Research & reports

Paul Knox Clarke · Ulster University Research Portal (Ulster University) · Global

This is a review of the AD special edition focusing on the relationship between food, the city, and urbanism. It discusses concepts such as markets, community gardens, Asian cities, food mapping, and historical precedents.

Ángela Borroto, Águeda C. Arencibia, J.L. López, Liliam J. Leyva, Carlos Mazorra, Gladys E. Dopico, R. Maurelo, A. Caraballoso · Pastos y forrajes · Cuba (Florencia)

This two-year study characterized animal production in urban agriculture in Florencia municipality, Cuba, by examining 32 randomly selected household backyards across two popular councils. Findings showed that 85% of households involved family members of all ages, with backyard animal rearing serving as a supplementary activity rather than a primary livelihood. Traditional management methods and local resources predominated in feeding practices, contributing 18% to the municipal family basket's protein needs and over 1 kg of protein per capita annually, thus potentially enhancing food security.

Alice J. Hovorka, Damell Smith, R. van Veenhuizen · · Global

This article argues that a gendered perspective on urban food security is essential to understand dynamics shaping food production and marketing in urban centers. It highlights that failing to explore women's distinct roles risks leaving gender inequities and food supply hindrances unaddressed, countering the invisibility of women's work often assumed as automatic domestic duties. The article emphasizes women's significant role in domestic food supply, even in societies with minimal household food production, citing examples like Latin American women organizing to address urban hunger.

Kigumure Buhindwa · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Rwanda (Kigali)

This study investigated malaria prevention activities in Kigali community gardens, Rwanda, through Community Health Volunteers (CHVs). A mixed-method approach, combining qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys, collected data on CHV activities and health outcomes. CHVs conducted weekly health screenings, reaching approximately 80% of the targeted population, and malaria prevalence dropped by 25% after six months. However, challenges included limited resources and inadequate training for CHVs, indicating that sustained support and additional training are necessary for long-term impact.

Astrid Mendez, Paulo Cseri Ricardo, P Jeny Pérez, Callejas Hernández, Osvaldo Campos · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Cuba

This introductory study in Arroyo Naranjo municipality, Cuba, examined the use of Luyanó effluent wastewater for irrigation in urban agriculture. The wastewater was classified as low contamination based on BOD5 and COD values and posed no toxic contamination risk to soil or environment. However, it should not be used without prior treatment for direct consumption crops due to its microbial load. Experimental plots with carrot, radish, and marigold showed high agricultural yields, and radish harvests had no bacterial contamination.

Marielle Dubbeling, Gunther Merzthal, R. van Veenhuizen · · Global

Urban agriculture is a dynamic concept encompassing diverse production, processing, and marketing systems for food and non-food products. It operates within varied resource situations, including both scarce and abundant land or water, and under policy environments that can either hinder or support its development.

Loracnis Hernández · Cultivos Tropicales · Cuba

This study reviews the emergence and development of urban agriculture worldwide and in Cuba, aiming to solve problems related to increasing quality of life and food security in growing cities. It also delves into participatory methodologies to characterize and train rural communities on topics related to the technological management of their productive systems and how to enhance the use of agricultural biodiversity.

장동헌, 소순열, 유찬주 · 지역사회연구 · Global

This study investigated urban residents' perceptions of urban agriculture and their willingness to pay for its conservation. Residents prioritized urban agriculture's value as a landscape green zone and for intergenerational inheritance. Regarding conservation, more respondents favored using urban agriculture for other purposes through external expansion, preferring environmentally friendly development via experience programs. The willingness to pay a fund for urban agriculture conservation was 39.6%, with an estimated monthly average of 2,623 won per household.

Marcelo Salgado, Sabrina Cáceres, Marta Basuino, Nora Gancedo, Claudio Vizia, Sebastián Rodríguez, Laura Gurría · Revista INVI · Argentina (Rosario)

This paper focuses on social housing projects connected with productive undertakings for low-income sectors in Rosario, Argentina, developed through the articulation of various social actors. Productive initiatives, supported by municipal organisms, emerged to alleviate unemployment due to the past decade's crisis and poverty in slums. The research is oriented to formulate recommendations for the participating management of social housing and its articulation with productive undertakings.

James T Larson · Arboricultural Journal · Global

This comparative study explores the benefits and key features of German allotment gardens and American community gardens, with a view to their possible implementation into inner city derelict and brownfield regeneration in the UK and other countries. The study considers whether community gardens have a role in helping to create sustainable communities that positively impact the negative social, economic, and environmental issues associated with derelict sites in inner city neighborhoods.

M. García de Souza, J. Álvarez, J. P. Dieste, M. Rachetti · Agrociencia · Uruguay (Montevideo)

The first census of urban gardens in the Montevideo metropolitan area was conducted in early 2004, revealing that residents initiated gardens in response to economic and social crises. The findings indicated that most ventures were family-organized, triggered by the 2002 crisis, and primarily aimed at self-consumption. Community ventures by non-family groups were also identified, and while productive practices showed strengths like high biodiversity and self-produced seeds/organic fertilizer use, unresolved issues included poor equipment, precarious land tenure, and lack of irrigation water sources.

최영애, Deamim Oh, Youjin Jang, 윤수희, 허북구 · · Global

This study aimed to develop a leader training program for activating community gardens, which are seen as an alternative to contemporary societal issues. While community gardens have been successfully utilized in Germany, the U.K., and the U.S.A., attempts at settlement in Korea have failed. The developed program focuses on horticultural information and practical experience, recognizing participation and conversation as key factors for success.

Emma Lea, Jodi Phillips, Madeleine Ward, Anthony Worsley · Ecology of Food and Nutrition · Australia (Victoria)

This qualitative study interviewed 20 consumers and 12 farmers in Victoria, Australia, to examine their knowledge, perceived benefits, and barriers regarding Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). The study found that knowledge of CSA was limited among both groups. Consumers perceived fresh food as a benefit but cited lack of produce choice as a barrier, while farmers saw financial benefits but were concerned about risk-sharing.

Loracnis Hernández · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global

This work examines how urban agriculture emerged and developed globally and in Cuba, and how it can be a primary means to solve problems related to increasing quality of life and food security in cities. It also aims to deepen participatory methods as tools to characterize and train rural communities on the technological management of their productive systems and how to enhance agricultural biodiversity utilization.

Christine King · Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of the ISSS - 2006, Sonoma, CA, USA · Global

This paper reports on research exploring how alternative agricultural approaches, such as Organic Agriculture, Biodynamics, Permaculture, CSAs, Farmers Markets, and Community Gardens, contribute to more resilient agri-ecological systems and communities. These systems are reviewed in relation to key concepts from ecological systems thinking, including ecological resilience, biodiversity, and holism. The paper discusses how these systems contribute to more sustainable and resilient communities through community development processes like relationship building, genuine participation, inclusiveness, resource mobilization, and creating space for knowledge sharing.

André Mfoukou-Ntsakala, Michel Bitémo, Niko Speybroeck, Guido Van Huylenbroeck, É. Thys · Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) · Congo (Brazzaville)

This study analyzed the technical and socio-economic specificities of urban agriculture and its role in household subsistence in a post-conflict region in Central Africa. It was based on a 2002 survey of 710 randomly selected households in Brazzaville, Congo. About one-third of Brazzaville households engage in urban agriculture, with 29.5% in crop production and 8.8% in animal production, predominantly aviculture. The 1997 conflict negatively impacted urban agricultural production, especially animal production, and urban agriculture is dominated by subsistence and poor households. While crop production is mainly for subsistence, animal production is more income-driven, and constraints like input provision, theft, and soil degradation limit productivity.

Thomas Cousins · The International Journal of African Historical Studies · Tanzania (Mwanza)

Karen Coen Flynn's ethnography of Mwanza, Tanzania, explores experiences of deprivation and survival strategies, including urban farming, in this rapidly expanding city. Using a large number of qualitative interviews, the study examines changing consumption patterns, household organization of labor and kinship regarding food, and the gendered character of household labor. It also considers how street children and adults secure survival, presenting a typology of survival strategies.

Duk‐Byeong Park, Sang-Duk Lee, Hye-Hyun Lee, Min‐Soo Lee, Myun-Ju Jang · Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning · Global

This study explored the situation and implications of allotment gardens through case studies of Kleingarten in Germany, Dacha in Russia, and Civic Garden in Japan. Allotment gardens were shown to be important for urban residents to gain recreation and health from agricultural activities. While allotment gardens in the three countries developed according to their historical and social contexts, their basic rationales were to provide recreation areas for supporting people's health and preserving green spaces in urban areas.

Mengjie Xu · Urban Problems · Global

This paper summarizes the types and characteristics of urban agriculture (UA) in less developed countries (LDCs), distinguishing it from UA in developed countries. It elucidates both the positive and negative effects of UA in LDCs, including impediments arising from its negative impacts. The study discusses the necessity of developing UA in LDCs and details measures to regulate its development, highlighting governance challenges.

Alice Franck · Revue internationale des études du développement · Sudan

This study of market gardeners in Khartoum, Sudan, reveals limitations in the integrating capacity of urban agriculture. Uncontrolled urbanization in the capital creates intense competition for property, restricting the potential integration of farm-workers in the downtown area. This activity is strictly commercial and primarily carried out by a migrant population.

Ángela Borroto, Águeda C. Arencibia, J.L. López, Liliam J. Leyva, Carlos Mazorra, Gladys E. Dopico, R. Maurelo, A. Caraballoso · Redalyc (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México) · Cuba

A study in Primero de Enero municipality, Ciego de Ávila province, Cuba, surveyed 19 backyard livestock producers participating in the National Urban Agriculture Program across three local council districts over two years. Ninety percent of producers received family support as a supplementary rather than primary livelihood, and 60% combined this with fixed state-sector jobs. Only 22% were organized or linked to receive training or technology transfer; average rearing experience was three years and average age was 49, with 63% wage workers, 18% retirees and 12.5% housewives. Production results were described as favorable, but practical adoption of more efficient, sustainable rearing methods was not found.

Alice Franck · Revue internationale des études du développement · Sudan

A study of market gardeners in Khartoum, Sudan, sheds light on thinking about the integrating capacity of urban agriculture. The uncontrolled urbanization now under way in the Sudanese capital is causing unprecedented competition for property, pointing to limits on the potential integration of these farm-workers in the downtown area. The fact that this activity is strictly commercial and carried out mainly by a migrant population makes the analysis more notable still.

Regina Day Langhout · American Journal of Community Psychology · Global

A paper examining how a younger white female graduate student and an African American female undergraduate student differently understood the relationship between the graduate student and older, working-class African American women, formed around a community garden project. The graduate student framed the relationship around shared gender and class background, while the undergraduate framed it around racial difference and unexamined white privilege. The paper challenges both interpretations as unidimensional, raises questions about why researchers rarely situate themselves through their identities, and argues that reflexivity is essential to community psychology research.

Heather Mair · Leisure/Loisir · Global

This theoretical paper examines the potential for community development to serve as a vehicle for politics, resistance, and social change, arguing that change-oriented efforts — from community-led initiatives limiting "big box store" encroachment to community-supported agriculture and new forms of media — create important opportunities for public dialogue about, and expression of, power, equality, and democracy. It explores reconsidering the spaces where politically oriented leisure activities occur through the concepts of deep democracy, social learning, empowerment, and resistance. Drawing on Shaw (2000), the author argues that examining these community-led struggles counters the view of leisure as increasingly bound up in individualized, consumption-oriented activity, and can deepen leisure studies by recognizing, understanding, and validating its political nature.

Gordon Prain, R. van Veenhuizen · · Global

The production of food, feed, fuel, and construction material in and around cities is almost as old as human settlement itself: the earliest cities of the Fertile Crescent, China, and South and Central America show evidence of local food production that served as an essential component of urban food security in times of conflict. The available abstract text ends at this historical framing and does not describe the specific participatory technology development methods or results referenced in the title.