Research & reports

Benjamin Schrager, Hiroki Ikeda, Takahashi Yukitsugu · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Japan

This article explores Utsunomiya University’s Eco-programs, which combine a pesticide-free community garden with an educational series, using ethnographic data. Findings indicate tensions between the Eco-programs' agroecological goals and other institutional goals at the university. Despite these conflicts, the programs provide a space for agroecological gardening and serve as an example of an alternative agricultural initiative in Japan.

Gizaw Ebissa, Kumelachew Yeshitela, Hayal Desta, Aramde Fetene · Environment Development and Sustainability · Global

This study investigated urban agriculture's (UA) contributions to environmental sustainability (ES) using scholarly search engines. Findings indicate UA contributes to ES by mitigating greenhouse gases, urban heat island effects, and floods, while enhancing biodiversity and promoting agro-tourism. However, challenges such as lack of policy support, exclusion from urban land use planning, and urbanites' behavior towards UA products limit its full benefits.

Susana Alves, Bahar Bașer Kalyoncuoğlu · Ecopsychology · Turkey (Istanbul)

This study explored the socio-ecological potential of urban agriculture in 10 family-related projects in Istanbul, where Bostans (historical urban vegetable gardens) are culturally significant. Despite their importance and UNESCO recognition, the planning and management of bostans have been hampered by rapid urbanization and a lack of integrative policies. Data from interviews, observations, and fieldwork highlighted the role of kinship in knowledge transfer and how farmers base activities on past-present affordances and future expectations.

Simon Marvin, Lauren Rickards, Jonathan Rutherford · Urban Studies · Global

This paper critically examines urban controlled environment agriculture (CEA), reconceptualizing it as an emergent urban infrastructure for artificial, highly productive microclimates. It argues that CEA attempts to secure food production through three spatial-temporal fixes: enclosing food production indoors, moving it closer to cities, and integrating it into city buildings, thereby extending existing agricultural logics. The paper identifies future research challenges for urban studies regarding CEA.

Svetlana Hristova-Vladi · Postmodernism Problems · Bulgaria

The book "Urban Agriculture for Improving the Quality of Life. Examples from Bulgaria," edited by Donna Pickard, explores the real versus potential effects of urban agriculture on the welfare of urban and nearby communities. This multidisciplinary study analyzes the interplay between urban agriculture practices and quality of life through social, educational, economic, spatial, and ecological aspects. It also delves into the historical dimension of urban agriculture in Bulgaria, including examples from Sofia in the 1930s.

Cynthia Nneka Olumba, Eberechukwu Johnpaul Ihemezie, Chukwudi Charles Olumba · Climate and Development · Nigeria

This study aimed to understand urban farmers’ perceptions of climate change and the adaptation constraints they encounter in Anambra Metropolis, Nigeria. Household survey data using structured questionnaires showed that most urban farmers perceived climate change through effects such as increased weed infestation, drying up of streams/rivers, and decreased soil moisture. Principal adaptation constraints were diverse, falling within broader institutional, information, and financial categories. The study revealed that the socioeconomic conditions of urban farmers in developing countries pose a threat to urban agriculture's potential to mitigate climate change.

Mahyuddiin · KnE Social Sciences · Indonesia (Makassar)

This qualitative study analyzed the network structure of sustainable urban farming development policies in Makassar City, Indonesia, using observations, interviews, and documentation with stakeholders. The findings indicate that the network structure is not fully effective due to erratic, uneven, and unclear contact between actors, and a lack of binding written agreements in the trust dimension. However, information sharing and resource exchange dimensions are progressing well.

Seongeun Lee, Seongmin Shin, Hansol Lee, Mi Sun Park · International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability · Global

A systematic review of urban agriculture (UA) case studies identified conditions enabling and constraining UA development across different country income groups. For high-income countries, a lack of farmers' knowledge and urban development are significant challenges to UA implementation. Common requirements for all income levels include motivation, labor, policy, social capital, and arable land.

Agnes Naipospos, Raia Azzura · Journal of Sustainable Development and Regulatory Issues (JSDERI) · Indonesia

Indonesia faces a reduction in vegetable supply due to rapid urban development, and urban farming can be a solution to meet food needs, reduce household expenses, and increase farmer income. Using a normative juridical approach, this study indicates that Indonesia needs an urban farming program, but its current implementation is not optimal. Therefore, the Indonesia Masterplan for Future Urban Farming (IM-for-FUF) is introduced as an innovation expected to better support the implementation of the green economy.

Deni Permana · ANTASENA Governance and Innovation Journal · Global

This analysis evaluated the impact of school garden programs on students' nutritional status and nutritious food intake, using surveys, interviews, and nutritional status measurements before and after program implementation. School gardens positively impacted students' nutrition knowledge and increased fresh fruit and vegetable consumption, contributing to a reduction in malnutrition prevalence with significant increases in children's weight and height. However, the program's success was constrained by budget limitations and a lack of training for educators, highlighting the need for adequate training, stable financial support, and curriculum integration.

Victorine Dréau · EcoRev · Colombia

In Bello Oriente, Medellin, Colombia, displaced peasant communities resist extractivist expansion and neoliberal territorial reconfiguration through practices like urban agriculture, reasserting collective land use. This research reveals a struggle to reclaim land from the control and speculation logics of criminal gangs and urban planning institutions, indicating critical governance issues.

Katarzyna Świąder, Dražena Čermak, Danuta Gajewska, Katarzyna Najman, Anna Piotrowska, Eliza Kostyra · Sustainability · Global

This review analyzed opportunities and constraints for creating edible cities and accessing wholesome functional foods sustainably. While urban food production methods like controlled-environment farms and home gardens exist, significant constraints include pollution, a lack of government support, and economic challenges for urban farms. These issues must be resolved for edible cities to become widespread.

Nehiby Alcántara Nieves, Rosa María Larroa Torres · Iztapalapa(en línea)/Iztapalapa · Mexico (Mexico City)

This article identified agroecological practices in 10 urban gardens (hu) in Mexico City and their relationship with the construction of food citizenship. Data was collected through interviews with garden managers and users, and participant observation. The study found a tendency to prioritize responsibilities over rights within these urban gardens.

Saerom Ahn, Gyeong Mi Gi, Sonya N. Martin · Asia-Pacific Science Education · South Korea

This study examined specific structures that both afford and limit practices of environmental learning and community building in an urban community garden in South Korea. The analysis illustrated the importance of understanding the dynamic relationship between gardening practices and supporting structures. The research identified how structures can provide and also restrict learning opportunities and community building within the community garden setting.

Alioune Badara Dabo · Norois · France (Île-de-France)

This article analyzes how the public land tenure system, introduced in the 2018 "Agricultural Pact" in the Île-de-France region, articulates with local farming systems. Based on a qualitative survey conducted in the Green Belt area, the findings reveal that this land tenure system does not fully align with the strategies of farmers, particularly young people outside family farming who wish to establish themselves in agriculture, as they do not necessarily seek land ownership.

Mareike Schwarz · Street Art & Urban Creativity · Global

This paper analyzes the intersection of urban art and community gardens to explore whether commons can emerge from this collaboration. Through a comparative study of two community garden projects in Berlin and Dakar, the research examines the impact of funding structures, accessibility, artistic concepts, and design on commoning. Findings reveal that the two projects differ significantly in their development context and underlying structures, affecting their ability to function as commons. Furthermore, the paper argues that the dependency of artistic involvement on third-party funding contradicts the principles of commoning.

Gareth Haysom, Jane Battersby · Palgrave studies in agricultural economics and food policy · Africa

Based on findings from cities in five African countries, this study argues for a re-framing of urban food system resilience. It contends that the urban system, specifically infrastructure, shapes the functioning of the food system and consumers' ability to use it, and that the agency of urban food system users needs inclusion in understandings of, and efforts to increase, food systems resilience.

Imelda Cahiles, Ricardo Bullecer · ACADEME University of Bohol Graduate School and Professional Studies · Asia

A study assessing the implementation of the Gulayan sa Paaralan Program (GPP) in schools in Lila District, Bohol, Philippines, revealed that the overall program implementation was less implemented. While roles and responsibilities at the school level and the establishment and maintenance of school gardens were implemented to a moderate extent, capability building, program monitoring, sustainability mechanisms, and program evaluation were less implemented. Respondents generally perceived the program as moderately beneficial and reported that implementation-related problems were less serious.

Ana Tereza Souza Domingos, Carolina Oliveira Mesquita, Emiliano Lôbo de Godoi, Thiago Augusto Mendes · Laws · Brazil

This bibliographical and documentary research analyzed the effectiveness of public food security policies in Brazil between 2012 and 2022, also considering urban agriculture as an alternative. It concluded that public policies were gradually weakened, and from 2019 to 2022, the Brazilian government discouraged food policy implementation. Consequently, Brazil faces food insecurity and hunger due to disjointed policies, the pandemic, and an economic crisis.

Michael G. Parkes, Rebekah O’Rourke, Tiago Domingos, Ricardo F. M. Teixeira · Sustainability · Europe

An experimental indoor vertical farm urban-agriculture project involving 27 stakeholder groups was set up in a university building in Lisbon, Portugal in 2018 and closed in 2022; this study analyzed the governance dimension of the project's sustainability using role-constellation mapping of the stakeholder groups and force-field analysis across seven governance factors to understand why the project did not continue. It found that despite early positive outcomes across environmental, social and economic dimensions, the project failed to establish a network of stakeholders consistently engaged in governance from the outset, and that inadequate project culture and a lack of critical governance factors led to a failure to convey a sense of ownership to stakeholders, contributing to the project's closure.

Luiza Vigne Bennedetti, Paulo Antônio de Almeida Sinisgalli, Maurí­cio Lamano Ferreira, Fabiano Lemes de Oliveira · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · Global

Following the PRISMA protocol, a 2023 systematic review evaluated 26 studies on the interplay between urban agriculture (UA) and sustainability surveyed on Web of Science. While UA is increasingly recognized as an action to promote urban sustainability and inform public health policy for urban populations, the review confirms that its implementation still presents challenges in countries across both the Global North and Global South. The review identified numerous key challenges to UA adoption, including air and soil contamination, availability of green areas, layout of urban infrastructure, and food distribution, among others. Given the many socio-economic and environmental contextual factors involved — especially when comparing Global North and Global South realities — the review concludes there is a need to develop a model adaptable to these different contexts. It further concludes that the concept of sustainability lacks a universal understanding, and that one of the most important remaining gaps is addressing social issues in relation to environmental ones.

Mahir Yazar, Ece Baykal Fide, İrem Daloğlu Çetinkaya · Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning · Turkey

A 2023 study of climate policies in nine cities in Turkey examined how vulnerable groups and individuals are identified and how land-use policy is developed to address the identified vulnerabilities and climate justice concerns, using policy content analysis and expert interviews. The analysis found critical relationships between identified vulnerable groups, responsive land-use policy and climate justice. While social-aid municipalism-related vulnerabilities dominated districts' climate policies, nature-based solutions (NBS) — especially green infrastructure and urban agriculture — emerged as the dominant climate adaptation approach. However, the way urban vulnerabilities are prioritized in the climate and sustainability plans places less emphasis on intersectionality and infrastructure-related vulnerabilities, and tokenism of justice occurs in the policy documents: the plans do not incorporate vulnerable communities into land-use planning. The study concludes that the complexity of responsive land-use policy requires greater awareness of how to practically support vulnerable communities.

Jesús Sanz Abad, Sara Sama Acedo, Gaël Carrero Gros · · Spain

Case studies of two cooperative enterprises (in finance and forestry) and one new urban commons — community gardens in Madrid — all located in Spain, were analyzed using ethnographic methods within the field of solidarity economy and commons. The analysis found tensions between the initiatives' economically and politically "transformative" aspirations and the reality of operating in a market-driven capitalist environment, alliances and tensions arising from interactions with established institutions, and dilemmas or conflicts between maintaining ideological coherence and extending the initiatives' social base.

Habtamu Serbessa, Teferee Mekonnen, Meskerem Abi · Journal of Developing Country Studies · Ethiopia

A questionnaire survey and focus group discussions with small-scale vegetable producers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia used probability sampling, descriptive statistics, correlation and multinomial logistic regression, plus SWOT and force field analysis. Producers held positive perceptions of vegetable production and most intended to continue, but limited access to land, pests and diseases, and water shortages were identified as the main challenges. Regression results showed land size, gender, age and housing type as the most significant factors determining vegetable production.

Nancy Harlet Esquivel-Marín, Leticia Myriam Sagarnaga Villegas, Octavio T. Barrera-Perales, Juan Antonio Lugo Machado, José María Salas González · Acta Universitatis Sapientiae Agriculture and Environment · Europe

This bibliometric review analyzes the systemic structure of multifunctional agriculture (MFA) and its relationship to sustainability, based on a sample of 432 documents published on the Web of Science platform. Using Bibliometrix and VOSviewer to map scientific collaboration networks, the review identified the authors, journals, and countries shaping the current knowledge structure and four thematic clusters: (a) MFA and sustainability, (b) ecosystem services and biodiversity, (c) European public policies, and (d) governance and urban agriculture. It concludes that, despite an increase in publication rates, research remains concentrated in Europe with few collaborative networks across disciplines, indicating that SDG 17 (partnerships) is not being achieved.