Research & reports

Daniel Borer, Daniel Fuller, Manjit Singh Sandhu, Duy‐Tung Bui · Social Responsibility Journal · Global

This conceptual paper introduces the Pancentric Nutrition Paradigm, an interdisciplinary framework integrating human nutrition, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, and societal considerations for global food systems. It identifies four strategies for sustainable food systems: implementing urban agriculture and agro-zoos, introducing a meat carbon tax (€0.10 per kg CO2e), promoting ostrich farming, and developing policy pathways. The study suggests the pancentric approach can harmonize competing interests in food systems.

Christian Kofi Sarpong, Romanus Dogkubong Dinye, Alex Donbeinaa, Vera Nyarko Amoako · Asian Journal of Agricultural and Horticultural Research · Ghana

This study assessed the role of urban agriculture in Ghanaian cities through a systematic literature review of publications from 2000 to 2024. Urban agriculture was found to significantly contribute to food security, nutrition, and income, and to bolster environmental sustainability. However, challenges such as land tenure insecurity, unsafe irrigation practices, weak institutional support, and limited policy integration persist.

Mohammed Abdulai, Mohammed Tanko, Alhassan Andani · World Development Sustainability · Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou)

This study empirically investigated the link between municipal wastewater (MWW) use and vegetable productivity among 416 vegetable farmers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, using survey data. It was found that MWW use alone is associated with a higher value of vegetable output, but regulation through contacts with extension agents reduces the agronomic and economic benefits of using MWW for irrigation.

Joseph Seong, H. Christopher Peterson, Simone Valle de Souza · Agribusiness · Global

This study evaluated the economic and environmental sustainability potential of urban indoor agriculture (IA) using a multi-objective optimization model (IA-MOO) integrating a bioeconomic model for lettuce production. Results indicated that earnings before taxes (EBT) and energy use efficiency (EUE) are generally not conflicting objectives, except for a short production schedule frame.

Francisco García, Francisco Vergara‐Perucich · Urban Planning · Chile (Santiago)

This article examines how "ollas comunes" (community-led survival kitchens) in Santiago, Chile, contest the dominant logic of neoliberal governance and ownership within public space. Emerging during the 2019 social revolt and amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic to address food insecurity, these initiatives reclaim streets as arenas of collective care, mobility, and embodied everyday democracy by providing free communal meals. Based on qualitative data from interviews, focus groups, and participant observations, findings demonstrate that cooking and eating in the street transform physical streetscapes and mobility patterns, producing emergent publics, meanings, and solidarities.

Rodríguez Taboada, Sanyi · Figshare · Cuba

The SolAgro Framework is an integrated agricultural engineering project by SolAgro SRL, designed for urban farms of 1 to 3 hectares in Cuba. It integrates functional agroecology, open technologies, renewable energy, and local manufacturing to create autonomous nodes of resilience. The project aims for economic returns within 12 months and social returns through youth training, consolidating technological and community sovereignty.

Gideon Baffoe, Philip Antwi‐Agyei · City and Environment Interactions · Ghana (Accra)

This mixed-methods study analyzed the role of urban agriculture (UA) in climate resilience in Accra, Ghana, from the perspective of policymakers. While UA contributes to food security, water use efficiency, and ecological protection, its integration into policy frameworks was found to be limited due to challenges such as weak institutional coordination, competing economic priorities, and governance inefficiencies.

Abella Alemany, Agèric, Casals Missio, Joan, Macarulla Martí, Marcel, Pintó Espín, Laia, González Atero, Ramiro, Arcas, Verónica, Gassó Domingo, Santiago, Gabarrell Durany, Xavier · UPCommons institutional repository (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) · Global

Urban agriculture is gaining prominence globally for promoting environmental sustainability, food security, and social cohesion in cities. While urban cultivation is not new, a recent innovative approach involves integrating agriculture into urban infrastructure, particularly utilizing building rooftops as underutilized spaces with significant potential.

Blessing Nyamasoka‐Magonziwa, Esther Simango, Hatirarami Nezomba · Frontiers in Agronomy · Zimbabwe (Chitungwiza)

This study evaluated climate-smart crop production practices by urban farmers in Chitungwiza District, Zimbabwe, and their effects on household diets. Mixed methods research, including focus group discussions with four farmer groups and interviews with 107 households in 2022, classified only 23% of farmers as climate-smart. While climate-smart crop production positively influenced household diets, with climate-smart households having a significantly higher Household Dietary Diversity Score (3.3 vs. 2.9; p=0.02), there were no significant differences in maize yield between climate-smart and non-climate-smart farmers (2.10 t/ha vs. 2.27 t/ha, respectively, in the 2020/2021 season).

S. GopalaSundara Raj, Halavath Tharunkumar, R. P. Srivastava, Mukesh Kumar Singh, Manindra Nath Upadhyay · Asian Journal of Environment & Ecology · Global

This study explores the economic and environmental benefits of green cultivation, encompassing organic farming, community-supported agriculture, and sustainable land use. Economically, it offers increased profitability, improved market opportunities, and enhanced food security, while environmentally, it supports biodiversity, improves soil health, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Case studies from Spain and Egypt demonstrate the effectiveness of these sustainable farming methods.

Jelena Salmi, Anna Krzywoszynska · Environmental Science & Policy · Finland

A discourse analysis of 103 governance and grey literature documents in Finland examined the politics of soil biodiversity indicators. The study found that eDNA is the preferred scientific basis for soil biodiversity governance in Finland due to alignment between scientific and policy groups. However, land workers' organizations criticize eDNA methods, arguing they risk obscuring local specificity and creating environmental and social injustice, potentially alienating land management groups.

N H Alias, Nor Hafizah Mohamed Harith, Thenmolli Vadeveloo · Journal of Administrative Science · Malaysia

This qualitative study used thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with 10 residents of low-income neighborhoods in Selangor, Malaysia, to examine food access and the sustainability of food security. Five themes emerged: economic constraints, geographical and infrastructure barriers, food price and market fluctuation, limited involvement in urban agriculture, and coping strategies for food insecurity. Financial difficulty was found to be the most significant barrier to food access, forcing households toward less healthy but more affordable food, and while households' coping strategies were resourceful, they were unsustainable, underscoring the need for long-term policy intervention.

Angie Tatiana Ortega-Ramírez, Arley Lida Moreno, José Enrique Luna Correa, Miriam Reyes Tovar, Óscar Silva-Marrufo, Miriam América Caballero Olvera · Sustainability · Colombia (Bogotá)

A study designed and implemented a school garden at Carlos Albán Holguín school in Bogotá, Colombia, as a strategy to secure food for vulnerable communities and promote environmental education, structured in six stages including diagnosis, characterization, formulation and pilot validation. Surveys and checklists evaluated garden conditions and students' understanding of environmental practices. After implementation, 75% of students showed outstanding comprehension of sustainable agriculture and 80% effectively applied organic farming principles.

Sumit Vij, Vishal Narain · Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Water · Global

This review addresses a knowledge gap on how peri-urban residents in Asia and Africa adapt to the impacts of urbanization and climate change on water security. As rural-urban boundaries rapidly blur in the global South, peri-urban spaces are characterized by weakening access to water resources, depleting common property institutions and poor civic engagement, and the review presents the persistent marginalization of peri-urban residents from a water security perspective, while also showing that they do develop adaptation measures. Existing literature is found to focus primarily on (1) increased vulnerability of peri-urban agriculture and allied sectors, (2) barriers and enablers to water-security-related adaptation planning, and (3) justice in peri-urban areas, and the review calls for further study of emerging cooperation and collective action that could reduce conflicts between peri-urban and urban inhabitants and improve water security.

Siu Hou Chong, Paw Lan Tai, Chen Yee Teh, Siao Hoong Sam, Ning Hii, Jia Yi Tan, M D Isa M. Saffiuddin, Jia Hao Lau, Chee Yuan Ng, Chiou Woan Leng · World sustainability series · Malaysia

This is a case description of Koperasi Kongsi Selangor Berhad (Kongsi Co-op), a Malaysian consumer co-operative. The co-op connects local producers and consumers through community-supported agriculture and community-supported education, promoting organic farming, sustainable practices, ethical business, and lifelong learning. It reports having overcome financial and resource constraints by building an internal culture and network.

Mouza Mohammed Eissa, Mohamad Zahir Zainudin, Norun Najjah Ahmat · International Journal of Social Science Research · United Arab Emirates

A qualitative study conducted semi-structured interviews with 35 stakeholders — home farmers, commercial producers, policymakers and agritech developers — in the United Arab Emirates, examined against the National Food Security Strategy 2051. It found 70% of home farmers engage in urban agriculture to reduce import dependency, but are constrained by high water costs (cited by 70%) and limited technical training (55%). Commercial farms widely use hydroponics (88%) and vertical farming (62%), though energy-water trade-offs limit scalability. Stakeholders emphasized AI-driven tools for water-use optimization (75%) and blockchain for traceability (45%); the most desired digital-platform features were real-time soil and weather data (90%), centralized subsidy access (80%) and market linkages (65%), though fragmented data systems currently limit their effectiveness. Policy implementation gaps persist, with 60% of farmers unaware of subsidy programs and minimal integration across agricultural initiatives; the study recommends expanding solar-powered irrigation subsidies, improving training and extension services, and developing a unified digital platform connecting farmers, policymakers and agritech stakeholders.

Mohamed Lamine Dramé, Abdoulaye DIAWARA, Hamadoun GARBA, Bonkana MAIGA, Hamadoun SYLLA, Yacin Guirre OSMAN, Ntcughunene Rokissi Ondombe, Soumaila DIARRA, Bakary DIARRA, Akory Ag Iknane, Fatou Diawara · Asian Food Science Journal · Mali

A study analyzed food security, dietary diversity and their socio-demographic determinants among households in Bamako, Mali, between 2018 and 2022. Using National Food Security and Nutrition Survey (ENSAN) data on 5,792 households, it applied descriptive statistics, bivariate analysis and multivariable logistic regression, with Household Dietary Diversity Scores (HDDS), Food Consumption Scores (FCS) and wealth quintiles as primary predictors. Household diets were cereal-based (99.3%) and largely lacking protein-rich foods such as eggs (20.1%) and legumes (36.7%). The prevalence of food security fell significantly, from 64.5% in 2018 to 59.2% in 2022 (p<0.01). Urban residence and higher education were strong positive predictors of food security (AOR 1.8, 95% CI 1.4-2.3, and AOR 2.1, CI 1.7-2.6, respectively), while households in the lowest wealth quintile (AOR 0.4, CI 0.3-0.6) and polygamous households (AOR 0.7, CI 0.5-0.9) showed significantly lower food security. The study concludes that Bamako's food insecurity stemmed from economic instability and educational disparities despite a degree of dietary diversity.

Rattan Lal · CABI eBooks · Global

A chapter discussing soil scientist Rattan Lal's synthesis of spirituality and philosophy, drawn from Sanskrit/Vedic teachings passed down by his grandmother, with soil science. It traces the historical development of soil and plant science disciplines and states that more change may occur between 2020 and 2050 than in the preceding 10 millennia, listing carbon farming, nutrition-sensitive agriculture, soil-less urban farming and sky farming as future agricultural practices, and noting that the UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals depend on soil protection, restoration and management.

Laura Patricia Mulazzi, Francisco Jose Pescio, María Amalia Lorda, Christophe Albaladejo, María Amalia Lorda, Laura Jiménez, Gastón D. Godoy · El Servicio de Difusión de la Creación Intelectual (National University of La Plata) · Argentina

This essay surveys urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) as it has developed across Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Africa. It argues that in South American, Asian, and African countries, UPA is oriented mainly toward meeting the food and income-generation needs of poor and economically excluded populations, who use food production to reduce their socioeconomic vulnerability, whereas UPA in European and North American countries serves different ends tied more to leisure, quality of life, and recreation in public spaces.

Medardo Wilfredo Blanco Villacorta, Marcelo Tarqui Delgado, Gladys Jhovanna Challco Challco · Sapiens Studies Journal · Bolivia

This study evaluates the sustainability of urban agriculture in the Municipality of El Alto, Bolivia, in the context of urban poverty among migrants marked by limited access to housing, basic services, education, health and employment, and low income, alongside an observed rise in nutritional food insecurity. Using a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach, the research found that the activity is led mainly by women aged 26 to 65 (average age 46) in households averaging five members, who typically have secondary education or less, limiting job opportunities and leading them to combine domestic work with urban production for income. Immigration has driven the expansion of urban agriculture by drawing on prior knowledge; many families have more than 10 years of experience and manage gardens of 3 to 50 m2, using solar tents and agroecological methods, with most having access to drinking water and some collecting rainwater, and sales taking place at local fairs generating additional income. However, sustainability indices show that these production systems have very low or unsustainable levels across their economic, environmental and social dimensions, indicating a need for strategies to strengthen their long-term viability.

Bal Krishna Joshi · Genetics Plant Breeding and Seed Science · Global

A paper documenting good practices for food systems transformation using a ROSE (review, observation, survey, and experience) approach, framing the food system as encompassing six key components: crops, livestock, agro-insects, agro-microbes, forages, and aquatic agricultural genetic resources (AGRs). It notes that efforts to increase yield have relied on developing and expanding mono genotypes — single uniform genotypes across large areas — of a few crops such as rice, wheat, and maize with chemical inputs, but that as agriculture has advanced, many localized AGR-based food systems and farmers' rights have been neglected. Promoting and maximizing genetic diversity and localized food systems is described as crucial for food, nutrition, health, business, and environmental security. Effective food systems are characterized by site-specific staple foods, diverse genotypes, product diversification, incentives, circular and inclusive agriculture, waste reuse and recycling, and urban agriculture. The paper suggests that respecting every aspect of farmers' contributions — treating a farmer's household as a "shop" — would be a beneficial strategy.

Elizabeth Opiyo Onyango, Destiny Otoadese, Keji Mori, Nkechinyere Chinedu-Asogwa, Joyce Kiplagat, Binita Jirel · Health & Place · Global

A scoping review of existing literature examined how community gardens are used to address cultural food insecurity among immigrant and refugee communities and the neighborhood transformations that accompany them. It identified physical, social, cultural, environmental, and policy-level changes and benefits spanning nutrition, physical activity, psychological healing, and social connection, but found a lack of comprehensive evidence specifically on Canada regarding how neighborhoods are changing to meet these communities' cultural food needs.

Grace O’Connor, Kimberley Reis, Georgette Leah Burns, Cheryl Desha, Ingrid Burkett · Journal of Rural Studies · Australia

Researchers investigated the lived experiences of 24 small-scale farmers across 16 ecologically sustainable farms in South-East Queensland and the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, examining how their experiences shaped participation in societal transitions to sustainable food systems and contributions to social-ecological resilience. Participants' narratives largely aligned with the "new peasantry" movement, and the paper uses a lens of collective autonomy to discuss how shared responsibility between individuals, communities, organizations, and governments could be reperceived through collective paradigm shifts, community-supported agriculture, and universal basic income.

Lori G. Beaman, Ryan T. Cragun, Douglas Ezzy · · Global

This concluding book chapter, drawing on interviews with community gardeners, reviews the themes of equality and substantiality in what community gardeners can tell us about nonreligion. It argues that community gardeners have a deep awareness of their entanglement with other terrestrial beings — humans, animals, insects, and plants — leading them into a distinct form of ethical engagement driven primarily by relationships and practices rather than by intellectual commitment to abstract norms (though these can sometimes be significant, citing Ezzy 2004). Nonreligion is characterized as being less about the absence of religion and more about substantive content — commitments, practices, and relationships — and the chapter argues that the concept of "lifestances" is the best way to conceptualize this substantive content, and that the religion/nonreligion binary must be transcended to understand humans as entangled in a network of terrestrial relationships.

B Sreejith, B Maneesh · South Asian Journal of Agricultural Sciences · Global

Set against challenges to social equity, ecological balance, and global food availability from population growth and rapid urbanization, this review paper surveys existing literature linking urban agriculture to multiple Sustainable Development Goals — including poverty eradication, ending hunger, health and well-being, gender equality, economic growth and employment, inclusive urban development, sustainable consumption and production, climate action, land ecosystems, and global partnerships — and discusses policy implications for India. It compiles prior findings associating urban agriculture with locally grown food supply, resource optimization and emissions reduction through urban forestry, rooftop gardens and vertical farming, reduced food miles, and education, skill-building and community participation opportunities including for women and youth. The paper presents no original empirical data of its own.