Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
4122 results(140 / 165)
Allocating Urban Agricultural Reuse Strategies to Inventoried Vacant and Underutilized Land
2012Margaret C. Kirnbauer · Journal of Environmental Informatics · United States
Amid growing interest among community groups in using vacant and underutilized land for urban food production, but with few community-based tools available to assess site suitability or location-allocation decisions, this U.S. study describes a scientific software tool, built in Microsoft Excel, to help community groups identify and inventory the location and condition of vacant and underutilized land, determine relative site suitability, and allocate urban agricultural reuse strategies across the urban landscape. The tool augments the prototype community-based decision support tool (C-SAP) developed by Kirnbauer and Baetz (2011), which already includes a binary scoring methodology for the vacant and underutilized land inventory (VULI) process and an analytic hierarchy process for calculating site suitability indices (SSI). The added capacity, called LOCAL, formulates a multi-objective binary integer program for location-allocation of reuse strategies at the neighborhood, community, or city-wide planning level. The paper summarizes and discusses applying the prototype tool to 21 sites identified as potential future urban agriculture sites.
CommunityEconomicsPolicyStrategies for sustainable urban systems: introducing eco-innovation in buildings in Mexico and Spain
2012Ileana Cerón Palma · TDX (Tesis Doctorals en Xarxa) · Europe
This doctoral dissertation proposes urban-system strategies for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by introducing eco-innovation into buildings across two economically, socially, and climatically different contexts: Mexico and Spain. For Mexican social housing, it examines an eco-retrofit strategy combining efficient eco-technologies, shading and insulation (roof shading, wall overhangs, window and roof louvers, green roofs), and food production (tomatoes), calculating cooling energy demand and the cumulative energy and CO2 emissions associated with shading materials. For Spain, it examines barriers and opportunities for installing intensive food-producing greenhouses on rooftops of buildings in Mediterranean European cities through multidisciplinary expert seminars, and analyzes potential heat-flow synergy between a building and a rooftop greenhouse focused on winter heating energy demand for a service building in Barcelona. Results indicate that eco-technologies can reduce annual energy consumption in social housing by 31% (35.7 kWh/m2/year), roof-shading strategies save 126 kWh/m2/year, and tomato production in social housing in Mérida, Mexico could contribute a reduction of 662 gCO2eq per kg of tomatoes produced.
Climate changePolicyCommunity科技创新 合作共赢北京 市通州区第二届国际都市农业科技节闭幕
2012吕艳 · 农业工程技术：温室园艺 · China (Beijing)
This article reports the closing, on October 21, 2012, of the second International Urban Agriculture Science and Technology Festival, held for one month at the Beijing International Urban Agriculture Science and Technology Park in Tongzhou District, Beijing, China. The festival was co-organized by the Tongzhou District People's Government and China Agricultural University, with cooperation from several government bodies and institutions including the Ministry of Agriculture's Foreign Economic Cooperation Center and the Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, and public-interest support from the China Guanghua Science and Technology Foundation. The item covers only the event's organizers and timeline; it gives no attendance figures or specific outcomes.
PolicyCommunityFood educationPresent Situation and Countermeasues of Facility Agricultue in Hangzhou City
2012Chen Wen-yue · · China
Based on extensive investigation and on-site inspection, this paper analyzes the current situation and problems of facility agriculture in Hangzhou City, China. In light of the requirements for urban agriculture construction and facility agriculture's development trend, it proposes countermeasures for raising technology levels and promoting the sustainable development of local facility agriculture, including facility standardization, variety customization, equipment localization, scientific technique, and specialized personnel.
PolicyEdible public space. Experimenting with a socio-environmentally just urbanism
2012Chiara Tornaghi · TERRITORIO · United Kingdom
This paper presents an English case of urban agriculture, the Edible Public Space Project in Leeds, situated within urban agriculture initiatives committed to socio-environmental justice, the reproduction of common goods, and urban planning that promotes the right to food and bottom-up construction of urban space. The case study is framed as action-research at the intersection of urban planning policy, community work, and critical geography. Unlike many similar initiatives, the project is presented not as a merely temporary activity tucked into the city's spare folds, but as an experiment that imagines and implements alternatives to current forms of urban planning, contextualized in light of the ecological, financial, and social crisis of the preceding decade.
CommunityPolicyFood sovereignty & justiceSpazi aperti periurbani e nuove agricolture in Brianza
2012Arturo Sergio Lanzani · TERRITORIO · Italy
This study treats Brianza, Italy, as a prototype of recurring relationships between residential and agricultural spaces in contemporary towns and cities, using their differences to trace the evolution of the historical landscape, the causes of its deterioration, and new planning possibilities. The simplified rural fabric of the Vimercate countryside, the strings of woodland and built-up areas in the hills, urban clearings, and the woodland and countryside of Groane are each said to open prospects for new, locally specific types of urban agriculture. The proposed future is plural, examining different relationships among agriculture, collective spaces and redevelopment of existing settlements, while opting for a halt to urban growth and reconstruction of infrastructure and landscape quality in the Brianza area.
PolicyCommunityUrban–rural linkageChapter 18 Making local food sustainable in Manchester
2012Les Levidow, Katerina Psarikidou · · United Kingdom
In Manchester, England, environmental and health issues have been folded into a wider agro-food strategy aimed at making the city "more sustainable." With support from state bodies and charities, several initiatives have expanded access to fresh, healthy food, particularly in "food deserts," mobilizing resources, skills, and voluntary labor through "community engagement" to create "community spaces" for social inclusion. Manchester's agro-food networks shorten supply chains by linking peri-urban agriculture more directly with urban consumers and by promoting urban agriculture grounded in local resource mobilization and personal trust, offering an alternative to conventional agro-food chains; food relocalisation is described as helping overcome socio-economic inequalities and health problems, with Manchester initiatives cooperating to build environmentally sustainable, socially just, healthy communities and reconstructing local identities and social commitments, within a national policy context that advocates food relocalisation but provides little actual support. Despite that activity, the larger food system in Manchester remains dominated by conventional agro-food chains, and community food initiatives play only a marginal role, leading practitioners to discuss how to overcome these limitations; from 2010 onward, the UK government's austerity regime is described as undermining state support further, making community engagement even more important for mobilizing resources.
Limited or null effectFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityEconomicsPolicyThe Wild Life of Pesticides: urban agriculture, institutional responsibility, and the future of biodiversity in Sydney's Hawkesbury-Nepean River
2012R. Plant, Jeremy Walker, Scott Rayburg, J Gothe, Teresa Leung · Australian Geographer · Australia
A study of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River in Sydney, Australia, examines the effects of pesticide use by the small-scale horticulturalists supplying the city's fresh vegetable markets on aquatic biodiversity. Through interviews with actors across the institutions responsible for agriculture, water quality, and environmental protection, it assesses the effectiveness of pesticide governance in the Greater Sydney Basin. It finds that pesticide pollution is rarely measured or monitored and is not a priority for any particular agency, meaning the pollution remains effectively uncontrolled. The study concludes that although public health, the long-term viability of local farming, and the ecological health of the river are compatible goals, they currently exist under a system of "organised irresponsibility."
Contamination & food safetyCommunityPolicyAddressing food, water, waste and energy yields in urban regenerative environments
2012Eleni Katrini · KiltHub Repository · Global
A 2012 thesis (KiltHub Repository) reviewed multiple systems -- urban agriculture, decentralized water management and treatment, and energy production from waste -- through literature review and case studies. The goal was to build a toolkit for urban regenerative environments to introduce these systems to designers, with its key component being a quantitative link between each system's spatial demands and its efficiency.
Climate changePolicyEconomics農の風景育成地区制度
2011東京都都市整備局 · 東京都都市整備局（民有地の緑の保全・創出 制度） · Japan
A Tokyo system created in 2011 to conserve dwindling farmland as open space and carry the agricultural landscape into the future. Districts where farmland and homestead groves remain clustered are designated so that scattered farmland can be conserved collectively as urban-planning parks/green space. Designations include Setagaya's Kitami (the first) and Nerima's Takamatsu and Minami-Oizumi, providing the policy framework for municipal urban-farmland conservation.
PolicyBiodiversityCommunityAssessing the vulnerability of traditional maize seed systems in Mexico to climate change
2011Bellon M. R., Hodson D., Hellin J. · PNAS 108(33):13432-13437 · Mexico
Assesses farmer-based traditional maize seed systems in Mexico and their vulnerability to climate change, with implications for maintaining and adapting landrace diversity in situ.
Heirloom & landraceBiodiversityCommunityPolicySustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba
2011Koont S. · University Press of Florida (Contemporary Cuba series) · Cuba
This book provides a comprehensive account of Cuba's world-leading sustainable urban agriculture program, documenting a thousand-fold increase in urban agricultural output since 1994 and analyzing how government organizational infrastructure and human capital investment enabled this transformation.
CommunityPolicyEconomicsOrganic cycleThe role of green roof technology in urban agriculture
2011Leigh Whittinghill, D. Bradley Rowe · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · Global
Urban agriculture faces limitations including competition for space, lack of formalized land use rights, and health hazards from food contamination. Green roof technology is proposed as a method to alleviate these issues, potentially reducing the use of contaminated land and water at ground level. However, for large-scale implementation, installation costs must be reduced, roof weight limitations assessed, and appropriate management practices developed.
Contamination & food safetyDIYHealthPolicyClimate changeSisters of the Soil: Urban Gardening as Resistance in Detroit
2011Monica M. White · Race/Ethnicity Multidisciplinary Global Contexts · United States (Detroit)
This article analyzes the experience of black women activists in Detroit who engage in urban agriculture as a form of resistance. They use urban gardening to reassess cultural roots, reclaim personal power, and build a sense of community. The study examines their efforts to transform vacant land into a community-based food system and safe, green spaces, challenging racial and class-based barriers to healthy food access.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceWelfarePolicyDynamics of land-use and land-cover change in Freetown, Sierra Leone and its effects on urban and peri-urban agriculture – a remote sensing approach
2011Gerald Forkuor, Olufunke Cofie · International Journal of Remote Sensing · Sierra Leone (Freetown)
A land-use and land-cover (LULC) change mapping exercise in Freetown, Sierra Leone, used multi-temporal Landsat data from 1974, 1986, and 2000 to map nine LULC classes. Built-up areas increased by at least 140% between 1974 and 2000, and 882 ha (27%) of agricultural lands in 1986 were converted to residential purposes by 2000. These conversions indicate a strong link between urbanization, agriculture, and deforestation, negatively impacting agricultural land availability.
Governance failureUrban–rural linkagePeri-urban agriculturePolicyThe role of urban agriculture in building resilient cities in developing countries
2011H. de Zeeuw, R. van Veenhuizen, Marielle Dubbeling · The Journal of Agricultural Science · Global
This paper summarizes the available evidence regarding the potential of urban agriculture to respond to key urban challenges and reviews the perspectives on urban agriculture applied by local and national authorities.
Urban–rural linkagePolicyFood sovereignty & justiceClimate changeActually Existing Commons: Three Moments of Space of Community Gardens in New York City
2011Efrat Eizenberg · Antipode · United States (New York City)
This paper analyzes community gardens in New York City as an urban space argued to function as the commons in a neoliberal city. It unpacks this space according to three Lefebvrian moments: material space, representations of space, and lived space. Engaging alternative conceptualizations of social relations in the urban space, it complicates and explicates the notion of the commons and its actually existing manifestations.
CommunityPolicyFood sovereignty & justiceCommunity Gardens, Ghetto Pastoral, and Environmental Justice
2011Robert Emmett · ISLE Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment · United States (Los Angeles)
The South Central Farm in Los Angeles, a 14-acre community garden cultivated by hundreds of residents for over a decade, was a significant site against environmental racism. However, urban development ultimately led to its destruction. As of this writing, satellite images show the former lush gardens replaced by a scraped, vacant field, highlighting the impermanence of such community-led green spaces in the face of dominant urban development narratives.
Equity & displacementCommunityFood sovereignty & justicePolicyCritical urban gardening as a post-environmentalist practice
2011Chiara Certomà · Local Environment · Global
This paper investigated the emergence of the urban gardening movement as a form of post-environmentalist political practice. Despite the general acknowledgment of environmental issues, Post-Environmentalism suggests that environmental thinking is becoming increasingly "de-politicised." This study aimed to suggest that "re-politicisation" of environmental politics is possible by considering political practices emerging in urban space. Critical urban gardening, for instance, uses biological material as a form of political expression and activates material-semiotic networks in the urban environment.
CommunityPolicyFood sovereignty & justiceThe Comparison of Allotment Garden in Europe and Community Garden in the United States
2011Jin Qian · Xiandai chengshi yanjiu · Europe; United States
This paper compares allotment gardens in Europe and community gardens in the United States. It notes that stable European allotment gardens rely on policy frameworks, national laws, and cooperation among local government, public, private, and non-profit organizations. In contrast, American community gardens often depend on loosely organized non-profits to acquire land and foster community autonomy without official support.
CommunityPolicyFarmers' Professional Cooperative Organization is Important Industrial Organization to Develop Modern Urban Agriculture——A Case Study in Wuhan,Central City in Central China
2011Yang Yu-xian · Huazhong Nongye Daxue xuebao · China (Wuhan)
This paper investigates farmers' professional cooperative organizations in Wuhan, China, examining their social basis, characteristics, and organizational forms. It identifies these cooperatives as a new type of rural economic organization and an effective vehicle for modern urban agriculture. The study concludes that developing such organizations is necessary for them to become an important industrial basis for modern urban agriculture and rural areas.
CommunityEconomicsPolicyNot Quite Right Landscapes: Designing within Redundant Space in a Peri-urban Agriculture Region
2011Michael D. Howard · Design Principles and Practices An International Journal—Annual Review · Australia (Melbourne)
This case study explores potential new land-use patterns in under-utilized spaces within an intensive horticultural region in peri-urban Melbourne, Victoria, where a mismatch between title boundaries and commercial production methods has created redundant land. The project aimed to increase efficiency, introduce cross-programming, and develop a recreation strategy. It offers a design framework for reorienting land use while preserving the unique qualities of such places.
Peri-urban agriculturePolicyUrban–rural linkage“Perennial Growth” in a Shrinking City: A Case Study of Urban Agriculture Policy and Planning in Cleveland, Ohio
2011Elizabeth S Schuering · Digital Commons-DePaul (DePaul University) · United States (Cleveland)
This paper examines urban agriculture as a strategy for managing vacant land in Cleveland, Ohio, a shrinking city facing population loss and economic decline. The study analyzed Cleveland's urban agriculture movement and municipal policies, including eighteen interviews with local policy experts. Findings indicate that the municipal government supports urban agriculture as a tool for the city's revitalization efforts.
PolicyCommunityUrban–rural linkageAn analysis of urban irrigation farming and its urban planning imiplication: case study of Katsina Urban area, Nigeria
2011MM Ruma · Bayero Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences · Nigeria
This paper examined wastewater reuse in urban farming in Katsina, Nigeria, by interviewing 130 households out of 276 registered with the Katsina Urban Planning Authority. It found that wastewater reuse in urban farming is a full-time, sole income source for many households and an indispensable activity for the town. Recommendations were provided for promoting and integrating this activity into local planning processes.
EconomicsPolicyPeri-urban agricultureCommunityUrban Agriculture and Its Development Strategy
2011Weiming Liu · Economic Research Guide · Global
This paper discusses how urban agriculture accelerates after industrialization and urbanization reach a certain level, keeping pace with the development of industrialization, urbanization, and the economy. It states the importance of recognizing the need for good city planning with reasonable layout and design for urban agriculture, while also strengthening research and exploitation of urban agricultural technology.
PolicyEconomicsUrban–rural linkageDigital agriculture