Research & reports

Cinthia Asunción Peralta-González, Rodolfo Mondragón-Ríos, Eduardo Bello Baltazar · Estudios Sociales Revista de Alimentación Contemporánea y Desarrollo Regional · Mexico (San Cristóbal de Las Casas)

This qualitative study analyzed sociocultural spaces and communication mechanisms used for collective learning and knowledge appropriation regarding medicinal and gastronomic plant use among residents of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. Ethnographic techniques were employed with members of the urban agriculture network Sembrando Jovel, citizens from the Santa Lucía neighborhood, and various city markets. Results identified formal, non-formal, and informal spaces linked by communication mechanisms such as intergenerational coexistence, daily practices, experimentation, knowledge exchange, classes, courses, workshops, diplomas, and mass media. The study was limited to a small number of families (four cases) in the Santa Lucía neighborhood regarding the domestic sphere. As a result of appropriation processes, knowledge about medicinal and gastronomic plant uses has been re-signified, adopting critical stances against food industries and in favor of personal, social, and cultural well-being.

Jared T. McGuirt · Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · United States

This mixed-methods formative evaluation, part of a larger randomized trial in four US states, assessed an affordable Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program integrated into federal nutrition education. A survey of 262 low-income adults showed high interest (85%), with more interest if a CSA was included (84%). A choice experiment (n=42) indicated preferences for a large, mixed-variety CSA box, distributed twice monthly for under $15, and not significantly further than a supermarket.

Isabela Cicaroni Ottoni, Bruno Oliveira, Daniel Henrique Bandoni · O Mundo da Saúde · Brazil

This study evaluated the presence of Food and Nutrition Education (FNE) actions within Brazil's National School Feeding Program (NSFP) and identified predictors for running school gardens, using 2010 secondary data from 749 municipalities. Binary logistic regression showed that the presence of FNE in school curricula was the most significant predictor of running school gardens (OR=2.406). This was followed by the use of food from family farms (OR=2.049) and the carrying out of culinary workshops (OR=2.032). The presence of FNE in the school curriculum was positively associated with growing vegetable gardens.

Deanna L. Wilkinson, Jan B. Carroll · Journal of Extension · United States

This article discusses inclusive scholarship through the involvement of community partners and youth participants from an urban gardening program as coauthors and copresenters of a poster at a community engagement conference. Including these participants helped Extension professionals reach a wider audience, deepen relationships, empower youth, and improve data quality.

Anne Cabell, Veronica Conti, Trent E. Johnson, Shelly Yu, Chris Akiba · Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · United States

The Carolina Campus Community Garden (CCCG) aims to improve access to fresh fruits and vegetables for UNC's lowest-paid employees and serve as a learning community for gardening education. Currently, CCCG lacks a permanent land plot and sufficient ongoing funding, necessitating institutionalization within UNC to secure a permanent location, sustained funding, and increased utilization. A Capstone student team conducted formative research, including a literature review, semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, focus groups with housekeepers, and surveys with students and administrators, to understand community needs and beliefs.

Samathryn Witham · Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · United States

This Photovoice study, conducted over a 10-week youth summer program at an urban community garden, involved teenage photographers documenting their food experiences. The youth created a creative project and exhibit, using popular food media slogans to promote local food, defy stereotypes, and explore their identities as gardeners and media producers.

Angela Almeida Almeida · Esferas · Brazil

This photographic essay originated from participation in free classes offered by the "Horta Comunitária Nutrir" Community Garden Laboratory in Brazil, where research on Non-Conventional Food Plants (PANC) is conducted. The author learned about the plants, executed recipes, and took photographs. The work is based on the belief that when art and science converge, they bring together multiplicity-diversity and nature-culture, contained within the interconnection of images and the plurality of life's spheres.

Ana Paula Schmitz Rodrigues, Eunice Aita Isaia Kindel · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Brazil (Porto Alegre)

This qualitative study, conducted with elementary school students in a public school in Porto Alegre, Brazil, aimed to raise environmental awareness through direct engagement in creating a school garden and separating solid waste. Student statements were recorded and categorized to understand their perceptions of solid waste, nutrient cycling, and food. The findings indicated students' detachment from the environment and highlighted the need for more interdisciplinary and continuous environmental education practices in schools.

Thomas Earl Tracy · ODU Digital Commons (Old Dominion University) · United States (Virginia)

This study investigated reasons for the low enrollment of African Americans in urban agriculture degree programs in Virginia, which contributes to few African Americans in leadership positions in the urban agriculture industry. Data were collected through surveys and interviews with agriculture students, non-agriculture students, and department chairpersons at Virginia State University and other colleges. The findings indicate a dearth of African Americans enrolled in these programs.

Suzanna Elkin · ScholarWorks -A service of University of Vermont Libraries (University of Vermont) · United States

This dissertation presents a mixed-methods case study of a comprehensive Farm-to-School (FTS) program in a northern California school district. It comprises three papers, each exploring one of the "3-C" domains: classroom, cafeteria, and community. The first study qualitatively examines teacher involvement in FTS, the second uses mixed methods to research a new school lunch program, and the third examines the community aspect.

Bianca Jacqueline Silva · · Brazil

This study describes a project for implementing a community garden at the Itabira campus of the Federal University of Itajubá. The project began with dialogue among campus workers and aims to foster greater involvement with the university community and local population. The garden is planned as a space for observation, cultivation, and leisure, potentially contributing to education and activities on ecology, environmental education, and integrated management of solid and organic waste, with positive impacts on the local environment and participants' health.

Nikhil Villani, Jack Stambaugh · ScholarWorks@UMassAmherst (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · United States

The UMass Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) at the Agricultural Learning Center (ALC) involves Stockbridge School of Agriculture students and faculty researching and practicing regenerative food production. Initiated in Spring 2018, students designed and installed a chestnut-sheep silvopasture on a two-acre site. The first season involved starting a chestnut nursery, planting chestnuts, and rotationally grazing six sheep between rows.

Bruce G. Ferguson, Helda Morales, Kimberly Chung, Ronald Nigh · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Mexico

A case study of the LabVida school gardens program in Chiapas, Mexico, explored the potential and limitations of scaling agroecology through formal education. Educators gained an appreciation for agroecology and learned practices, though their understanding of agroecological principles and scientific processes remained limited. The program's greatest impact was on educators' eating habits and their perception of the value of local knowledge. The study demonstrates that garden and food-system work can leverage institutional resources to improve educational outcomes, including agroecological literacy.

August John Hoffman, Jordan Seitz, Anthonie Collins, Rich Downs · Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community · United States

This study describes the experiences of two community psychology students participating in "green" volunteer sustainable programs. One student worked with young men in a youth detention facility maintaining a vegetable garden, while another organized a community apple harvest in Wyoming, MN. Participants were interviewed about their subjective experiences and how these programs improved understanding of diverse cultures and the value of outdoor "green" voluntary programs.

Fábia Massarani, Marta Citelli, Daniela Silva Canella, Josely Correa Koury · PeerJ · Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)

This pilot study evaluated the eating habits of 83 adolescent athletes in an experimental school in Rio de Janeiro from 2013 to 2016. Following the implementation of a school garden, experimental kitchen activities, and health promotion classes, the frequency of raw salad and fruit consumption increased, suggesting that integrated healthy eating promotion programs may improve eating habits.

Franklin Wagner, Lindsey Payne · Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement · United States (Lafayette)

In summer 2016, Purdue University researchers collaborated with Lafayette's GrowLocal Urban Gardens Network in Lafayette, Indiana, to conduct a baseline analysis of current community gardening initiatives. Using qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, they identified motivations and barriers to participation through stakeholder interviews and focus groups. The study indicated that urban gardens as community spaces may serve a greater purpose than providing fresh food, and its results informed a planning document for GrowLocal with strategic recommendations for governance, communication, event integration, and collaborative grants.

Karla L. Hanson, Leah C. Volpe, Jane Kolodinsky, Grace Hwang, Weiwei Wang, Stephanie Jilcott Pitts, Marilyn Sitaker, Alice S. Ammerman, Rebecca A. Seguin‐Fowler · Nutrients · United States

A cross-sectional study in August 2017 surveyed cost-offset Community Supported Agriculture (CO-CSA) applicants (purchasers n=46, non-purchasers n=18) and a comparison sample (n=105) of low-income adults with children. CO-CSA applicants reported better knowledge, self-efficacy, home habits, and diet than the comparison sample. Among applicants, purchasers and non-purchasers had equivalent knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs, but children in purchaser households consumed significantly more fruits and vegetables (4.14 vs. 1.83 cups, p = 0.001).

Rudy Dunlap, Justin Harmon, Bradley H. Camp · Annals of Leisure Research · United States

An ethnographic study of volunteer participation in an urban farm in Austin, Texas, United States, in which researchers spent three years documenting participants' activities through participant observation and interviewing. Guided by the concept of "civil leisure," the study analyzed voluntary participation as a leisure practice oriented toward civic issues, finding that participation functioned as a means of (1) fostering self-reliance through peer education, (2) establishing and strengthening place-based social networks, and (3) addressing civic concerns related to infrastructure and food security. These findings are interpreted through Zygmunt Bauman's concepts of liquid modernity and liquid fear, and the study offers recommendations for how municipalities might cultivate residents' civic impulses through urban agriculture.

Renate M. Winkels, Rick Artrip, Maegan Tupinio, Susan Veldheer, Smita Dandekar, Daniel R. George · Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology · United States

The feasibility of a mentored gardening intervention for adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors in a hospital-based community garden was evaluated as a way to improve diet and physical activity. Over the 2018 growing season, AYA cancer survivors tended a garden plot under the mentorship of an experienced (master) gardener and were successful in planting and harvesting vegetables in partnership with their mentors, with qualitative data used to assess challenges, facilitators, and areas for future programmatic improvement and replication.

Athena K. Ramos, Natalia Trinidad, Sonja Bickford, Nate Bickford, Julia Torquati, Maria Mushi · Collaborations A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice · United States

A study conducted a bilingual online survey to gauge public support for a planned community garden in South Omaha, Nebraska, and to prioritize messaging strategies about its potential benefits. Assessing interest, perceived benefits, purposes, and desired co-located functions, the study identified the value of developing local data, the importance of an asset-based framework, the need to understand community perceptions of potential benefits, the challenge of balancing community research efforts, and the need for partnerships to expand a project's reach.

Devin C O'Mara · Fordham Research Commons (Fordham University) · United States (New York City)

This 2019 paper examines the potential of urban agriculture to increase food security and education for underprivileged children in New York City, United States. Chapter 1 addresses the issue of food insecurity among children, considering information on the number of children lacking access to healthy, fresh food. Chapter 2 traces the history of urban agriculture in New York City, from one person's rooftop to a broader sustainability movement. Chapter 3 examines the potential outcomes of integrating urban agriculture into social justice efforts for underprivileged children, covering food security, education, and physical and mental health. Chapter 4 analyzes how incorporating urban agriculture into future sustainable infrastructure could benefit everyone, not only children. Drawing on the preceding chapters, Chapter 5 offers recommendations for creating greater access to urban agriculture for children.

Shawna Holmes · Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l alimentation · Canada

Interviews with school food environment staff across Canada examined how provincial nutrition regulation changes affected food procurement. While the regulations opened opportunities to improve nutrient content and involve local producers or school gardens, some schools struggled to procure nutritionally compliant food because of higher costs of transporting produce to rural, remote or northern communities and logistical problems such as spoilage. Regulations improved food environments in some schools, but others still require more support.

Francisco Magalhães Araújo dos Santos, Eduardo Borges Chaves, Geane Andrade Carreiro, Marília S. Lima, Ewerton Gasparetto Silva, Cristovam Alves de Lima · · Brazil

This report describes a university extension activity at the community garden run by the Pastoral da Crianca (Children's Pastoral) in Uruçuí, Piauí state, Brazil — an organization active in the municipality for over 20 years, assisting more than 200 vulnerable children, with its garden managed by 14 members. Lacking a rational irrigation system and relying only on manual watering cans, the garden required heavy labor and imprecise water application and had not reached its maximum productive potential. After community sensitization and a topographic survey to size the system, a localized microsprinkler irrigation system was installed, with the executing team maintaining the garden through bed cleaning, weeding and irrigation management. Following installation, evaluation by the members managing the garden found reduced physical labor, decreased production losses during dry periods, and higher product quality that translated into increased earnings channeled back to those assisted by the Pastoral da Crianca, along with greater environmental awareness through more efficient water use.

Heather McIlvaine-Newsad, Rob Porter · Journal of Park and Recreation Administration · United States

This study describes how the creation of community gardens in four distinct communities in Puerto Rico led to a wide variety of socially just benefits, including recreation and food production, for participants. Ethnographic research conducted in Puerto Rico from 2016 to 2019 examined the role of community gardens before and after Hurricane Maria. The authors conclude that while these gardens may have been established for one purpose, that purpose evolved over time to meet the multiple needs and desires of participants. The main reason for creating the gardens was a desire to grow vegetables in a manner emulating the practices of Taino and Jibaro ancestors, with replicating a sustainable, environmentally friendly way of farming serving both as a statement about wanting to live in harmony with the land and a political statement about Puerto Rico's status in relation to the United States. Participants learned agroecology practices while creating spaces for leisure and social activities, and over time other forms of environmental and cultural education were incorporated; gardening together, people engaged in causes such as building renewable energy, strengthening intergenerational social bonds, and environmental and social activism. The bonds formed in these spaces prior to the hurricane produced knowledge, labor and infrastructure that helped these communities navigate the effects of Hurricane Maria.

Adriana Rodrigues Moreira, Rodrigues, Ana Beatriz Nizer, Poiani, Jaqueline Oliveira, Santos, Luciana Beatriz dos, França, Maria Gabriela de Lima · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Brazil

This case study documents the introduction of a school garden at a municipal early childhood education center (CMEI) in São José dos Pinhais, Brazil, tracing the process from soil preparation and fertilizing, through measuring planting beds and selecting crops, to harvest by students and teachers. Data came from field research, literature review, interviews, photographic records, and site visits. The main result was construction of the garden, from site maintenance to seedling planting, carried out by staff with student help. The study concludes the garden raised environmental awareness and supplemented meals at the institution, but this is a descriptive case report without a comparison group or quantitative outcome measures.