Research & reports

Mariana Portilho, Camila Rodrigues, Annelise Caetano Fraga Fernandez · Cidades, comunidades e território/Cidades comunidades e territórios · Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)

This study describes the formation of Arranjo Local da Penha, a community network created in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro's Penha favela complex, focused on urban agriculture and led by women. Through fieldwork and participant observation, the study analyzed themes of women and agroecology, health, and healthy eating. The network promoted women's empowerment and access to healthy food, but faced limits in the mobilization and development of urban agriculture.

Maria Marciene Costa Da Silva, Maurício Ferreira Mendes, Luciano da Silva Guedes · Geografia em Questão · Brazil

This exploratory research diagnosed horticulture practices in the urban perimeter of Ananás/TO, Brazil, from April to June 2019, using semi-structured interviews and secondary data. It found that urban horticulture in Ananás provides a healthy food alternative for producers and consumers, distributes income, and contributes to social, food, and health development.

Claudinei da Silva Pereira · GEOUSP Espaço e Tempo (Online) · Brazil (Presidente Prudente)

This paper analyzed agricultural production in Presidente Prudente, Brazil, from two essential dimensions: urban morphology and socioeconomic conditions. A typology for urban agriculture analysis was constructed by mapping the incidence of agriculture and applying questionnaires to commercial producers. The study demonstrated the different functions that agricultural practice performs for individuals and cities.

Esteve Gaelle Giraud, Sara El-Sayed, Adenike Opejin · Sustainability · United States (Arizona)

This paper examines the potential of sustainable gardening to enhance Food Well-Being (FWB). It uses three studies of sustainable food gardeners in Arizona, USA, including children and teachers in school gardens, sustainable gardeners and farmers, and gardeners during the pandemic. Results indicate a connection between sustainable gardening and eudemonic well-being, impacting five FWB dimensions (physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, social). However, the paper notes that without appropriate policies, funding, and infrastructure, the impact might remain minimal, volatile, and subject to tokenism.

Cláudio José Bertazzo, Guilherme Papini da Silva, Gabriela Ferreira de Souza · Para Onde!? · Brazil (Catalão)

A theoretical and practical study, including field visits and surveys, was conducted to understand urban agriculture (AU) practices in Catalão, Goiás, Brazil. The study aimed to identify AU's particularities and quantify what, how, and for what purpose produce was grown. Findings indicated that AU is a reality, widespread in the territory, and has the potential to provide access to safe and nutritious food for citizens with yards or small cultivation spaces.

Leigh Whittinghill, Sait Sarr · Urban Science · United States (Louisville, Kentucky)

A survey of 40 urban farmers and gardeners in Louisville, Kentucky, assessed their agricultural practices and barriers. Most growers engaged in urban agriculture for non-commercial reasons, with only 11% operating for profit, and smaller farms were less likely to be profitable or certified. Common sustainable practices included composting (60%) and crop rotation (54%), while challenges involved limited space, farm certification access, pests, and lack of record-keeping.

Christina Ergas · · United States

This chapter explores urban ecovillages in the United States, highlighting challenges faced by ecovillagers in a neoliberal context. It examines cultural conflicts between sustainability and consumer culture, and points out the exclusive, upper-class, white nature of the local food movement in the US. Monetary and time constraints have made local organic food an elite phenomenon, often cited as a first step to gentrification in urban communities.

Anna Kapała · Comparative Law Review · United States

This study analyzed federal, state, and local regulations in US law to identify instruments supporting local food systems (LFS), including food safety, zoning, tax law, and federal programs. It found that US law lacks a systematic approach to LFS support, but identified legislative tools such as food safety exemptions, sales tax exemptions, local zoning laws for urban agriculture, and federal grant programs.

Celeste Ferreira, Janice Cindy Gaudet, Anthony Chum, Michael A. Robidoux · Food Culture & Society · Canada

This paper explores local food initiatives in Moose Cree First Nation, a remote northern community in Ontario, Canada, focusing on a community garden project. It documents steps taken to build local food capacity and understand the challenges and opportunities the community faces in regaining autonomy over its food system. The findings are based on community-based participatory action approaches.

Mariana Castañeda Díez, Rita de Cássia Martins Montezuma · Sociedade & natureza · Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)

This paper addresses two problems in Rio de Janeiro: environmental issues from native restinga fragmentation due to urban development, and food shortages in low-income communities. It proposes edible landscaping for public spaces on Rio's west side to tackle these issues. The research involved theoretical framework analyses, geo-technological tools, and local visits for biophysical, urban, and architectural analyses to select suitable public spaces for the edible landscape proposal.

Camila Garcia Fernandes de Souza Margem, Néliton Marques da Sílva · Cadernos Metrópole · Brazil (Manaus)

This article analyzed the feasibility of implementing urban agriculture (UA) on idle land within the Tarumã – Ponta Negra Environmental Protection Area in Manaus, Brazil, as a tool for territorial governance and urban planning. Semi-structured interviews and card sorting techniques were applied to the target population. The study found that the use of idle land for UA is not envisioned as a territorial governance instrument, a situation exacerbated by municipal authorities hindering the legitimization of bills for such land use.

Angélica Campos Nakamura, Valéria de Marcos · Estudos Avançados · Brazil (São Paulo)

Since the 2000s, urban and peri-urban agriculture activities have gained momentum in São Paulo, Brazil, directly impacting the city's agricultural sector. In the far south, public authorities, the University of São Paulo, and several NGOs promoted agroecological practices, leading to the establishment of Cooperapas, São Paulo's only farmers' cooperative. This expanded the production and commercialization of agroecological foods for the city.

Helda Morales, Bruce G. Ferguson, Kimberly Chung, Ronald Nigh · Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente · Mexico (Chiapas)

This study explored the potential and limitations for agroecological scaling through formal educational structures, using the LabVida school gardens program in Chiapas, Mexico as a case study. Through training, educators gained an appreciation of agroecology and applied practices in their school gardens, although their understanding of agroecological principles and scientific process remained limited. The program's greatest impact was on educators’ eating habits and their perception of the value of local knowledge and its relevance to schoolwork.

Manuela Maluf Santos, Paulo Eduardo Moruzzi Marques · Estudos Avançados · Brazil (São Paulo)

This article conceptually explores the "locavorism" food activism movement, noting that its practical application can have diverse and even antagonistic effects. To analyze these contradictions, two farmer organizations in São Paulo involved in local consumption circuits were interviewed to understand the potential social and environmental effects of this purchasing model. The abstract does not present the findings of these interviews.

Brian Bartell · Rethinking Marxism · United States

This essay in Rethinking Marxism revisits the writings and Detroit urban agriculture activism of James and Grace Lee Boggs, arguing that their 1960s theorization linked automation, land and racialized dispossession under racial capitalism, and that they called for postgrowth, postscarcity economies built on urban land marked by Fordist-era waste and toxicity.

Athayde Leite de Sá Filho, Mariana Gomes Kottas, José Edilson dos Santos Júnior, Vivianni Marques Leite dos Santos · Journal on Innovation and Sustainability RISUS · Brazil

This literature-based review of urban gardens (hortas urbanas) in Brazil describes the sector's evolution, challenges and outlook, arguing that Brazil has favorable natural conditions and that urban gardens are among the fastest-growing components of the country's agroecological sector, while identifying the need for incentive policies, public awareness, farming-space planning and greater research investment as conditions for further consolidation.

Luciana Francisco de Abreu Ronconi, Bernadete de Lourdes Bittencourt, Gabriel Bertimes Di Bernardi Lopes · Revista Ibero-Americana de Ciências Ambientais · Brazil

This qualitative study analyses social innovation in urban agriculture in Florianópolis, Brazil, using the Centro de Estudos e Promoção da Agricultura de Grupo (Cepagro) as its case. It finds that Cepagro, through networks of diverse actors, has placed urban agriculture on the public agenda and produced significant social innovations linking urban agriculture, food security and community development, contributing to the drafting and implementation of public policy and participating in the city's public policy councils.

N. R. Madeira, Valdely Ferreira Kinupp, Lídio Coradin · · Brazil

This book chapter brings together reflections on neglected and underutilized species (NUS) in Brazil — plants popularly known today as "non-conventional edible plants" (PANC in Portuguese) — discussing the historical context of their use in this continental country with enormous biodiversity and cultural diversity. It highlights significant efforts undertaken to spread knowledge of and rescue and promote the use and conservation of NUS, and addresses related issues of agroecology, climate change, urban agriculture, local production, nutrition, gastronomy and food sovereignty.

Kathryn Jackson · Environmental Justice · United States

Drawing on growing spaces in Camden, NJ, and Philadelphia, PA, this study applies a Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ) framework to examine how radical urban growing spaces contribute to the struggle for Black liberation amid state-sanctioned racial violence, environmental racism, and COVID-19-related health disparities and food apartheid. It identifies two findings: (1) growers create space that confronts and rectifies the violence of antiblack racism, and (2) redevelopment and white space act as a form of violence that undercuts the work of Black liberation.

Harneet Kaur Dhillon, Alyssa Thorman, Jordan A. Franchina · Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition · United States

A report on a community-garden-and-food-pantry project to ease food insecurity among medical students at the University of Utah. Medical students planted and maintained a 400-square-foot garden and hosted numerous skills workshops; volunteers harvested 250 pounds of produce, and the food pantry managed distribution of over 6,500 pounds of other donated food items. The sustainable garden and pantry provided a significant amount of no-cost healthy food to students, and the study states that the scale of student involvement and food utilization demonstrates the need for novel strategies to address medical student food insecurity.

Paulo Eduardo Moruzzi Marques, Pierre‐Mathieu Le Bel, Vitória Oliveira Pereira de Souza Leão, Roberta Moraes Curan · Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural · Brazil

This article analyzes the motivations and strategies of actors in urban and peri-urban agriculture (AUP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, using justification theory across a sociology-and-geography lens. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, field observations, and document analysis, it examines two cases: the Milton Santos settlement spanning Americana and Cosmópolis, and the Farmers' Association of the Eastern Zone of the São Paulo capital. The right of access to land was found to be absolutely central to AUP; claims to this right, together with conceptions of AUP's roles, mobilize references to justice with ecological contours, which lends growing legitimacy to the cause and generates various kinds of support. However, evidence from the cases studied indicates that AUP is far from having its permanence and growth assured.

Maegan Krajewski · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Canada

The North Central Community Gardens, an urban agriculture initiative of the North Central Community Association in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, launched the Branch Out Project in summer 2020. Its purpose was to expand the North Central Community Gardens beyond its existing three locations onto additional schoolyard and backyard land. Despite — or perhaps because of — the COVID-19 pandemic, the project's first season resulted in the construction of eight new gardens and positively affected food access, community engagement, and knowledge development and exchange. The commentary has two goals: to provide insight into the process of community garden expansion for the benefit of other practitioners, and to contribute to understanding the possibilities, challenges, and impacts of community gardens generally — and garden expansion specifically — as a counter-neoliberal food sovereignty practice.

James J. Connolly · · United States (California)

This case study examines the leading edge of gentrification along San Francisco's Third Street T streetcar line. Bayview-Hunters Point (B.V.H.P.), the end of the streetcar line's first phase, is an ethnically mixed, working-class neighborhood and the last historic concentration of African American residents in San Francisco. While gentrification-driven change is already visible further up the line, its presence in B.V.H.P. remains comparatively shallow so far. Nonetheless, many residents and community activists perceive that a fast-moving gentrification frontier leaves them with a conundrum: remain in a contaminated, post-industrial, climate-exposed environment, or advocate for their health while risking displacement. The neighborhood has seen greening such as community gardens and a waterfront promenade, alongside inequalities including enduring racial segregation, environmental privilege, green gentrification, luxury development, climate-related health risks, and continued exposure to contamination.

Matt Hare, Ana Peña del Valle Isla · Local Environment · Mexico

Two surveys mapped the distribution of edible plant species growing in publicly accessible interstitial spaces — such as central reservations and pavements — in subtropical central Mexico City (CDMX), walking roughly 20 km of streets and identifying 36 species of edible plants including fruits, herbs and vegetables. Of five feasibility conditions for using these spaces for foraging, three — suitable growing conditions, provisioning capability, and the existence of multiple plant dispersal pathways — could be satisfactorily assessed, while two — usage and a favourable planning environment — could not be judged from the field data. Rather than improving everyday food supplies, maintaining these spaces for emergency foraging was framed as a way to increase urban resilience against extreme food supply shocks. CDMX promotes planting fruit trees along avenues, but the survey found local socio-ecological systems sustain a greater variety of edible plants across a wider range of interstitial spaces.

Kathleen Tims, Mark Haggerty, John Jemison, Melissa Ladenheim, Sarah Mullis, Elizabeth Damon · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

A case study of the long-running Orono Community Garden (OCG) program in Orono, Maine, used survey data and personal interviews to examine rural senior food insecurity, analyzing senior participation, impact on food security status, and participants' perceptions of the program. The OCG program increased food access by delivering fresh food directly to senior households in need, alongside other local food assistance programs in Orono. Participants also viewed the OCG program as a destigmatized, socially acceptable source of food access, in contrast with other food assistance programs.