Research & reports

Adriana Premat · City & Society · Cuba

This paper, based on ethnographic research in Havana, Cuba, from 1997 to 2007, examines the creation of officially-sanctioned sustainable urban agriculture sites. It highlights the significant role of various non-state actors and interests, often overlooked in scholarly accounts, alongside the state's function. The study offers a refined understanding of the Cuban state's influence and limitations in agricultural development.

Crispen Dirwai, P.M. Makonese, N. Mboto · Figshare · Zimbabwe (Harare)

This study investigated how urban poor (Mabvuku-Tafara) and urban rich (Mabelreign, Marlborough, Westgate) communities in Harare, Zimbabwe, addressed the food crisis between 2005 and 2008. Using a mainly qualitative methodology to compare urban agricultural activities, findings showed that the urban poor engaged in seasonal, often inorganic, less paying off-yard farming, exposed to nature's vagaries. In contrast, the urban rich practiced on-plot perennial, often organic, researched (including soil testing) farming with greenhouses, which yielded better returns.

Kwesi Acheampong, Amoako Mensah, Boatemaa Boateng · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Ghana

A survey conducted from January to March across five favelas in Accra, Ghana, investigated the impact of community gardening workshops on food security. While participants gained knowledge on sustainable gardening techniques, 45% of respondents still lacked access to necessary resources like seeds and tools. The study concluded that workshops improved awareness but further support is needed to address practical implementation barriers.

Lorenzo Montero San José, Reinaldo Cun García, Jeny Pérez Petitón, Martha Paula Ricardo Calzadilla, Julián Herrera Puebla · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Cuba (Ciudad de La Habana)

This study, conducted at the "Camilo Cienfuegos" urban farm in San Miguel del Padrón, Havana, Cuba, investigated the effect of wastewater irrigation on sorghum and maize yields for animal feed. Applying a total net dose of 1775.4 m3·ha-1 of wastewater over 31 irrigations significantly increased grain yields to 4.29 t·ha-1 for sorghum and 1.73 t·ha-1 for maize, compared to rainfed conditions.

Antonio Ortega Santos · Historia Contemporánea · Cuba (La Habana)

This article reviews contributions from urban environmental history and examines the potential of productive strategies to transform cities into more sustainable systems. The latter part of the article presents the results of Urban Agriculture in Havana, Cuba. Havana's urban agriculture secured urban food supply levels and the sovereignty of urban agricultural producers, transforming the city into a more socio-environmentally sustainable model as an urgent measure against supply problems for the Cuban economy.

Abdullah Al-Shahin · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Libya

A cross-sectional survey using structured questionnaires was conducted in four Libyan coastal cities to assess the impact of urban community gardens on food security. Participants reported significant increases in fresh produce consumption, with 72% of those living within five kilometers of their gardens showing increased fruit and vegetable intake. The study suggests urban community gardens positively impact food security by improving access to fruits and vegetables for residents.

Robert Rogerson, Sue Sadler · Strathprints: The University of Strathclyde institutional repository (University of Strathclyde) · United Kingdom

This case study, prepared by BRASS (Centre for Business Relationships Accountability, Sustainability & Society), is part of an HCA/ESRC funded research project. The project investigated skills and knowledge applied in sustainability initiatives related to housing, land, food, and transport.

Yael Kemelmajer, Laura Cecilia De Luca · · Global

This work, part of the Programme of Food Self-Production, studied the influence of moon phases on horticultural crop productivity in urban vegetable gardens. Adapting agrarian science mechanisms, it incorporated popular knowledge regarding lunar influence on crops. Broccoli and lettuce were planted during crescent and waning moon phases, and differences in productivity were found for both species according to these moments.

Bruce Frayne, Jane Battersby, Robert Fincham, Gareth Haysom · · South Africa

This study examines urban food security in South Africa, focusing on Cape Town, Msunduzi, and Johannesburg, and includes a critique of the City of Cape Town's urban agriculture policy. The abstract indicates that the policy was found to have significant shortcomings, particularly concerning local production and access to food. The research highlights various policy issues related to food access, dietary diversity, local production, and local markets within these urban contexts.

Diana Lee-Smith, M. C. Campbell · Urban Agriculture Magazine · Canada (Toronto)

This article describes the "Carrot City" initiative, which began in Toronto in 2006 when Ryerson University architecture students focused on buildings incorporating urban food production. The concept expanded to include other architecture, planning, design, and landscape architecture schools across Canada and internationally, promoting the integration of urban agriculture into design and planning.

Femke Hoekstra, R. van Veenhuizen · · Global

This article focuses on the role of urban agriculture in linking relief, rehabilitation, and development following disasters or emergency situations. It notes that many people in refugee situations establish small-scale gardening or micro-technologies like container gardening to improve food security. The article highlights urban agriculture's multiple functions, including community building and sustainable environments.

Sunday Ichima · Pranjana The Journal of Management Awareness · Nigeria

This paper examines urban farming as an important component of food security measures in Nigeria. It highlights the genesis of urban farming in Nigeria and the various types of urban farms, explaining how their products have contributed to food security.

Abena Boampongwa, Esi Amagatso, Efua Asarekwai · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Ghana

This study in urban Ghana used a mixed-methods approach, including surveys, focus groups, and observational studies over one year, to assess the impact of community gardens. It found that community gardens significantly increased (p<0.05) the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables among community members, improving dietary diversity and reducing reliance on processed foods. The findings suggest community gardens can enhance food security and public health outcomes in urban settings, especially with integrated educational programs.

Mayra Puente Isidrón · Revista Ciencia y Tecnología El Higo · Cuba

This paper describes the development and impacts of urban agriculture, specifically "organopónicos," in Cuba. It highlights how this approach utilizes local productive potential and available labor to significantly increase agricultural products for the population. The impacts include contributions to human nutrition, providing vitamins, minerals, and plant/animal protein, and fostering new dietary habits based on societal possibilities.

Heather Elizabeth Dalrymple · · United States

This report examines community gardens as a means to address urban food provision and promote sustainable communities. It highlights that community gardens offer benefits beyond food security, such as fostering community development and effectively utilizing open spaces. Through case studies in Cleveland, Ohio, and San Francisco, California, the report demonstrates the adaptability of community gardens in meeting diverse community needs across various urban environments.

Bianca Ambrose‐Oji · · Sub-Saharan Africa

This book chapter reviews the role of urban and peri-urban agriculture in food security across sub-Saharan African cities and peri-urban areas, focusing on how the production and collection of indigenous vegetables along the rural-urban continuum contributes to it. Drawing on literature from geography, agriculture, ethnobotany and rural sociology, it defines urban agriculture and the spaces where indigenous vegetables are produced and collected, and closes with a typology for understanding the range of spaces involved in indigenous vegetable production and harvest, without presenting new empirical data.

Majora Carter · Anglican Theological Review · United States

This piece, published in the Anglican Theological Review, is a first-person essay by an author raised in the South Bronx, New York, discussing environmental injustice and hopes for greening in the neighborhood. It states that the South Bronx is the poorest congressional district in the United States, with over 20% unemployment and more than one-third of residents living in poverty, hosts four power plants and most of New York City's solid waste and sewage processing, and has a childhood asthma hospitalization rate seven times the national average, alongside fewer trees and parks per person than other parts of the city. It cites a 2006 Columbia University report finding learning disabilities in children living nearest to fossil fuel emissions sources. The piece is a personal essay drawing on the author's experience and advocacy rather than an empirical study, and presents no methodology or sample.

Allie Comet · Scholarship @ Claremont (The Claremont Colleges) · United States (California)

This historical analysis of Claremont, California, uses "The Farm" — a two-acre food forest on the Pomona College campus — as a starting point to trace the role food and agriculture have played in the development of the Claremont area, and discusses current local food system alternatives emerging in the area.

Laura Terragni, Hanne Torjusen, Gunnar Vittersø · Anthropology of food · Europe

Drawing on studies conducted over the past 15 years at the Norwegian National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO), this article analyzes alternative food consumption in Norway centered on organic food. Tracing the organic movement from its origins, it shows organic products have gained a notable position within the conventional market even as they face conventionalization, while other alternative initiatives are emerging, including fair trade, farmers' markets, farm food outlets, box schemes, and community supported agriculture (CSA). It argues the consumer's role must be understood contextually, and that products consumers identify as "alternative" are those that, in a given time and place, are socially constructed to best reflect alternative values.

G. Palaniappan, Christine King · Queensland's institutional digital repository (The University of Queensland) · Australia

A conceptual paper framing local food production systems—termed "alternative farming"—against a backdrop of global environmental changes (retreating sea ice, landscape drying, shifts in seasonal timing and animal migration) and climate-driven increases in energy prices and dependence on fossil fuels, which the authors say have raised interest in localization and sustainability among communities worldwide. It examines systems including organics, natural farming, biodynamics, permaculture, community gardens, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) in terms of how they might contribute to localizing food production and consumption, and discusses the transition from globalized to localized farming and re-localization's ecological and social dimensions. The paper argues that sustainability can be grounded in local ecological, social, economic, and political systems, but the discussion is conceptual rather than based on presented empirical data.

Sinan Koont · Monthly Review · Cuba

An article describes the development, over roughly fifteen years since the 1990s, of urban agriculture in Havana, Cuba, a capital city of more than two million people. It notes that the term "urban agriculture" in Cuba is used more inclusively than typical usage, encompassing urban fringe and suburban lands — the entire cultivated area of the Province of the City of Havana is classified as urban agriculture. The article provides no specific yield or participation figures.

Sophie Graefe, Eva Schlecht, Andreas Buerkert · Outlook on Agriculture · Niger (Niamey)

Semi-structured interviews with 130 households in Niamey, Niger, characterized urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) and assessed resource use. The study found high use of livestock manure and indiscriminate use of nutrient-loaded wastewater for irrigation, leading to significant nutrient surpluses in UPA gardens. Initial calculations suggested large gaseous emissions of nitrogenous compounds and and leaching of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to groundwater.

Richard W. Reynolds · · Global

This 2008 global handbook, "On Guerrilla Gardening," explores the motivations and methods of guerrilla gardening, a movement involving illicit cultivation of public land. The book compiles advice from guerrilla gardeners in thirty countries on topics such as plant selection, coping with environmental conditions, seed bombing, and propaganda. It also traces the historical development of the movement from the 17th century to the 1970s.

Rosie Cox, Lewis Holloway, Laura Venn, Liz Dowler, Jane Ricketts Hein, Moya Kneafsey, Helena Tuomainen · Local Environment · United Kingdom

This paper examines the motivations of producers and consumers participating in a community-supported agriculture (CSA) project in Scotland. It reveals the diverse motivations and philosophies consumers bring to the scheme, contrasting them with the organizers' stated aims. The study argues that effective communication within direct marketing schemes is important for fostering long-term commitment between producers and consumers, and for encouraging consumers to consider broader behavioral changes.

Erastus K. Kang’ethe, Delia Grace, Thomas F. Randolph · East African Medical Journal · East Africa

This study synthesizes current knowledge on urban agriculture (UA) in East Africa, focusing on its human health impact. It identifies UA as an important source of food security, but notes that many zoonotic and food-borne diseases are associated with it, with a lack of evidence on human health impact and management. Major constraints include illegality and limited access to inputs and markets, indicating a need for more research to understand both positive and negative health impacts.