Research & reports

H. Renting · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Europe

This contribution highlights a growing research interest in urban and peri-urban agriculture and related public policies, particularly within Europe and internationally. It presents major European research projects and relevant recent international conferences focusing on urban and peri-urban agriculture. The paper outlines proposed debate topics and analytical approaches used in these initiatives.

John Ikerd · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Global

Cooperation is presented as a key concept in the sustainability movement, particularly in food systems, as a response to economic competition. Food-related cooperatives include various models like regional food hubs and CSAs. While cooperation is vital, the text also acknowledges the human tendency to compete, arguing that unrestrained competition is unsustainable.

Nicole C. List · EchoGéo · Senegal (Pikine)

Based on fieldwork in Pikine, a rapidly urbanized city in Senegal's Dakar region, two interconnected conflict cases concerning the development of urban agricultural land for middle-class and elite housing were analyzed. The analysis indicates that public and private actors, including producers, traditional authorities, real estate developers, and local/central government officials, are abandoning old forms of governance in favor of "territorial alliances" to promote their own urban development projects. These alliances lead to new relationships between local/central government members and civil society, impacting urban Senegal's land registry, property rights, and public infrastructure.

Laure Emperaire, Ludivine Eloy · Bulletin of Latin American Research · Brazil (Rio Negro)

Indigenous agricultural systems in the periurban Rio Negro, Amazonas, Brazil, have transposed from forest contexts to periurban areas, maintaining multi-plot cultivation and traditional knowledge. However, this agriculture faces challenges from modern urban agriculture values. Its ecological and cultural relevance relies on new market integration and partnerships.

Pascale Joassart‐Marcelli, Fernando J. Bosco · Métropoles · United States (California)

This article explores the growth of local food practices in urban southern California, focusing on farmers' markets. While alternative food initiatives like farmers' markets are often seen as resistance to capitalist pressures, this research provides evidence that they have become increasingly popular among affluent and white urban residents. This finding challenges the claim that local food fosters democracy and justice, indicating that these initiatives can reproduce neoliberal urban agendas and reshape cities along lines of race and class.

Mr Frank Lewis · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Uganda (Kampala)

This study investigated urban agriculture best practices in Kampala's suburbs, Uganda, employing semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with local farmers, government officials, and community leaders. It found that urban agriculture is critical for food security and community cohesion, with women constituting over 70% of participants in surveyed households and making vital contributions.

Neil Harris, Fiona Nicole Rowe Minniss, Shawn Somerset · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · Global

A cross-sectional study conducted semi-structured interviews with twelve African humanitarian migrants participating in a campus-based community food garden. The study explored how involvement in the garden supported their connectedness with their new country. Thematic analysis revealed three important benefits: land tenure, reconnecting with agriculture, and community belonging.

Nobuhle Sebata, Clifford Mabhena, Mkhokheli Sithole · IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science · Zimbabwe

A qualitative study in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, using data from 30 women, 5 key informant interviews, and 2 focus groups, examined urban agriculture's role in women's poverty resilience. While urban agriculture significantly improved food availability and access, its nutritional contribution was low due to a focus on maize, and income generation remained very low due to subsistence production.

陈永欣 · 大众标准化 · China

With the development of the national economy and scientific progress, people's dietary structures have significantly changed, shifting towards nutritious and healthy food. Waxy corn is highly nutritious, sweet, sticky, and possesses a unique flavor, making it widely popular. In recent years, the cultivation of waxy corn, sales of fresh ears, preservation processing, off-season sales, and year-round market supply have garnered significant attention. Consequently, its planting area has expanded annually, and processing factories have increased, establishing it as an emerging urban agriculture.

Pierrette Hondagneu‐Sotelo · · United States (Los Angeles)

This chapter focuses on life in urban community gardens in Los Angeles, United States. Here, the poorest and most marginalized newcomer immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, gather to grow homeland vegetables, share community ties, and build new places of belonging. They transform discarded urban patches into oases of freedom, belonging, and homeland connection, producing bountiful vegetables and vibrant community connections.

Kizito K. Mwajombe · · Tanzania

This study investigated urban agriculture (UA) produce marketing in three Tanzanian municipalities. Findings showed UA farmers lacked pre-arranged contracts with buyers, limiting their marketing, and faced problems including poor packaging, bylaws, taxes, and difficulty meeting consumer preferences. Farmers also lacked direct links to retail and consumer units like supermarkets.

· Hart Publishing eBooks · United Kingdom (England and Wales)

This paper explores the phenomenon of people in England and Wales returning to the land for various food-growing projects, including over 1,000 community gardens and 82 school farms. It examines the legal frameworks regulating these diverse projects and finds that the legal framework is fragmented, poorly signposted, and often absent, with projects sometimes depending entirely on landowner goodwill. The study concludes that there is little coherency in the law regarding these initiatives.

Jonathan Crush · · Global

Cities in the global South face a deepening crisis of food inaccessibility, characterized by food poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. This urban crisis is largely invisible to policy and research communities, with less attention given to urban food security than in the 1990s. Urban agriculture is the only aspect of urban food security receiving significant attention, though it is improbably seen as the key to achieving food security in these cities.

Brînduşa Bîrhală, Judith Möllers, Bîrhală, Brînduşa, Möllers, Judith · 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia · Romania

This study investigates Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Romania as a viable rural innovation for small-scale farms and consumers. Based on three case studies of pioneering CSA farmers in Western Romania, the research found that consumers are motivated by value-based considerations like healthy diets, while farmers find CSA attractive for price premiums and market access. Both farmers and consumers engage in CSA partnerships to compensate for market failures.

장진, 오충현, 권혁문, 최윤정 · 한국환경생태학회 학술발표논문집 · South Korea (Seoul)

This study analyzed the case of the "Haengbokjungsim Yongsan Consumer Cooperative" (Yongsan Cooperative) in Hyochang-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, to provide basic data for policies activating the social economy related to urban agriculture. A survey was conducted among 100 cooperative members from October 15 to November 30, 2013, for 45 days, complemented by literature reviews, field surveys, interviews, and GIS analysis. The findings indicated that 83% of members were women aged 30-40, 4-person households constituted 49%, and the cumulative membership reached 1,027 by December 2013.

Sarah Himmelheber · Journal of Progressive Human Services · United States

This study discusses incongruities between social work's professional values and dominant public and private responses to food insecurity. Empowerment theory is positioned as an evaluative lens to examine food assistance, and dominant forms of food assistance are scrutinized using its basic tenets. Innovative programs, including community gardens, community kitchens, and D.C. Central Kitchen, are highlighted for their potential to yield empowering outcomes.

Benjamin Drury, Renee Laliberte, Jared Watson, Connor Wilgress · Digital WPI · United States (Worcester)

The city of Worcester, MA, faces health issues due to economic instability and low access to affordable healthy food. While urban farming has the potential to address these problems, the city lacks an effective policy.

Monica Mwuese Atagher, Abraham VER, Akor Apollos · IOSR Journal of Agriculture and Veterinary Science · Nigeria

This study assessed the contribution of urban crop production to socioeconomic development in Benue State, Nigeria, by surveying 210 urban crop farmers across three towns. Most farmers were educated, married, and used urban agriculture to supplement food and income. Regression analysis showed that farm size, fertilizer amount, and quantity of seeds were significant determinants of output and productivity.

Gregory Mintz, Phil McManus · Australian Geographer · Australia (Sydney)

This research in Sydney, Australia, evaluates and compares the quality of community garden policies with the distribution of community gardens across local councils and broader geographic regions. It identifies areas that could benefit from increased access to community gardens and discusses ways for councils and the Sydney Region to improve their policies. The study aims to determine what elements community garden policies should contain to best promote these gardens and their benefits.

Katherine Luke · D-Scholarship@Pitt (University of Pittsburgh) · United States (Pittsburgh)

This study used a door-to-door survey in six Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhoods to measure the impact of community gardens on residents' perceptions of food access. It found that many gardeners do not consider gardening to improve their personal food security, and despite geographic proximity and expressed interest, community garden participation rates were low. Social and emotional barriers, including lack of gardening knowledge and racial prejudice, appeared to prevent residents from becoming active participants.

Cristina Connolly, H. Allen Klaiber · American Journal of Agricultural Economics · United States

This study used a hedonic model with firm-level prices and CSA characteristics from 453 CSA farms in Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania during the summer 2012 growing season to value CSA attributes. Results showed a price premium of approximately 7% for USDA organic certification, though this varied by state, but no premium for competing certified naturally grown programs. CSA farms exhibited little market power and appeared to act competitively.

Chiara Tornaghi, Barbara Van Dyck · Local Environment · United Kingdom

This paper explores the "spheres of influence" and contradictions that shaped the trajectory of the Edible Public Space project in Leeds, UK, drawing on the authors' personal experience. It analyzes the dynamics and contradictions at play in the formation of an urban gardening group stemming from scholarly and committed action ambitions. The study focuses on the role of spatial interventions in fostering social innovation in the public food and land agenda, aiming to capture learning elements for scholarly activism, political gardening, and radical urbanism.

Jean Lagane · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · France

This paper examines the challenges of food provisioning in Marseille due to global food networks and environmental issues like global warming and metropolization. A three-year ethnographic study of the "Marche du Cours Julien" in Marseille explored how citizens revived local farmers' markets and promoted bottom-up ecologization. The study also analyzed the links between the Cours Julien farmers' market, which hosts a French Community-supported agriculture (CSA), and the development of Alternative Food Networks and Short Food Supply Chains.

Moira Beery, Rachel Adatia, Orsola Segantin, Chantal-Fleur Skaer · Health Education · South Africa (Johannesburg)

This paper examines the role of organic permaculture food gardens established at two schools in Johannesburg, South Africa, over one year, in addressing food insecurity and environmental sustainability. A nutrition study with 68 children found that these gardens can contribute to children's physical, mental, and emotional health, serving as a resource for teachers and learners. The study notes that practical and cultural challenges must be addressed for sustainability, and its findings, based on a one-year assessment at only two sites, may not be universally applicable.

Heidi Thomas · Maryland Shared Open Access Repository (USMAI Consortium) · Global

This paper discusses how urban agriculture can repair environmental and sociocultural divisions within urban communities, which often manifest as racial and class barriers. It posits that the convergence of environment and foodways through urban agriculture fosters a culturally democratic co-development process. This process, involving the growing and sharing of food, can sustain existing cultural communities and inspire new forms of community aligned with sustainability.