Research & reports

Sue Webb, John Diaz · EDIS · United States (Florida)

A Delphi study was conducted to identify the barriers, challenges, and obstacles to starting and sustaining community gardens in Florida. This 3-page document summarizes the results of that study.

Virginia L. J. Bolshakova, John Gieng, C. Sheena Sidhu, Mary Vollinger, Lorena Gimeno, Jessica Guild · Journal of Youth Development · United States (California)

The "Healthy Living Ambassador" school garden program in low-income communities integrated resources from schools, community programs, and the University of California Cooperative Extension. This program utilized culturally competent teenagers as teachers to educate elementary school youth on healthy living. The successes and challenges of the program development were discussed, revealing that public schools often lack the resources and support to establish sustainable garden-based programming.

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."

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.

Lindsay K. Campbell · Cornell University Press eBooks · United States (New York City)

This chapter analyzes why urban forestry was prioritized in New York City's PlaNYC mayoral initiative while urban agriculture was overlooked. It examines the networks, public-private partnerships, elite ties, and bureaucratic structures involved in PlaNYC, revealing that certain voices were heard while others were ignored in the sustainability planning process. The analysis highlights issues of governance and equity in urban nature planning.

Lindsay K. Campbell · Cornell University Press eBooks · United States (New York City)

In New York City, chapter six revealed how civic and public actors working outside PlaNYC iteratively embedded urban agriculture and food policy into municipal planning efforts. Within the void created by city hall’s lack of engagement, other figures in the municipal government seized the opportunity to advance food policy agendas for New York City. The 2011 update to PlaNYC included a brief crosscutting section on food, although it lacked capital funding to fuel the achievement of its stated goals, and was seen by advocates as a symbolic and political achievement.

Lucy Diekmann, Leslie Gray, Gregory A. Baker · Local Environment · United States (California)

This case study in Santa Clara County, California, used interviews and surveys to explore the implications of historic drought for urban agriculture (UA). It found that metropolitan California's decentralized water supply and diverse institutional arrangements create an uneven landscape of water access for UA. This results in geographically and socially differentiated pressures on UA water users to change water-consuming practices, with responses varying due to site-specific sociotechnical arrangements and UA purposes.

Miriam Hermi Zaar · OKARA Geografia em debate · Brazil

Arguing that analyzing territory across multiple scales requires an analytical framework grounded in the dynamic, repeated interweaving of elements and processes that combine into — and clash as — diverse "territorial fragments," this paper examines urban agriculture as a site where city and countryside, urban and rural, and their diverse practices approach, blend and are sometimes confused with one another. Focusing on horticulturists in the Gramorezinho Community in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, as its case, the study shows that historical and spatial singularities — environmental, socioeconomic and administrative — have produced distinct processes that at times align and at other times contradict one another.

Rúbio José Ferreira, Cláudio Jorge Moura de Castilho · Ateliê Geográfico · Brazil (Recife)

This text examines the place of urban agriculture and its practitioners in the urban planning process in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. The main results indicate that urban agriculture and urban farmers are not effectively considered by Recife's urban planning technicians. This may be due to urban agriculture being a social practice used by people from the "lowest layers" of society in a marginal area of the local urban economy.

Alexandra Grace Lancey · · United States (Florida)

This ethnographic study in Pinellas County, Florida, investigated school gardening efforts at Title I elementary schools, focusing on an organization that installs gardens in "failing" schools. The research found that strict public school standards and neoliberal education reform paradoxically prevent teachers and administrators from fully utilizing school gardens for nutrition education. This limits their effectiveness in discussing nutrition, healthy eating, and local food, as the focus shifts to state-regulated education standards, revealing significant infrastructural challenges.

N. Claire Napawan, Stacie A. Townsend · Landscape Research · United States (California)

This study investigated the landscape of urban agricultural practice in Sacramento, California, examining past and present urban agricultural projects, advocacy, and city and state policies. The research found that community interest in urban agriculture is outpacing local policies in Sacramento. The authors concluded that city-wide initiatives might improve efforts at increasing opportunities for new urban agriculture projects.

Lorelei 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.

Thaís 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.

Valerie 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.

Becky 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.

Christopher Bryant, Ghalia Chahine · Geographical Research · Canada (Montreal)

This 2015 case study from the Montreal Region, Canada, analyzed an action research project initiated in 2008 to reduce the vulnerability of peri-urban agriculture. Despite initiatives since the mid-1960s, significant pressures continue to increase the vulnerability of peri-urban farming, with farmland often removed from agricultural reserves. The project in Senneville involved farmers, non-farm actors, and municipal presentations over three years, aiming to integrate conservation and leisure activities.

Rosangela Medeiros Hespanhol · Confins · Brazil (Natal)

This study analyzed the trajectory of farmers from AMIGS (Association of Friends and Producers of Vegetables Residents of Sitio Gramoré and Adjacencies), a significant vegetable supplier in Natal, Brazil, who have been transitioning from conventional to organic production since 2012. The organization of farmers through the association and partnerships with companies and institutions were crucial for enabling this change, reducing dependence on intermediaries through direct sales at ecological fairs. However, problems related to the individual acquisition of inputs and conflicts with farmers still using conventional systems were observed.

Walter Belik · Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional · Brazil

This article discusses the use of the Food and Nutritional Security concept in Brazil's Fome Zero Project and its implementation through various programs initiated in the past decade. It concludes by calling attention to the need to improve programs related to supply, food and nutritional education, and urban agriculture to enable the functioning of an integrated Food and Nutritional Security system.

N. Claire Napawan · Landscape Journal · United States (San Francisco)

This paper evaluated five case studies of communally-managed urban farms in San Francisco to determine their ability to operate dualistically as areas for food production and public space. Using a case-study methodology, it compared the spatial characteristics of these farms against the spatial criteria for successful public space. The study identified both conflicts and compatibilities in the spatial considerations for both functions.

José Tobias Marks Machado, Jeferson Tonin, Evandro Pedro Schneider · SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología · Brazil

This study, conducted in two schools in Cerro Largo - RS, Brazil, during 2013, performed a post-implementation analysis of ecologically based school gardens introduced through a university extension program. Positive results included the proliferation of similar projects. However, significant difficulties were emphasized in integrating the school gardens with disciplinary education, attributed to existing conservatism in the educational context.

Melissa N. Poulsen, Marie L. Spiker, Peter J. Winch · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (Baltimore)

This study explored the perceived importance of community buy-in for urban farming, along with its barriers, facilitators, and strategies, through participant observation at urban farms and interviews with urban farmers, neighborhood leaders, residents, and key stakeholders in Baltimore, Maryland. Findings revealed that residents' unfamiliarity with urban farming, concerns about negative neighborhood impacts, and perceptions of urban farms as "outsider projects" were barriers to buy-in. Strategies for gaining buy-in were shown to follow three main phases: gaining entry into a neighborhood, introducing the urban farm idea, and engaging the neighborhood.

Rachel Surls, Gail Feenstra, Sheila Golden, Ryan E. Galt, Shermain Hardesty, Claire Napawan, Cheryl Wilen · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · United States (California)

Urban agriculture (UA) in California has been slower to gain momentum compared to other urban states, partly due to limited availability of relevant information and technical assistance for urban farmers and municipal decision-makers. A University of California Cooperative Extension project is developing web-based educational resources based on a needs assessment, which includes a literature review, an internal survey of personnel, and community interviews. Preliminary findings indicate challenges in supporting urban farming due to resource constraints and information gaps.

Tim Cashion, I. Forbes, Irena Knežević · · Canada

This preliminary study in Nova Scotia, Canada, explored the initiation and sustainability of community food initiatives through in-depth interviews with coordinators. The research identified that these initiatives are in a precarious state due to reliance on volunteers, land ownership issues, and a lack of consistent funding. Despite these challenges, they persist through community support and coordinator dedication.

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.

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.