Research & reports

Heather Gray, K. Rashid Nuri · American Journal of Economics and Sociology · United States

This paper argues that industrial-chemical agriculture has abandoned the foundations of healthy agriculture, such as seed diversity and soil preservation, replacing them with genetically uniform crops. In contrast, it states that in the United States, small farms and urban agriculture are providing healthy food and reconnecting city dwellers with the life of the soil.

Jacqueline Futch, Brittany Kovacs, Anjali Prasertong, K. O’Malley, Diego Rose · Current Developments in Nutrition · United States (New Orleans)

This 2020 study cataloged innovative food system organizations in New Orleans, USA, through an online survey of 65 directors in fall 2017. The survey found that 82% of organizations were founded after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with 77% targeting low-income populations. While 69% belonged to coalitions, only 23% reported receiving federal grants, indicating an active NGO sector addressing food and nutrition issues largely without federal support.

Fatmir Haskaj · Environment and Planning A Economy and Space · United States (New York City)

This article explores the historical context of community gardens in New York and Oakland, California, to understand and contest hegemonic forces in the urban environment. It posits that the work of gardeners is co-opted into a value regime through a process called "conspicuous labor." This process reconfigures the urban poor as productive, passive, and pastoral, contributing to gentrification.

Michael Granzow, Kevin Jones · Local Environment · Canada (Edmonton)

This paper explores the production of Prairie Urban Farm, an urban agricultural initiative in Edmonton, Canada. Drawing on interviews with regular volunteers and personal reflections, the analysis emphasizes everyday urban agriculture practices, understandings, and motivations, rather than limiting the understanding to official representations. The study pursues tensions between Prairie Urban Farm as a sustainability and food security initiative and more ambivalent understandings.

Alison Hope Alkon, Yahya Josh Cadji, Frances C. Moore · New York University Press eBooks · United States (California)

In North Oakland, California, USA, collaborations between food justice organizations and residents, spurred by gentrification, were explored. The partnership and merger of Phat Beets Produce and the Self-Help Hunger Program were analyzed, initiated after a community garden was used in a gentrification advertisement in 2014. While this collaboration created a strong alliance, it was found to be insufficient to resist the structural forces driving gentrification.

C. K. Cartagena · Southeastern geographer · United States

This paper reviews "Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farms Practical Guide To Liberation on the Land" by Leah Penniman and Karen Washington. The book serves as a step-by-step guide for Black farmers, detailing historical struggles and solutions against oppression and racial discrimination in the farming sector, including cases like Pigford v. Glickman and the over-policing of Ron Finley's property. It offers instruction on obtaining land and resources, farm business plans, land restoration, crop planning, preserving harvests, raising animals, urban farming, and movement building. The book acknowledges obstacles faced by Black farmers and aims to provide a reference for sustaining productive farmland and activism to achieve land autonomy.

Mariella Camardelli Uzêda · Anais da Semana Científica Johanna Döbereiner · Brazil

This work aims to understand the origins of urban farmers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and their traditions of cultivating and consuming spontaneous wild plants. It investigates how this knowledge of biodiversity has been preserved over time and influences current cultivation practices in areas like Colonia Juliano Moreira and Guaratiba. The study also explores opportunities to diversify agro-food systems with these wild plants to intensify ecosystem services such as pollination and biological pest control.

Helda Morales, Bárbara Lazcano, Ana Isabel López García · · Mexico

This study compiles experiences from Mexico to explore how individual urban farming acts as an act of resistance. It describes food's role as a "common ground" where various political struggles intersect, including food sovereignty, gender equality, decolonization, climate change activism, indigenous rights, and social justice. The research also analyzes conditions that could facilitate a transition to broader political change and collective action, highlighting how planting actual seeds can yield not only ecological benefits but also social revolution.

Moisés Savian, Mari Inês Caríssimi Boff, Pedro Boff · Cadernos de Agroecologia · Brazil

This study evaluated Brazilian scientific production from 2009 to 2018 on urban agriculture's contribution to food and nutritional security, analyzing 34 selected articles out of 612. It found that while agrobiodiversity is present in urban agriculture areas, pesticide use is a reality in some crop plots. The research suggests urban agriculture must be based on agroecology to avoid environmental contamination and produce healthy food.

Luiz Orlando dos Santos, Fernanda Miguel Franco, Wagner da Cunha Siqueira, Arthur Guilherme Schirmbeck Chaves · Brazilian Journal of Development · Brazil (Cáceres-MT)

In Cáceres-MT, Brazil, a compact and mobile urban garden prototype was implemented in two residences with limited space. This system cultivated chives, coriander, and parsley, supplying enough food for a family of approximately 5 people during a 90-day monitoring period. A water reuse system was also integrated, and the mobile garden structure contributed to optimizing small spaces and producing healthy, low-cost food.

Jennifer Sumner, Derya Tarhan, John Justin McMurtry · Working paper/Working paper CIRIEC ... · Canada

This paper explores how Indigenous communities in Canada address chronic food insecurity through the social and solidarity economy. Using a case study of the Northern Manitoba Food, Culture and Community Collaborative, it illustrates how local initiatives such as community gardens, greenhouses, and co-operatives contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goals, particularly zero hunger. The paper emphasizes community ownership, control, and benefits as key aspects of these models.

Olivia Lee · Johns Hopkins University eBooks · United States (Chicago)

This study, drawing on affect theory, examines community gardens in Chicago's low-income, primarily Black South Side neighborhoods. It argues that while these gardens offer a spatial break from violence, they appear unable to fully counteract the ongoing marginalization by race and socioeconomic status. The gardens represent a quiet, nascent resistance against neoliberal injustices through intimate human-nature interaction.

Rosy Kátia Souza Gonçalves, Hélder Ribeiro Freitas, Braz José do Nascimento Júnior, Lucas Ricardo Souza Almeida, Isabela Oliveira Leite, Amanda Santos Moura · · Brazil (Juazeiro)

This study mapped plant species cultivated and commercialized in the Community Garden of the Urban Social Center in Bairro Alto do Alencar, Juazeiro/BA, focusing on agroecological urban agriculture's role in medicinal plant production. Results showed that 61% of the 122 garden beds were occupied with medicinal herbs, regularly supplying basil, mallow, mastruz, holy leaf, and tanchagem, among others, to meet local demand. The cultivation of herbs, alongside vegetables, reflects a growing interest in health promotion through agroecological products.

Lara Cristine Gomes Ferreira, Stéfanny da Cruz Nóbrega · Revista GeoNordeste · Brazil (Goiânia)

This study explores agroecological urban agriculture in the Greater Goiânia region of Brazil, aiming to qualify the debate on its current relevance, understand the role of socio-biodiversity and food sovereignty, and foster dialogue through socio-environmental education. The methodology included a theoretical-bibliographical review, secondary data collection, and action research at a public school in Goiânia. The findings suggest that agroecological urban agriculture is an alternative to reduce the negative effects of agribusiness and minimize socio-environmental problems, highlighting the importance of family farming and education for food sovereignty and social equality.

Laura Lucas, Fabiana Li · Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l alimentation · Canada (Winnipeg)

The Rainbow Community Gardens in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is a community project supporting immigrant and refugee families in growing their own food. This photo essay examines the role of food and community gardens in expressing cultural identity and their possible benefits for community building, skill learning, and growing culturally appropriate foods for health and food security. These benefits gained new relevance due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leonardo Mendes da Silva, Vanessa Dutra, Delton Francelino, Natália Oliveira Dias · Enciclopédia Biosfera · Brazil (Barbacena)

Research was conducted in Barbacena, Minas Gerais, Brazil, to identify empty urban spaces and wastelands suitable for community gardens. The study, carried out by the Center for Studies in Urban Ecology, aimed to map these spaces for potential community garden proposals to public and private entities. Ten locations were selected based on specific criteria, and general perceptions were presented to facilitate understanding and dissemination, though the study did not intend to establish planting projects or direct community contact.

Ana Galvis Martinez, Brooke A. Porter, Paul Rogé, Leah Atwood, Natalia Pinzón Jiménez · · United States (California)

The Bay Area Farmer Training (BAFT) program trained aspiring urban farming practitioners in agroecology, utilizing a pedagogy rooted in humanistic values, social justice, and decolonial and feminist frameworks. An analysis of BAFT from the perspectives of participants and founding educators led to recommendations for educators and program developers. These recommendations include training in restorative justice, cultivating cross-cultural dialogue, building trust, humanizing classrooms, preparing guest speakers, and designing values-centered curricula.

Jackson Green, Lauren Maunder, Kristina Gulczewski · VTechWorks (Virginia Tech) · United States

This project presents group research on urban agriculture as a tool for revitalizing urban food deserts, utilizing a website. The website provides definitions, explanations, and examples of food deserts, urban agriculture, and their combination. The project also includes an addendum to the Green New Deal, discussing government recognition of urban food deserts.

Justine Lindemann · New York University Press eBooks · United States (Cleveland)

This chapter explores how gentrification in Cleveland, Ohio, impacts Black urban farmers' and gardeners' access to land in disinvested neighborhoods. It examines the ancillary effects of development on alternative land reuse efforts. The study highlights that despite a seemingly endless supply of vacant lots, gentrification negatively affects land access for these communities.

Tucker Jensen · Digital Commons - Hamline (Hamline University) · United States

This capstone project reviews the effects of community gardens on low-income urban populations in the United States. After reviewing prior work on the history of racism in America, disparities in food insecurity, the correlation between poverty and health, and environmental impacts specific to urban communities, the project developed a five-day unit of study set at an established community garden. The unit teaches middle school students about community gardens through STEM lesson activities, has students design their own garden, and aims for them to be able to explain why a community garden matters to their neighborhood's success.

Daniele Eckert Matzembacher, Fábio Bittencourt Meira · Organizações & Sociedade · Brazil

A 2020 case study of the CSA (community supported agriculture) organization "CSA Alfa" in Minas Gerais, Brazil, using Karl Polanyi's theoretical framework. It frames CSA as a movement that repositions agricultural production around fair-trade and agroecological principles through short chains linking production and consumption, and finds that market exchange and reciprocity coexist as different regulatory principles within CSA Alfa. Friendship, tolerance, loyalty, and commitment build a communal ethos around food, and the study argues CSA acts as a counter-movement to commodification by strengthening participants' relative autonomy and raising social cohesion among participating groups.

Guillermo Olivera, Kenia Zavaleta · Repositorio Digital Institucional de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (Universidad de Buenos Aires) · Mexico

This study argues that urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA), along with intra-urban open spaces, constitutes a "second best" land use for 21st-century cities pursuing sustainable growth aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals — whether through FAO's Greener Cities Strategy, which promotes garden-based UPA against poverty and food insecurity, or through UPA absorbed by city expansion, much of it commercial in nature. Based on analysis of official statistics and fieldwork in the Ejido Tejalpa in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, the study finds that UPA persists there due to its historical trajectory and access to water and land, existing in commercial form rather than as urban gardens, but not without problems. Its main threat is identified as excessive urbanization and generational change among producers, and its main challenge as achieving greater involvement of urban governments through land management and urban planning, following the experience of other countries where agriculture is given more weight in metropolitan planning.

Evan Bowness, Hannah Wittman · The Journal of Peasant Studies · Canada

A study advancing the theory of agrarian citizenship—the bundle of rights and responsibilities underpinning the food sovereignty movement—based on interviews with 34 participants engaged in urban agriculture in Metro Vancouver, Canada. It introduces the concept of urban agrarianism, defined as an urban ethic of care for foodlands and, by extension, a relational responsibility to exercise solidarity with those who cultivate and harvest food. The paper argues that urban people, especially those with privilege, should recognize the impacts of their social-ecological metabolism and mobilize for food sovereignty struggles, including for the repatriation of lands stolen through colonial dispossession.

Leslie Hossfeld, Brooke Kelly, Julia Waity · · United States

This chapter discusses how the working class in the United States -- including farmworkers and restaurant workers -- engages with the food system as both laborers and consumers, facing precarious working conditions and low pay while also experiencing higher rates of diabetes and obesity linked to a food system that favors sugary foods. It reviews local food movements such as farmers' markets, community-supported agriculture and food sovereignty efforts as responses aimed at food justice, notes criticism that these approaches often primarily serve white, middle-class participants, and surveys initiatives including the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' Fair Food Program, Wholesome Wave and the North Bolivar Good Food Revolution.

Bobby J. Smith · The Journal of Southern History · United States

A review of Ashanté M. Reese's 2019 book Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. Focusing on the Deanwood neighborhood of Washington, D.C., the book argues that Black residents who moved north during the Great Migration did not abandon their agrarian roots but used them to build a multifaceted foodscape of community gardens, small farms, corner grocery outlets and community food markets, using this to construct community and self-reliance and to navigate antiblackness, drawn out through spatial, historical and structural analysis combined with ethnographic methods.