Research & reports

Manoj Misra · Culture Agriculture Food and Environment · Canada

A qualitative study of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) participants in the greater Edmonton region of Canada examined how this local food initiative promotes ecological citizenship. The study concluded that discursive and structural limitations prevent the Edmonton CSA community from achieving meaningful diversity and addressing social justice concerns within its realm.

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.

Charles Achcar Chelala, Cláudia Maria do Socôrro Cruz Fernandes Chelala · DELOS Desarrollo Local Sostenible · Brazil

This article analyzes the urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in Macapá, Amapá, Brazil, focusing on existing commercialization channels to identify the relationship between urban food production and city supply. The study aimed to pinpoint difficulties, limitations, and expansion capacity of UPA. It concludes that despite a diversity of accessible channels for UPA, short commercialization channels like direct sales and open-air markets remain the primary outlets for production, indicating challenges in expanding commercialization beyond these traditional methods.

Pedro Sorrentino, Maria Carolina Maziviero · arq urb · Brazil (Curitiba)

This article reflects on a new perspective on the right to the city, aiming to reframe the relationship between humanity and nature to overcome the current civilizational crisis. It presents the contributions of urban agriculture practices in Curitiba, Brazil, highlighting advancements towards the right to the city and a new land culture, along with their challenges and potential.

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.

Vitória Oliveira Pereira de Souza Leão, Roberta Moraes Curan, Paulo Eduardo Moruzzi Marques · Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional · Brazil (São Paulo)

Since early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has had major impacts on the world's population, and concerns about food supply — particularly for the most vulnerable populations — gained prominence among international bodies, Brazilian public institutions, researchers and civil society (2023). Difficulty responding to the crisis, especially misalignment of buffering measures across levels of Brazilian government and compounded by threats to democracy, produced a picture of absent effective public planning for food and nutrition security. In this context, urban and peri-urban agriculture (AUP), combined with food solidarity initiatives, emerged as a strategic means of food access in the most vulnerable urbanized regions, while allowing farmers to maintain their income. This article examines different food supply actions in the municipality of São Paulo, Brazil, at the peak of the pandemic, focusing especially on new dynamics among seven urban and peri-urban farmers representative of the situation in São Paulo's main production regions. Beyond social coordination among different solidarity groups in the municipality, the article highlights the role of short, proximity-based distribution circuits in sustaining local production and ensuring food consumption for food-insecure populations, amid a marked shortage of emergency food and nutrition security policies.

Sabine O’Hara · · United States

A book chapter introduces the people behind new urban agriculture and food systems innovations emerging in cities across the United States. These innovators come from all walks of life, and the ways they envision and implement more decentralized urban and peri-urban food systems are as varied as the people themselves. Their stories raise questions about which food systems innovations are most likely to create win-win outcomes of improved food security and improved sustainability. A transformation of the conventional food system is already under way, even in cities with less than optimal growing conditions, but much more remains to be done.

Maureen Hartwell · Environmental Claims Journal · United States

This commentary examines Climate Action Plans (CAPs) that US municipalities have produced for more than thirty years, from a land-use law perspective. It notes that early CAPs often contained detailed but unaccountable, metric-free aspirations, whereas more recent CAPs have grounded themselves in land use law by integrating into comprehensive plans, amending zoning codes to meet urban agriculture goals, and offering expedited zoning procedures for CAP-compliant developers.

Xiaoya Yuan · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

This is a book review, not original research, covering Justin Sean Myers' Growing Gardens, Building Power: Food Justice and Urban Agriculture in Brooklyn. The reviewed book documents the emergence and development of urban agriculture in East New York, presenting a detailed account of a community's collective effort to confront its racialized history of segregation and disinvestment while fighting for food sovereignty and social justice.

Mahbubur Meenar · Journal of the American Planning Association · United States (New York City)

A review of Justin Sean Myers's Growing Gardens, Building Power: Food Justice and Urban Agriculture in Brooklyn (2022, Rutgers University Press, 250 pages, $32.95). The review introduces food justice as a concept that emerged in the late 20th century in response to systemic inequalities in the food system and has since gained significant traction in both scholarly and professional circles.

André Augusto Manoel, Carolina Andion · Cadernos Metrópole · Brazil

A qualitative intrinsic case study of Florianópolis, Brazil, examines the processes of social innovation generated by urban agriculture practices, using a pragmatist perspective and the analytical framework of ethnography of public arenas. Through a mapping of the city's urban agriculture practices, the study identifies three dynamics of social innovation situated in three distinct public arenas: solid organic waste, the human right to adequate food, and production-consumption cycles. These findings are presented as contributing to understanding the complexity of social innovation processes and their implications for governance in the city.

Lorien Nesbitt, Daniel L. Sax, Jessica Quinton, Leila M. Harris, Camilo Ordóñez Barona, Cecil Konijnendijk · Ecology and Society 28(4): art29 · Canada (Metro Vancouver, Greater Toronto Area)

An online survey of 51 urban greening practitioners in Metro Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area. Most respondents defined green gentrification as the displacement of vulnerable residents caused by new or improved green space that attracts wealthy in-movers and raises property values. The largest group identified greening itself as the main driver of green gentrification, while a minority saw greening as a secondary factor alongside other systemic drivers. Practitioners cited multiple barriers to addressing it - limited institutional capacity, limited access to data and information, policy or mandate restrictions, and a lack of engagement tools - showing a gap between practitioners' concern and what they can act on in their day-to-day work.

Tibisay Pérez, Sintana E. Vergara, Whendee L. Silver · Scientific Reports · United States

Continuous micrometeorological mass-balance measurements of greenhouse gas emissions from commercial-scale windrow food-waste composting found emission factors of 6.6–8.8 kg CH4–C and 0.01 kg N2O–N per Mg of wet food waste, for a combined emission factor of 926 kgCO2e per Mg of dry food waste. Composting emissions were 38–84% lower than equivalent landfilling, with a projected minimum net savings of 1.4 MMT CO2e for California by 2025.

Jordan Ashby, Clarissa Libertelli · Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) · United States

Just after NYC announced expansion of mandatory residential organics collection by 2024, the mayor's office eliminated funding for the city's community composting program. The article identifies three failures reflecting national trends: government 'composting' programs that actually rely on anaerobic digestion, centralized processing that concentrates environmental burdens in vulnerable neighborhoods, and mandatory government programs undercutting community composters' viability.

Cole Rosengren · Waste Dive · United States

California's Little Hoover Commission recommended pausing SB 1383, the state's organics recycling law, citing concern the state will miss its 2025 targets, but CalRecycle, industry and environmental advocates strongly opposed the pause, noting roughly $500 million already invested. 445 of 614 jurisdictions now have residential food-waste collection programs, and waste costs rose 20% for residential and 30% for commercial customers.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development · United States

An EPA report that for the first time quantifies methane emissions attributable to food waste in U.S. municipal solid waste landfills from 1990 to 2020 (EPA-600-R-23-064). In 2020, food waste was responsible for about 55 million metric tons CO2e of landfill emissions and accounted for 58% of fugitive methane emissions from MSW landfills. Because food waste decays quickly, 50% of its carbon degrades within 3.6 years, often before gas collection systems are installed.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development · United States

This EPA report (October 2023, EPA-600-R-23-065) introduces the 'Wasted Food Scale,' a new ranking of eleven food waste management pathways from most to least environmentally preferable, replacing the 1990s 'Food Recovery Hierarchy.' It finds source reduction, donation, and upcycling most preferable, and that sewer/wastewater treatment and landfill stand out for their sizeable methane emissions.

Loudoun County · Loudoun County, Virginia · United States

Section 7.02 (Open Space) of the Loudoun County, Virginia zoning ordinance sets required open-space percentages by zoning district. In the Transition Policy Area, the TR-3UBF/LF, TR-1, and TR-2 districts require 50% open space, while TR-10 and TR-3LBR require 70%; in each of these districts, "Agricultural" use is one of the eligible open-space categories, conditioned on protection by a permanent conservation easement. Developments of five or more dwelling units must also provide at least 5,000 square feet of active recreation open space.

Jena Brooker · Planet Detroit (via BridgeDetroit) · United States

Hantz Woodlands, a large-scale tree farm on Detroit's east side, acquired roughly 2,600 parcels and still holds about 2,000. It bought an initial 1,550 parcels for $540,000 and later resold about 10% of its holdings for $9.5 million — nearly nine times its original cost — while paying only $7,035 of the $33,110 it owes in blight-violation fines. Critics note the Detroit Land Bank Authority never reclaimed a single Hantz property despite missed deadlines, even as it repossessed land from ordinary residents who fell behind.

Seattle Department of Neighborhoods · Seattle Department of Neighborhoods · United States

This Seattle Department of Neighborhoods page traces the history of the city's P-Patch community garden program from its 1970 origins at the Picardo Farm through the city's 1973 purchase of the farm and 1974 formal establishment as a city program, growing to 90 gardens and over 3,500 participating households by 2023. It also reports 2022 figures including $66,152 in subsidies to 858 low-income gardeners and 44,403 pounds of donated produce.

Olivia G Bassetti, Rebecca A McDonough, Kabindra M Shakya · Environmental Monitoring and Assessment · United States (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh)

A 2023 study that sampled soils from 21 community gardens in Philadelphia city, the Philadelphia suburbs and Pittsburgh city, Pennsylvania, USA, in September–October 2021 and measured seven elements (Pb, Zn, Cu, V, Cd, Ni, As) by ICP-MS. City gardens had higher concentrations than suburban ones. All elements except vanadium fell below Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection guidelines, but against the stricter Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment limit of 140 mg/kg for lead, 36% of Philadelphia city gardens, 60% of Pittsburgh gardens and 20% of Philadelphia suburban gardens exceeded it — so whether a garden counts as 'safe' or 'over the limit' depends on which standard is applied. In Philadelphia, concentrations generally fell with distance from historical smelter sites, though the correlation was significant only for zinc. Raised-bed soils were lower in lead and arsenic but often higher in zinc, copper, vanadium and nickel, which the authors attribute to ongoing deposition from road traffic and active industry rather than legacy contamination.

Superintendencia Nacional de Servicios de Saneamiento (SUNASS) · Superintendencia Nacional de Servicios de Saneamiento (SUNASS), Plataforma del Estado Peruano · Peru

Peru's sanitation services regulator (SUNASS) reported on 18 January 2023 that more than 635,000 people in Lima Metropolitana (6% of its population, including 180,000 children under 11) lack access to Sedapal's public drinking water network. Those without network access buy water from tanker trucks at 16-18 soles per cubic meter, up to six times the roughly 3 soles per cubic meter paid by network-connected users. SUNASS also published a district ranking of daily per-capita water consumption, with San Isidro highest at 280 liters and Lurigancho lowest at 32 liters.

Wells N., Myers B., Henderson C. · Preventive Medicine Reports (Elsevier) · United States

A two-year randomized controlled trial assigning 46 low-income elementary schools in Arkansas, Iowa, New York and Washington to school gardens with curriculum or a waitlist control. Children in the intervention increased fruit and low-fat vegetable consumption more than controls, supporting the effectiveness of school garden programs.

Joyner L., Yagüe B., Cachelin A., Rose J. · Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 11(2):67-88 · United States

Community-engaged study partnering with a CSA farm in Salt Lake City's Westside, examining how political-economic practices produced food apartheid and the limits of urban agriculture in advancing food justice in marginalized neighborhoods.

Hawes J. K., Gounaridis D., Newell J. P. · Landscape and Urban Planning 225:104447 · United States

Analyzes the link between urban gardens and gentrification in Detroit, finding no clear association but showing gardens cluster in younger, affluent, educated, less-Black neighborhoods—gardening remains unequal.