Research & reports

Fotini Tsofliou, R. Vijayakumaran, Ashley Wilson, Anthony Mills · Proceedings of The Nutrition Society · United Kingdom (Dorset)

This pilot research, conducted with fourteen adults in disadvantaged areas of Dorset, UK, explored perceptions on the importance and roles of community food garden and kitchen initiatives. Four main themes emerged from the participants' perspectives: tackling food insecurity and sustainability, utilization of climate-friendly and organic food, bridging the intergenerational gap, and promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Adriana Flores-Guevara, María de Lourdes Hernández- Rodríguez, María Esther Méndez- Cadena · Revista Investigium IRE Ciencias Sociales y Humanas · Spain (Madrid)

This 2018-2023 study in Madrid, Spain, investigated socio-environmental phenomena in the Community Urban Gardens Network (RedHMad) to understand how they foster sustainable neighborhood development. Researchers conducted open interviews with ten participants, performed participatory observation, and reviewed RedHMad assembly minutes. Findings indicate that community urban gardens generate social cohesion and coexistence, supporting cultural, artistic, experimental, environmental education, and health activities, and facilitating social organization when needed.

Ion Martínez Lorea · Revista Española de Sociología · Spain (Pamplona)

This article uses Henri Lefebvre's concept of concrete utopia to analyze the practices of community urban gardens in Pamplona-Iruña, Spain. It interrogates their potential and limitations in responding to various situations of social vulnerability and rethinking the relationship between the rural and the urban.

Chloé Duffaut, Florence Brondeau, Julien Gasparini · Cybergeo · France (Paris)

A questionnaire survey of 200 individuals in Paris, France, from May 2017 to March 2018, assessed the appreciation and perception of pigeons, rats, and hedgehogs in various urban locations. The study found clear differences in appreciation based on species and perceived usefulness, with rats disliked (2.2/10), hedgehogs liked (7.7/10), and pigeons receiving mixed reactions (4.7/10). Age, gender, education, or survey location were not decisive factors.

Véronique Saint-Gès, Bethsabée Warin, Antoine Jacobsohn · Sustainability · France

A study of two French public urban farms, the Potager du Roi in Versailles and the Cité Maraîchère in Romainville, using the concept of the triple-layered business model to examine their sustainability strategy through empirical case-study research. The evaluation of their economic, social, and environmental impacts shows their dependence on multiple interlinked public policies, and points to the justification for significant, recurring public funding on grounds of general interest.

Valeria Di Martino, Gian Vito Zani · Rivista di estetica · Italy

This paper examines the distinction between public goods and common goods (commons) as understood in economics and applies it to a typical public good — urban green areas. While public goods involve openness to all and state management, commons require management that is common yet still limited; the two also differ in the kind of agent involved, with public goods presupposing an aggregate of individuals and commons presupposing a plural subject capable of acting in concert to manage the good. After exploring this distinction in detail, the paper applies it to green areas in cities and shows the theoretical advantages of a commons-based framing, including through the concrete case of community gardens.

Michele Deri · Florence Research (University of Florence) · Italy

This paper examines the peri-urban agricultural park, an instrument that has gained significant importance in Italian territorial policy in recent years, as a tool for integrated governance of peri-urban territory and socio-ecological factors. Based on a desk analysis, it selects several major Italian experiences and presents an initial overview of the characteristics this tool presents in various contexts, in terms of both process and project. The paper highlights the relevance and diffusion of the instrument in public discourse and territorial governance practices, as well as the strengths, limitations, and critical issues the various cases present in operational terms, concluding that further exploration of its design and management characteristics as a connective element between planning and rural development is needed.

Henriette John, Martina Artmann · International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development · Germany

Based on a German case study, this paper introduces an integrative framework for evaluating the environmental, social and economic sustainability of urban agriculture, applying multi-criteria analysis via the Analytic Hierarchy Process combined with a participatory approach. Analyzing the examples of vertical farming and community-supported agriculture, the environmental dimension received the highest weight, followed by the social and then the economic dimension; among sub-criteria, species diversity received the highest weight and food quality and safety the lowest.

Constantine Manolchev, David Watson, Laura A. Colombo, Patrick Elf, James Scott Vandeventer · · United Kingdom

A chapter examines the role of technology across the European 'agrifood' system, an umbrella term for the agriculture, horticulture, food, and drink sectors. Placing the dysfunctional consequences of making economic growth the driver of food-system organization in historical context, it shows through a case study of a daffodil farm in South West England that when technology is deployed as an engine of efficiency, unbridled growth, and profit maximization, it vastly improves productivity through worker quantification—time, motion, and output tracking—while transforming worker-nature relationships in exploitative ways. By contrast, when used to prioritize non-exploitative, collaborative relationships, technology can support sustainable well-being and ecological production, illustrated through three alternative food network cases: a UK community garden, a UK Community Supported Agriculture scheme, and a network of social agricultural cooperatives in Italy.

Matthias Winfried Kleespies, Dorian D. Dörge, Norbert Peter, Anna V. Schantz, Ajdin Skaljic, Viktoria Feucht, Anna Lena Burger-Schulz, Paul Wilhelm Dierkes, Sven Klimpel · Biological Invasions · Germany

Surveying more than 2,200 people across nine stakeholder groups in Germany involved with invasive species—hunters and hunting association members, farmers, environmental and conservation organization members, allotment garden club members, animal welfare supporters, divers, zoo employees, regulatory authority administrative staff, and speleologists—this study investigated how these groups perceive invasive species. The number of invasive animal and plant species in Germany was roughly correctly estimated across all groups, but the economic damage they cause was substantially underestimated. Species named were mostly conspicuous ones such as raccoons (Procyon lotor) or Impatiens glandulifera, and while all groups showed notable interest in invasive species and regarded them as an environmental issue, the study found a need for greater education about inconspicuous invasive species and the damage they cause.

Matthias Middendorf, Marius Rommel · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Germany

This study used a transdisciplinary mixed-methods approach, combining literature, qualitative and quantitative data, in cooperation with the German CSA Network to build a framework capturing the diversity of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Germany, where CSAs grew from about 10 to over 500 in just over a decade yet remain niche. Using the framework to co-develop a survey covering 70 participating CSAs, the researchers found that community financing (domain A) is the defining characteristic distinguishing CSA from other alternative food network forms, and confirmed high diversity in differentiating characteristics (domain B), including governance types split among producer-led, consumer-led and integrated CSAs.

Adriana Díaz Caamaño · Academia XXII · Spain

This essay frames urban food cultivation and harvesting, once a common practice around human settlements in past centuries, as a new trend for urban sustainability amid an environmental crisis driven by city growth and its planetary impact. It argues that unsustainable agriculture is straining to feed a vast population with little awareness of the countryside or of its benefits for mental and physical well-being, but presents no specific study data or case findings.

David Berná Serna, Sara Sama Acedo, Patricia Homs Ramírez de la Piscina · Revista Española de Sociología · Spain

Against the backdrop of the current eco-social crisis, this article analyzes the "eco-transformative capacity" of collective initiatives in three Spanish case studies: neo-ruralization and natural wine production in the Sierra Oeste de Madrid and southern Sierra de Gredos, agroecological supply systems in Catalonia, and community urban gardens integrated into a municipal program in Madrid. The analysis focuses on the motivations, challenges, and limitations agents encounter while practicing sustainable ways of dwelling, producing, and consuming, and on their relationship to public institutional agendas on eco-social transition.

Ada Baldi, Nicolas Lucio Gallo, Anna Lenzi · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · Italy

Semi-structured interviews with participants in the "social gardens" of Prato, Italy — plots the municipality assigns to individual pensioners or unemployed people for growing vegetables for home consumption — examined demographic and socio-economic characteristics, cultivated crops, and plot areas. The typical gardener was male, retired, averaged 74 years old, and had a low level of education. A 50 m2 plot with 40% of its area cultivated was estimated to yield about 90 kg of vegetables per year, roughly 61.5% of one person's fruit and vegetable needs. Tomatoes occupied more than 80% of the cultivated area. Vitamin C and Vitamin A showed the highest nutrient contributions, while calcium and sodium showed the lowest.

Francisco Tomatis, Monika Egerer, Luis Manuel Navas-Gracia · Horticulturae · Spain

A study of twelve plots across four urban allotment gardens in Valladolid, Spain (Horticulturae, 2024) examined food production, cooling effects, and gardener perspectives. Crop selection matched broader Global North urban-gardening trends, adapted to limited plot space and varying by season. The gardens provided more stable and cooler temperatures than urban gray spaces, though the cooling effect was smaller than that of urban parks, and was most pronounced in summer. Greater crop cover at the plot level produced a stronger cooling effect, while crop abundance and diversity showed only a weak correlation with cooling benefits. Gardener surveys found awareness of climate change and its perceived direct threat to crops, health, and the city, along with concern about future water availability for crop growth and garden development.

Victor Crespo de Oliveira, Leonardo França da Silva, Érika Manuela Gonçalves Lopes, Ana Carolina Chaves Dourado, Matheus Mendes Reis, Bruna Nogueira Rezende, Letícia Duron Cury, Cássio Furtado Lima, Fabiane de Fátima Maciel, Silvana Ferreira Bicalho, Ariadna Faria Vieira · · Europe

Noting that global population growth is raising concerns about the sustainability of cities and soils, climate change, and food access and security, and that many urban areas face challenges related to their food supply infrastructure, this paper positions urban agriculture as a potential contributor to food security and income generation for impoverished households, while noting that conventional agriculture contributes to soil erosion and soil/groundwater pollution, and that climate change disrupts animal life cycles and drives species extinction, reducing food availability for humans and other organisms. Within this framing, the paper presents aquaponics as a method integrating urban agriculture for plant cultivation with safe fish production, and reports a project to develop and install an optimized aquaponics system at the School of Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto (ISEP). The soil-less vertical garden was built using two tanks holding approximately 2,000 liters of water, spanning three floors with three planter boxes and more than 120 positions for growing vegetables. Pedagogical activities were also carried out, involving students from Bioresources, Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Informatics Engineering.

Andreea Melinescu · Annals of the University of Craiova Series Biology Horticulture Food products processing technology Environmental engineering · Europe

This study focuses on designing a green space in the Old Town of Craiova, Romania. Using 3D landscaping software, a 270 m² area was designed with terraces covered in Wisteria sinensis, green walls, aromatic plants, and fruit trees, applying the Edible City Solutions concept, plus community-oriented elements such as a stage for events. The project is presented as a model for sustainable urban green spaces intended to enhance social interaction and environmental quality.

A. Fanny, António Ferreira, Paulo Conceição · Urban Geography · France

This paper analyzes social housing strategies grounded in "right-sizing"—including demolishing vacant housing, consolidating urban development, and converting vacant land into community gardens—in two shrinking French cities, Le Creusot and Montluçon. The analysis found that while both cities implement some quantitative adjustment of housing supply to demand, their actual strategies are considerably more complex, combining multiple synergistic lines of action, and the paper highlights that right-sizing as an analytical concept remains constrained by austerity principles.

Claire Hamilton · BBC News · United Kingdom

In 2021 Liverpool City Council pledged to protect all 100 of the city's parks and green spaces — over 1,000 hectares of land — in partnership with charity Fields in Trust. By March 2024, only one, the park at Faulkner Square in the Georgian Quarter, had been formally placed in trust. The council said work was under way on 20 of the biggest and most strategically important sites, while local Friends groups expressed concern about the slow pace and development pressure.

UCL Institute of Education · UCL Institute of Education · United Kingdom

A UCL Institute of Education article on a partnership with the RHS training primary-education student teachers to use gardening as a teaching tool, describing an activity suitable for a class of 30 and featuring comments from participating staff.

Stadtverband Leipzig der Kleingärtner e.V. · Stadtverband Leipzig der Kleingärtner e.V. · Germany

A page in which the Leipzig city federation of allotment gardeners collects national figures for the organised allotment system: 20 state federations, more than 13,310 clubs, 503 regional, district and area federations, and about 890,000 members. Counting family and friends, roughly five million people use a plot, and the nationwide average wait is three years. On costs it gives an average ground rent of 0.18 euro per square metre per year, working out at about 66.66 euro a year for an average 370-square-metre plot.

Alves, D., Villar, I., Mato, S. · Environmental Science and Pollution Research (Springer), 31(7):9873-9885 · Spain / Europe

A study comparing methodology, bulking agents, and compost quality across community composting centres (CCC) and community gardens used by local governments to treat biowaste. It shows how population density and the presence of green areas determine the siting of decentralized local composting infrastructure.

Szczurek A., Maciejewska M., Batog P. · Applied Sciences, 13(1):597 · Poland (Wrocław)

Develops and evaluates an automated monitoring system for urban beekeeping's educational, greening and awareness benefits. Sensors, cameras and scales were deployed on hives on the roof of a four-storey university building in Wrocław; three months of operation confirmed the system works and that rooftop placement is a viable urban apiary model.

Nicholls E., Griffiths-Lee J., Basu P., Chatterjee S., Goulson D. · Plants, People, Planet · United Kingdom

Study of crop-pollinator interactions in UK urban and peri-urban farms, quantifying ecosystem services provided by pollinators in city farming systems.

· Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Germany

Analyzes Community-Supported Agriculture (Solidarische Landwirtschaft) in Germany as a form of food-democratic experimentalism, in which producers and consumers share the costs, risks and governance of production.