Research & reports

· Wikipedia (スペイン語) · Cuba

This Spanish-language Wikipedia article on Cuba's 'Special Period' states GDP contracted 36% between 1990 and 1993 following the Soviet collapse, and daily caloric intake fell from 2,845 kcal in 1989 to 1,863 kcal in 1994, below the recommended minimum of 2,100-2,300 kcal. Loss of access to Soviet oil drove a shift to permaculture and organic agriculture (the rise of organopónicos) with help from international technicians. Recovery began in 1994, with GDP reaching 1990 levels again by 2007.

Global Network of Lighthouse Farms (Wageningen University & Research) · Global Network of Lighthouse Farms (Wageningen University & Research) · Cuba

This profile of Organopónico Vivero Alamar from Wageningen University's Global Network of Lighthouse Farms describes a UBPC (Basic Unit of Cooperative Production) founded in 1997 by 5 cooperative members, starting as an 800 sqm manually irrigated tree nursery. It has since grown to 10.14 ha with 150 cooperative members, 42 of them women, including nurseries, a 0.45 ha greenhouse, a rustic lab for breeding entomopathogens, a mycorrhizal fungi propagation center, and small-scale fruit and vegetable processing facilities. The page notes the farm has had to close due to COVID-19-related economic hardship and wildfires.

· Wikipedia · Global

The URL for 'Peak phosphorus' now redirects to the Reserves section of Wikipedia's 'Phosphorus' article. Per a 2023 USGS estimate, world commercially extractable phosphate rock reserves are 72 billion tons, against 2022 world mining production of 220 million tons — implying roughly 300 years of supply at zero growth. Before new deposits were discovered in Norway in 2023, Earth's commercially affordable phosphorus reserves were expected to be depleted in 50-100 years. Reserve estimates are described as contested: a 2010 IFDC report is criticized by a 2014 review as presenting 'an inflated picture of global reserves,' particularly for Morocco, where largely hypothetical and inferred resources were simply relabeled 'reserves.' The article also states that a shortage in rock phosphate or significant price increases might negatively affect world food security. Mitigation measures cited include reducing agricultural runoff (no-till farming, contour tilling, windbreaks), incinerating phosphorus-rich sewage sludge and recovering the ash, and recovering phosphorus-rich materials such as struvite from waste — though current recovery technologies are described as not yet cost-effective given phosphorus market prices.

· Wikipedia · Global

This Wikipedia article on 'metabolic rift' explains that German agricultural chemist Justus von Liebig, in his 1840 'Organic Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology,' argued that if all solid and liquid excreta of city inhabitants were returned to farmers, land productivity could be maintained for centuries virtually unimpaired. Marx, combining his understanding of the labor process with Liebig's analysis, wrote in Capital Vol. 1 that capitalist production, by concentrating population in cities, 'disturbs the metabolic interaction between man and the earth' and prevents the return of soil constituents consumed by humans as food and clothing — defining this as 'an irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism.' John Bellamy Foster, in his 2000 book 'Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature,' reassessed Marx's ecological perspective, arguing the metabolic rift concept enabled the development of a critique of environmental degradation. The article notes that as food and fiber were transported over long distances, soil nutrients moved to cities as agricultural produce but were not returned as human and animal waste, producing 'a one-way flow of materials' — a plundering of the soil to sustain society's reproduction.

· Wikipedia · Japan

This Wikipedia article on night soil describes how, in the city of Edo, compost merchants gathered feces to sell to farmers, and that human excreta of rich people were sold at higher prices because their better diet presumably left more nutrients in it. Various historic documents detailing toilet-waste disposal procedures date from as early as the 9th century. The article states that after World War II the practice declined rapidly due to sanitation concerns and the spread of chemical fertilizer, and that today less than 1% of human waste is used for night soil fertilization.

· Wikipedia (English) · Singapore

English Wikipedia entry on agriculture in Singapore. The country imports about 90% of its food. The 2019 'Singapore 30 by 30' goal (30% of nutritional needs grown locally by 2030) was revised in November 2025 into a new target of 20% for produce like leafy vegetables and 30% for protein (including seafood and eggs) by 2035. As of 2024, there were 225 farms (153 land-based, 72 sea-based) with total production value of S$231 million.

· Wikipedia (English) · Singapore

English Wikipedia entry on the Singapore Food Agency, established on 1 April 2019, consolidating the food-related functions of the former Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) along with parts of the National Environment Agency and Health Sciences Authority. The '30 by 30' goal — raising home-grown food from 10% to 30% of nutritional needs by 2030 — was announced on 8 March 2019, and was revised again in 2025.

· Wikipedia · Singapore

This Wikipedia article on food security in Singapore states that about 90 percent of the country's food comes from overseas imports, and that the government set the '30 by 30' goal to produce 30% of its nutritional needs locally by 2030. It further states new targets for 2035 to produce 20 per cent of the country's fibre consumption and 30 per cent of protein consumption (eggs and seafood) domestically, and that as of 2024 eight per cent of fibre and 26 per cent of protein consumed in Singapore was produced domestically.

· Wikipedia · Singapore

This Wikipedia article on Lim Chu Kang, a 17.3 km2 area in Singapore's North Region, describes it as the nation's main agricultural zone, housing a diverse range of farms engaged in food production, aquaculture, and agri-technology. Approximately 62 farms operated in the western part before being cleared progressively from April 2020 to December 2022 for military development. As of 2025 the area had a population of only 30, one of Singapore's least populated planning areas.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) · FAO · Global

An overview of FAO's 'City Region Food Systems' (CRFS) approach under its Food for the Cities Programme, which frames all actors, processes and relationships involved in producing, processing, distributing and consuming food as linking urban centres with their surrounding rural and peri-urban areas, aiming to improve economic, social and environmental sustainability with an emphasis on supporting local government policy shifts.

Keep Growing Detroit · Keep Growing Detroit · United States

The official site of Keep Growing Detroit, an urban agriculture organization aiming for food sovereignty in which most fruits and vegetables consumed by Detroiters are grown within the city. It runs the Garden Resource Program, education series on topics like beekeeping and carpentry, and an online farm store, Grown in Detroit.

Kremer, Peleg, Borowiak, Craig, Scolio, Madeline · Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development · 米国（ペンシルベニア州フィラデルフィア）

US community gardens embody a conundrum: vital to community well-being and integral to urban social infrastructure, yet profoundly vulnerable through insecure land tenure, fragmented policy support and systemic disinvestment. This reflective essay examines the Philadelphia Garden Data Collaborative (PGDC), a multistakeholder initiative documenting, protecting and advocating for community-managed green space, from the authors' position as participant researchers. It traces the shift from grassroots mapping to coordinated data stewardship, which enabled both emergency interventions (such as preventing sheriff-sale evictions) and long-term preservation strategies, and examines the ethical dilemmas of collecting sensitive community data where bureaucratic neglect has rendered gardens invisible and where visibility can expose them to new risks. It concludes that data can strengthen advocacy and inform policy, but must be coupled with secure tenure mechanisms and sustained public investment.

· Wikipedia (Deutsch) · Germany

The article on the VKSK, East Germany's national allotment organisation. Founded in Leipzig on 29 November 1959, it held the exclusive right to establish allotment sites. Membership stood at about 850,000 in 1962 and reached roughly 1.5 million by 1988. An extraordinary congress on 27 October 1990 resolved to dissolve the body with effect from 31 December 1990, and its gardeners and clubs passed into the all-German federation that followed.

· Wikipedia (English) · Germany

The article on the German food crisis of 1916–17 during the First World War. It states that the Allied blockade reduced food supplies by 33 per cent and that the civilian diet fell to 1,560 calories a day by the summer of 1917 and to 1,000 calories a day in winter, against the 3,000 calories said to be needed by a healthy adult male. The name comes from the substitution of fodder swedes (turnips) for the failed potato crop. Female mortality is given as rising 11.5 per cent in 1916 and 30 per cent in 1917 against pre-war rates, and the historian G. J. Meyer is cited, quoting a Berlin physician, for the claim that eighty thousand children died of starvation in 1916. The historian Avner Offer is cited for the estimate that one-fifth to one-third of food could be obtained only through illegal channels.

FOVIDA - Fomento de la Vida · FOVIDA (Fomento de la Vida) · Peru

Peruvian NGO FOVIDA (Fomento de la Vida) reported on 11 May 2026 on an award ceremony held 30 April 2026 in Lima Sur (Villa María del Triunfo, Villa El Salvador and San Juan de Miraflores), where more than 30 urban agriculture experiences were recognized through a photo and video contest highlighting home, school and community gardens' contributions to food security and climate resilience. Winner Victoria Arce Arguedas stated that "90% of those of us who participate in the gardens are women," while fellow winner Odilia Delgado said gardening has been a major boost to the mental health of older adults like herself.

Aguiari I. · Agriculture and Human Values · イタリア

Debates on food and agriculture have long noted the depoliticising pull of neoliberal governance, technocratic regulation and consumer-oriented solutions. Collective action in grassroots agrifood initiatives is well studied, but how politicisation actually emerges is not. Treating the political as an ever-present dimension of social relations, the author uses political semiotics to trace how politicisation and depoliticisation unfold in everyday communication, drawing on participatory mind-mapping workshops co-created with three community agriculture initiatives in Italy. Politicisation is encouraged where relational interaction, contextual interpretation, symbolic expression and an orientation toward collective action reinforce one another.

Nkrumah B. · Urban Science · アフリカ（都市部・系統的レビュー）

A systematic review of the irony between abundant arable land and persistent hunger in African cities. It asks why a disproportionate share of urban residents do not produce their own food, even as food insecurity rises with heavy reliance on market-bought food, high poverty and rapid urbanisation, screening peer-reviewed literature via PRISMA and five inclusion benchmarks to clarify the debate on low uptake of urban agriculture.

Noxolo B.M., Kanosvamhira T.P. · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · 南アフリカ・ケープタウン（低所得地区）

Surveys and interviews assess whether hydroponics, of interest because dense settlements leave little space, is actually viable in Cape Town's low-income urban areas — deliberately supplementing a literature skewed towards Global North cities. Farmers perceive benefits in improved yields, water conservation and efficient land use, all valuable in a water-scarce, space-constrained city, but high setup costs and limited government support remain significant obstacles. Drawing on urban political ecology, the paper argues these financial and institutional barriers are rooted in historically produced inequality and ongoing capitalist dynamics of urban development. It concludes that while hydroponics has potential as a sustainable alternative, its high costs hinder broader applicability, and it is not yet a viable large-scale route to food security where resources are unequally distributed; supporting actors must first address financial feasibility and local expertise.

Kanosvamhira T.P., Magidi M. · International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability · 南アフリカ・ケープタウン／ジンバブエ・ノートン

A qualitative case study comparing the motivations, operational dynamics, land access challenges and legislative contexts of urban agriculture in two contrasting cities — Cape Town (South Africa) and Norton (Zimbabwe) — through stakeholder interviews and policy analysis, guided by social capital theory. In Cape Town urban agriculture is semi-institutionalised, backed by governmental and civil society actors and framed within wider food justice and community development agendas, yet practitioners face significant constraints from land access, urban policy fragmentation and competition over space. In Norton it is largely informal, a survivalist response to persistent socio-economic hardship with minimal formal support but relatively flexible regulation, where land-tenure insecurity and the threat of eviction are the pressing concerns. The paper argues that context-specific legislative frameworks, secure land rights and inclusive urban planning are the enabling conditions, situating urban agriculture within debates on land governance and urban informality.

Kissoly L. · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · タンザニア・ダルエスサラーム

An exploratory qualitative case study and policy analysis of urban agriculture's current landscape and possible futures in rapidly urbanizing Dar es Salaam, drawing on targeted literature and document review, a policy and regulatory scan, and 52 key informant interviews with municipal actors, urban farmers and food-system practitioners conducted between April and September 2025. Urban agriculture is valued for household food supplementation, small-scale income and fresh-food provisioning through short-cycle vegetable production close to consumers, but remains shaped by tolerated informality, insecure land access, fragmented regulation, contamination risks, weak institutional coordination and pressure on peri-urban land. Five evidence-informed trajectories are proposed — managed river-corridor cultivation; sacks, buckets and roofs for dense-ward micro-production; institutional land clusters; peri-urban foodshed belts with circular-resource hubs; and small-scale aquaculture with insect-based feed — presented explicitly not as tested feasibility models but as differentiated options requiring further technical, environmental, spatial and economic assessment. The paper argues the future depends not on a single large-scale model but on risk-sensitive, institutionally grounded forms of support.

Annamaria Alabiso, Giorgio Buratti, Fiammetta Costa, Matteo Meraviglia, Luciana Migliore, Attilio Nebuloni · · Global

A transdisciplinary research project investigated reusing treated kitchen wastewater for irrigating edible vegetable production in households. The project developed a prototype with an engineered biological filter to reuse dishwasher wastewater for growing vegetables and ornamental plants for domestic use. This approach aims to reduce water and fertilizer consumption, enabling the production of healthy, safe, and local food.

Maria de Nazareth Oliveira Maciel, Luann Yago Oliveira Maciel · Aracê. · Global

This descriptive review study examined whether urban agriculture aligns with SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) of Agenda 2030 and generates social benefits for producers, analyzing articles published from 2019 to 2022 from Scielo, Scopus, and Web of Science databases. The results showed that urban agriculture aligns with SDG 12, generating ten main social benefits, including improved quality of life, social inclusion, food security, and promotion of mental and physical health.

Kassa Moges Tareke · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Ethiopia (Addis Ababa)

This study examined the impact of conditional cash transfers (CTs) from a safety net program on financial inclusion, urban agriculture participation, and food security among 278 women beneficiaries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, since 2017. After receiving CTs, 94% of respondents owned bank accounts and participated in urban agriculture as an additional income source, improving access to savings, credit, mobile banking, financial advice, and farm incomes. However, 61.5% (171) of women households were food insecure, indicating that while the program moderately improved financial inclusion and slightly increased food-secured women, its overall contribution to food security remains inadequate.

Chua Siu Ting, Hazreena Hussein · Journal of Surveying Construction & Property · Malaysia (Port Dickson)

This study explored residents' perceptions of social spaces in Port Dickson, Malaysia, during the COVID-19 pandemic, using a mixed-method approach combining photographic documentation and a questionnaire survey. The majority of respondents experienced significant stress during the pandemic due to anxiety, job loss, and livelihood challenges, emphasizing the importance of effective space allocation and varied options within residential neighborhoods. These findings imply that strategically designed social spaces and zoning practices are key to developing self-sufficient communities in residential areas.

Paul Β. Thompson · · Global

This article discusses urban agriculture, noting that the decline of grocery stores in inner cities and projected vulnerabilities in megacities outside the global West suggest distinct moral imperatives. It contrasts urban agriculture with rural resilience and sustainable intensification, highlighting its focus on consumption and present needs. The article describes two urban agriculture archetypes: one embracing high-tech solutions and another emphasizing local solidarities and urban-based control over the food system.