Rachel Armstrong · · United States

This article discusses Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and 'community labor,' where customers participate in food production on farms. It highlights a paradox: traditional employment law, envisioning autonomous competition, makes little room for these novel relationships, potentially undermining CSA values and limiting its viability and growth. The authors suggest that employment law should develop a more nuanced view of relationships in the CSA context, supporting mutual gain and shared values over competition-based rules.

Priyanie Amerasinghe, R. M. Bhardwaj, Christopher A. Scott, Kiran Jella · · India

This study analyzed the current status of wastewater generation, its uses, and livelihood benefits, particularly in agriculture, in India. It was based on national data and case studies from Ahmedabad, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Kanpur, and Kolkata. A lack of systematic data collection by municipalities makes it difficult to accurately assess wastewater generation or estimate the total urban area under wastewater irrigation.

Douglas Carl Reeser · Development in Practice · Belize

An analysis of an NGO school garden program in two Q'eqchi' Maya communities in southern Belize revealed challenges faced by NGOs. These challenges included issues of legitimacy, cultural appropriateness, self-interest, and constructed conceptions of their target communities, raising questions about the priority between autonomous, healthy communities and the preservation of the NGO program.

Camilo Villagrán Oyarzún, Ken Yan Qiu Sun · Revista de Urbanismo · Chile (Santiago de Chile)

This 2013 study investigated the challenges of integrating urban agriculture into Communal Regulatory Plans in Santiago de Chile. Analyzing two case studies in different metropolitan communes, the research inferred the general state of urban agriculture's inclusion in urban planning. The findings implicitly suggest difficulties in its integration, highlighting the need for improved governance in urban planning to effectively incorporate urban agriculture.

Erika S. Jermé, Sarah Wakefield · Planning Theory & Practice · Canada (Hamilton)

This paper uses the process of drafting a community garden policy in Hamilton, Canada, as a case study. It illustrates how an environmental justice framework could inform effective and inclusive policy creation, while noting that barriers within the policy process could mitigate against the meaningful incorporation of environmental justice concerns. It concludes that greater inter-departmental and community collaboration, along with the routine application of an environmental justice lens, could mitigate the ill effects of inequitable resource distribution.

Sheila Castillo, Curtis R. Winkle, Stephen Krauss, Amalia Turkewitz, Cristina L.M. Silva, Edie Heinemann · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (Chicago)

This study identifies seven perceived barriers to urban and peri-urban agriculture in the greater Chicago metropolitan area through interviews with urban planners and farmers. All seven barriers involve unclear or agriculture-unfriendly regulations. Results suggest that urban and peri-urban farmers are commonly forced to operate within a legal limbo or petition for exceptions to current regulations.

David Adams, Alister Scott, Michael Hardman · Geografiska Annaler Series B Human Geography · Global

This article examined how planning practice, exemplified by permaculture and guerrilla gardening case studies, can be rooted in confrontation and legal challenge, hindering innovative practices. The findings confirmed that spatial planning theory is largely "disintegrated" from much contemporary planning and environmental practice and wider sustainability discourses. This suggests that planners and decision-makers' prescribed and constrained management of space can impede practices with significant societal and environmental benefits.

Teferi Daba Lemma, M. S. A. Rao, M Prasada Rao · Zenith international journal of business economics and management research · Ethiopia

This study assessed the economic sustainability of urban agriculture in central Ethiopia, collecting primary data from 280 urban and peri-urban vegetable farmers. Findings indicated that urban agriculture is a viable livelihood strategy from a financial perspective. However, city administrations and policymakers pay little attention to supporting this sub-sector, suggesting that legal recognition and support would make it a more reliable strategy.

Samuel Henrique Damas Marinelo, Sandra María Fonseca da Costa, Leonardo Freire de Mello · Anais ENANPUR · Brazil (São Paulo)

In São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil, residents of the Altos de Santana neighborhood maintain traditional peasant characteristics by cultivating urban gardens within a Permanent Protection Area of the Paraíba do Sul River. However, the current municipal administration plans to implement an urban park in this area, which will remove the gardens cultivated by these resident farmers. This intervention is expected to alter proposals for improving the quality of life for nearby residents concerning urban agriculture, potentially generating conflicts between stakeholders regarding land use.