Research & reports

Lea Rekow · · Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)

This paper describes key initiatives in urban agriculture within Rio de Janeiro's favela communities, which are experiencing displacement and destabilization due to rapid urbanization policies. These initiatives aim to create resilient and productive spaces, particularly addressing food and nutrition security amidst socio-economic and security landscape changes.

Amy Wagenfeld, Erica Whitfield · Children Youth and Environments · United States (Florida)

In January 2010, the School District of Palm Beach County, Florida, received a grant to install school/community gardens to reduce obesity and increase access to fresh produce among minority communities, primarily Hispanic children and families. A 42-item survey measured the gardens' usability, curricular integration, movement/exercise capacities, and health benefits. Findings indicated that participating in garden programs positively influenced students' and teachers' lives.

Bhavna Shamasunder, R Mason, Luke Ippoliti, Laura Robledo · Environmental Justice · United States (Los Angeles)

A community-based research project in Pacoima, Los Angeles, examined 36 families who received home gardens, training, and support in 2013. Following families through one planting cycle, data showed the potential for home gardens to contribute to household food budgets, increase home pride, motivate community involvement, and provide green spaces. This project aims to address the research gap on home gardens' benefits and challenges.

Donna Freeman · Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science · United States (Fayetteville)

This study in Fayetteville, United States, utilized data triangulation from site analysis, policy analysis, and surveys to explore how urban farms could be improved in areas like visibility and worker comfort. The research aimed to determine what workers and volunteers value in urban farms. It developed general physical and procedural templates for farms to enhance relationships with workers and surrounding communities.

Hugo Puerto · Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research · United States (Florida)

This ethnographic study in Indian River County, Florida, investigated challenges in engaging Mexican im/migrant farmworkers in community-based health solutions, specifically community gardens. Despite efforts by farmworker leaders and the health department to promote community gardens for health and economic benefits, little engagement was observed within the farmworker community. The research, based on participant observation, surveys, and interviews, analyzed barriers to healthy eating and the limited role of grassroots initiatives in improving health outcomes.

Virajita Singh, Alexander Thill, Daniel Handeen · University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy (University of Minnesota) · United States (Minneapolis)

Project Sweetie Pie (PSP) is a non-profit organization in North Minneapolis, United States, that addresses food insecurity by establishing community gardens. To date, PSP has started over 25 gardens, providing fresh produce to citizens. The Camden Greenhouse planning project engaged the community to understand needs and generate ideas for creating a food hub in Camden and North Minneapolis.

Walter Belik · Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional · Brazil

This article discusses the use of the Food and Nutritional Security concept in Brazil's Fome Zero Project and its implementation through various programs initiated in the past decade. It concludes by calling attention to the need to improve programs related to supply, food and nutritional education, and urban agriculture to enable the functioning of an integrated Food and Nutritional Security system.

Rania Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed · USF Scholarship Repository (University of San Francisco) · United States (San Francisco)

This research analyzes San Francisco's 2014 Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone (UAIZ) Act, a tax incentive for using undeveloped private properties for urban agriculture. It employs GIS analysis to examine urban agriculture on private lands in relation to low-income populations, producing a vacant land inventory. Findings reveal opportunities and challenges, but the UAIZ is in its very beginning phase of implementation.

Taina Tremblay · Western CEDAR (Western Washington University) · United States

This research outlines the intent to examine the correlation between access to healthy, organic food and poverty, and the increasing problem of food insecurity in the United States. Urban agriculture and urban gardening are considered as solutions to food instabilities in poverty-stricken areas. The study aims to uncover reasons for the lack of access to healthy food and to discover solutions for promoting better food access and eating habits.

Ellen Barnidge, Elizabeth A. Baker, Mario Schootman, Freda Motton, Marjorie Sawicki, Frank Rose · Health Education Research · United States

This quasi-experimental study in rural Missouri evaluated an intervention providing nutrition education and community garden access to African Americans to increase fruit and vegetable consumption. At mid-intervention, the intervention county showed lower hypertension and BMI. Both nutrition education participation and community garden access were independently associated with perceived fruit and vegetable consumption, with the strongest effect when combined. However, individuals with access but without education had a reduced likelihood of consuming recommended servings of fruits and vegetables.

Mariah E Reitz · Digital Commons - Otterbein (Otterbein University) · United States

This research aimed to determine if a community garden would benefit a suburban township, Blendon Township, in addressing food insecurity and food deserts. A survey evaluated fruit and vegetable consumption, healthy food affordability, and education, as well as the garden's effect on participants' families. Through a literature review and survey assessment, the results indicated that Blendon Township needed a community garden due to its proximity to Columbus and suburban setting.

Selina Dorking, Paige Eisen, Joseph J. Godfrey, Regina López, Steven A. Smith · ScholarWorks - GVSU (Grand Valley State University) · United States

In the Heartside neighborhood of Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, the non-profit Heartside Gleaning Initiative (HGI) has been addressing food insecurity since 2014. During the winter semester of 2015, the "Food Fighters," a team of Grand Valley State University students, collaborated with HGI to tackle the challenges of food waste, food insecurity, and community sustainability. Their efforts resulted in the Heartside Glean Ride mobile food cart plan and a brochure for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes, designed to increase food distribution.

Joana Chan, Bryce DuBois, Keith G. Tidball · · United States (New York City)

This study conducted ethnographic research -- including participant observation, exploratory and in-depth interviews, and archival research -- at five community gardens in New York City's coastal "red zones" affected by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, from April 2013 to February 2014. It found that community gardens functioned as multi-purpose community refuges that hosted meaningful, restorative greening practices and developed supportive communities for residents and garden members in the aftermath of the disaster.

Ashley Tryba · · United States

A paper on community gardens and urban farms in underserved and gentrifying areas of redevelopment in the United States combines case studies, interviews, quantitative analysis of land values, comparative analysis of vacant land policies, urban archival news documents and photographs, and empirical models of urban land use and food distribution. It states that urban agricultural programs rarely alleviate the pressures of food insecurity on a large scale, while showing that community food gardens function as an oasis from the food insecurity, violence and sexual harassment that urban areas often pose. The qualitative data support existing literature indicating that, if maintained, community agricultural projects produce social, economic, environmental and physical health benefits, and the paper argues that with government support, these small grassroots programs can have larger societal impacts.

Sherine Brown-Fraser, I.T. Forrester, Randolph Rowel, A. D. Richardson, Ashley Nicole Spence · Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition · United States

Morgan State University's Nutritional Sciences Program describes the principles and practices used to develop a student-led, community-engaged Community Organic Vegetable Garden in Baltimore, Maryland. Garden participation increased four-fold, a variety of crops were grown, and agricultural knowledge increased, alongside improved landscaping and social interaction; a survey found the garden positively influenced participants' fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity, and environmental awareness.

Nicholas Siewell, Madhavappallil Thomas · · United States (California)

A needs-assessment study followed by the establishment of a community garden in a neighborhood in Bakersfield, California (2015), collected survey and focus-group data from residents and garden participants to examine the garden's impact. Findings showed strong support for the garden and reported benefits to participants' physical and mental health, social capacities, and spiritual well-being at both the individual and neighborhood level. The authors present the project as an example of how university-community engagement initiatives can function as a macro-practice intervention framework for students, practitioners, and community leaders.

Nancy Victorin-Vangerud · Digital Commons - Hamline (Hamline University) · United States

This is a course description for a first-year seminar at Hamline University, United States. Drawing on the vision of Will Allen, founder of the Milwaukee urban agriculture organization Growing Power, the course has students explore collaborations across diverse communities, religions and cultures in the Twin Cities, participate in the fall harvest at neighborhood community gardens, and reflect on how food production intersects with social, economic and environmental issues.

Mélissa Jean · Refugee Survey Quarterly · United States

A qualitative study using participant observation and in-depth interviews examined the role of farming activities in the place-making processes of 30 refugees participating in a local urban farming program in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, after resettlement. Seventeen of the participants, from Burundi, Sudan, Bhutan, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad and Cuba, took part in in-depth interviews, which showed farming activities embodying both assimilation and resistance post-transition, leading to the conclusion that continued access to agricultural activity carries material and emotional benefits for refugees with agrarian backgrounds.

CBC News · CBC News · Canada

This 2 October 2015 CBC News article reports that Common Roots Urban Farm, in its fourth year on the site of the former Queen Elizabeth High School in Halifax (obtained through a land swap with the former Capital Health Authority), offers 175 community garden plots and a 'nibble garden' open to anyone, and grows food for the Parker Street Food Bank. Facing a funding shortfall as traditional revenue streams dried up, the farm launched a fundraising drive—including a contemplative guided walk and a 1 November harvest party—aiming to raise $8,000 CAD by the end of October.

Algert S. J., Baameur A., Renvall M. J. · Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics 114(7):1072-1076 · United States

Survey of 83 San Jose community gardeners measuring yields. Plots produced 0.75 lb vegetables per square foot and saved about $435 per season, demonstrating gardens' contribution to urban food affordability.

Wang H., Qiu F., Swallow B. · Applied Geography 55:127-137 · Canada

Analyzes whether community gardens and farmers' markets improve fresh food access in Edmonton. They relieve food desert problems somewhat, especially in mature inner-suburban neighborhoods, but several areas remain food deserts citywide.

McClintock N. · Local Environment · USA

Argues that urban agriculture, by filling the void left by the 'rolling back' of the social safety net, underwrites neoliberalization; its discourse of entrepreneurialism and self-help shifts responsibility onto individuals, exposing the movement's contradictions.

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern · Antipode · United States

Research on farmworker food insecurity in the USA points out that food assistance providers often treat farmworkers' inability to afford healthy food as a lack of knowledge, reinforcing racialized assumptions that people of color do not know "good" food. This study argues that food security and healthy eating are not a matter of consumers making healthy "choices," but rather a matter of class-based and racial differences within the food system.

Austen Moore, Norma Samuel, Glenn D. Israel · Journal of Extension · United States

The Empower Ocala Garden project in Marion County aimed to increase participation among low-income minority populations and address food desert conditions. It created a community garden for 12 households and provided bi-weekly trainings. Evaluation using pre- and post-project questionnaires showed participants attended 53.4% of sessions, attitudes improved by 9.82% across four indicators, and knowledge increased by 19.57% across eight indicators.

Kamyar Enshayan · Iowa State University Digital Repository (Iowa State University) · United States (Iowa)

A group of urban women in northern Iowa, facing various life challenges, learned self-sufficiency by collaboratively planning, planting, growing, and harvesting produce from a community garden. This initiative focused on developing farming skills through practical engagement.