Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
7626 results(151 / 306)
Varieties of green: On aesthetic contestations over urban sustainability pathways in a Copenhagen community garden
2020Jakob Laage‐Thomsen, Anders Blok · Environment and Planning E Nature and Space · Europe
Drawing on a case study of a civic-driven permaculture garden in Copenhagen, Denmark, this article develops an analytical grid for the imaginative and material domain of public aesthetic norms that shapes tensions over interventions in, and valuations of, the city's multiform green spaces. It models this domain along two axes — "orderliness" versus "wildness," and "pastoral nature" versus city-nature "imbrication" — and uses the grid to make sense of internal debates and external criticisms surrounding the Copenhagen permaculture garden. It explains how and why the garden struggled to secure a legitimate place in a city otherwise committed to urban nature, and argues that attention to variable aesthetic commitments around urban greenery helps recast questions of urban sustainability politics.
CommunityDIYCH-REURBANO. Ciudad de México. México
2020Cadaval Solà-Morales · On diseño · Mexico
A 2020 "On diseño" award jury statement assessed the CH-REURBANO project in the historic center of Mexico City. Three previously separate, abandoned buildings with differential foundation settlement were structurally unified by removing their central mass to create a shared courtyard that also functions as circulation and ventilation. The mixed-use program was legally justified by citing the buildings' prior history of varied uses in a zone where such mixing is normally restricted.
CommunityPeri-urban agricultureAgroecologia nas escolas do campo na microrregião de Altamira, Pará
2020Carla Rocha, Alanne Rainer Rosa Nascimento, Maristela Marques da Silva · Cadernos de Agroecologia · Brazil
Educational activities on agroecology and environmental issues were reported in rural multi-grade schools (from first grade through high school) in the municipality of Brasil Novo, in the Altamira microregion of Pará, Brazil. Action planning was underway at two schools, one focused on soil as a theme and the other on recycling and the creation of vegetable and school gardens, with farmers holding ecological plant knowledge interviewed as part of the process.
Food educationCommunityThe LO-MO-GO Leadership Communication Style: Reveal the Uniqueness of Culture Through Messages of a "Chairwoman"
2020Sopian, Sarwititi Sarwoprasodjo, Aida Vitayala S Hubeis, Dwi Retno Hapsari · International Journal of Progressive Sciences and Technologies · Indonesia
A qualitative case study examined the leadership communication style of the chairwoman of Kentagor, described as the best-performing women's farmer group in Bogor city, Indonesia, in relation to urban agriculture group activities. Based on interviews, observations, focus group discussions, and WhatsApp group documentation, her messages reflected a "LO-MO-GO" communication style combining leader-oriented, member-oriented, and group-oriented tendencies.
CommunityPolicyPengaruh Keragaman Tanaman Sela pada Tanaman Kubis Bunga (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis L.) terhadap Pertumbuhan dan Hasil dalam Sistem Rooftop Garden
2020Miftachul Zannah, Sitawati Sitawati · PLANTROPICA Journal of Agricultural Science · Indonesia
A field trial on the sixth-floor rooftop of the central building at the Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, Indonesia, conducted from December 2019 to March 2020, tested the effect of intercropping on cauliflower (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis) growth and yield in a rooftop garden system. Using a randomized block design with six treatments and four replications, intercropping reduced cauliflower's growth and yield parameters but raised the land equivalent ratio (LER) above 1, except when intercropped with pakcoy or water spinach; LER reached 1.74 with sweet corn, 1.57 with upright common beans, and 1.27 with broccoli.
Organic cycleCommunityBlack Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C by Ashanté M. Reese
2020Bobby 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.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justicePengembangan Sekolah Berwawasan Lingkungan Menuju Adiwiyata Mandiri Di SMAN4 Kota Jambi
2020Noferdiman Noferdiman, Lisna Lisna, Yusma Damayanti · · Indonesia
A community-service program at SMAN 4 Jambi City, Indonesia, delivered counseling, training and participatory environmental activities over five stages to support the school's push for independent Adiwiyata (environmentally sound school) status. Knowledge assessments afterward scored 74 (moderate) for school sanitation management, 70 (moderate) for waste management, and 68 (sufficient) for environmental management, with participants reporting knowledge of managing school gardens, greenhouses, toilet cleanliness and gutters. The program was implemented and received positively by school members.
Food educationCommunityPolicyHealthIntergenerational Learning Through Community-Based Internships: A Case Study of Grounding Roots’ Garden Groups
2020Illana C. Livstrom, Gillian Roehrig, Amy Rex Smith · International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement · Global
A single-case study examined Grounding Roots, an urban agricultural internship program that brings together youth interns, undergraduates and community elder mentors in intergenerational garden groups, asking how community-based education through internships can support youth marginalized in traditional educational settings. The program was found to support youth in multidimensional learning and identity development within community-based spaces that connect learning to their communities and lives, particularly for youth with marginalized identities, through elements including recognizing and leveraging youths' existing assets, building confidence, leadership identities and diverse relationships, and connecting participants with the broader community, underscoring the value of intergenerational mentoring, diverse learning communities and work-based learning.
CommunityFood educationElderlyWelfareAssessing sustainability of urban and Peri-Urban agricultural development in Mumbai
2020Sanju Kumari, Kanhaiya Lal, Rajnee Lata · Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry · India
With rapid urbanization shifting agriculture in many Indian metropolitan cities, and land conversion for housing causing land scarcity in Mumbai, residents have turned to urban and peri-urban agricultural (UPA) activities — terrace farming, balcony farming, vegetable production along railway tracks, use of wastewater and sewage for irrigation, and goat keeping — to sustain agricultural production. A paper assesses the ecological, environmental and economic sustainability of UPA development in Mumbai, one of India's global cities, revealing its limitations and proposing possible measures for ensuring sustainability.
CommunityEconomicsPolicyClimate changeEcologia política e agricultura urbana na América Latina
2020Henrique Freitas Alves · Cadernos PROLAM/USP · South America
Based on a literature review selected through the University of São Paulo's Portal Águia metasearch tool, a Brazilian paper presents a panorama of discussions on urban political ecology and urban agriculture. By comparing literature specific to political ecology with pathways into urban agriculture, it shows the need for closer engagement between the two in Latin American academic literature, given the scarcity of studies in the region, and discusses the complexity of the political and socio-environmental relations behind the practice of urban agriculture and the contribution of linking it to political ecology.
PolicyFood sovereignty & justiceCommunity7. Gardens in the Growth Machine: Seattle’s P- Patch Program and the Pursuit of Permanent Community Gardens
2020Charlotte Glennie · New York University Press eBooks · United States
This chapter traces the history of Seattle's P-Patch community garden program, which resident-activists have kept insulated from development pressure by advocating for it at critical moments. Advocates pursued a pro-growth strategy, framing the gardens as good for a growing city, which fed Seattle's image as green and livable and helped attract high-income residents and raise property values; while the gardens themselves remain secure, low-income and other vulnerable residents are being displaced by this green gentrification.
Equity & displacementCommunity5. From the Holy Trinity to Microgreens: Gentrification Redefining Local Foodways in Post- Katrina New Orleans
2020Pamela Arnette Broom, Yuki Kato · New York University Press eBooks · United States
This chapter examines the gentrification of foodways in post-Katrina New Orleans, combining the author's own experience as a long-term urban gardener with grower interviews. It argues that the emerging narrative presenting urban agriculture as a new idea obscures the city's long-standing tradition of local food production and procurement, and that the new geographic notion of local tends to dissociate from the social and cultural dimensions of preexisting folk foodways; it concludes that the popularity of urban agriculture among newcomers, though well-intended, had the adverse effect of discouraging many long-term residents from engaging with urban agriculture and from opportunities such as entrepreneurship, community health and urban sustainability.
Equity & displacementCommunityFood sovereignty & justiceDevelopment of arboriculture in peri-urban agricultural concessions at Kinshasa : Towards an innovative fruit agroforestry
2020Mabu Masiala Bode, Apollinaire Biloso Moyene, Charles Kinkela Savy · International journal of innovation and applied studies · Democratic Republic of Congo
A study examined the nature of production in peri-urban agricultural concessions in the commune of Mont-Ngafula, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, based on the concept of production systems and questionnaire surveys. The surveyed concessions carry out several types of plant and animal production, and fruit arboriculture is the most important crop type in terms of area occupied and visibility. Its development is linked to the capacity to rapidly develop land and occupy it long-term, the necessary and sufficient conditions for obtaining and keeping the long-term occupation contract, the only land title the Congolese state legally recognizes for agricultural concession users. The paper proposes an innovative fruit agroforestry approach based on participatory domestication of fruit trees with high nutritional and commercial value mixed with food crops and animal production, aimed at increasing food supply in Kinshasa's markets and professionalizing fruit arboriculture.
CommunityEconomicsFood sovereignty & justicePolicyLandscape urbanism and informal space-making: insights from a guerrilla gardening case in Montreal, Canada
2020Vladimir Mikadze · Journal of Urban Design · Canada
A study tracing the inception and development of an unauthorized community garden (guerrilla garden) that emerged from a re-appropriated composting site in a municipal park in Montreal, Canada. It identifies the main reasons and mechanisms that allowed the garden to persist in a high-profile location for a period of time, and examines the garden and its effects on surrounding space in relation to landscape urbanism and its pursuit of a new urban development paradigm.
CommunityDIYParent engagement in sustaining the nutritional gains from School-Plus-Home Gardens Project and school-based feeding programmes in the Philippines
2020Blesilda M. Calub, Leila S. Africa, Bessie M. Burgos · · Global
A chapter on the School-Plus-Home Gardens Project (S+HGP) in the Philippines, which promotes greater parent engagement in home and school gardening to sustain nutritional gains under the Department of Education's nationwide School Garden Program and School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP). At the end of a 3-month feeding period, 62% of severely wasted and 70% of wasted child beneficiaries reached normal nutritional status; however, 9 of 14 surveyed schools had repeat beneficiaries from the previous year's SBFP (36–38%), and 14% had been repeat beneficiaries for three consecutive years, due to lack of food at home during the rest of the year, severe illness, and parents' attitudes and values. Factors contributing to successful parent engagement included regular parent-teacher consultations, a participatory development approach, training, parent-child cooking contests using garden produce, and collaboration with local government units.
Food educationHealthCommunityFood sovereignty & justiceHocus pocus? Spirituality and soil care in biodynamic agriculture
2020Anna Pigott · Environment and Planning E Nature and Space · United Kingdom
Drawing on extended fieldwork with a Community Supported Agriculture project in south Wales, this article re-imagines soils as lively, complex, more-than-human ecologies by examining the largely sidestepped subject of spirituality in agriculture. It explores how care is cultivated through biodynamic farming, a non-conventional method incorporating astrological and spiritual principles, arguing that biodynamic narratives and rituals encourage attentiveness to more-than-human agency and energy, to depth both underground and in above-ground influences of air and celestial bodies, and to reciprocity between soil biota and humans — while also resisting drives to measure and map and leaving room for mystery. It also notes that despite biodynamic farming's growing popularity, its spiritual elements tend to be kept quiet, overshadowed by more familiar secular narratives.
CSA & TeikeiOrganic cycleCommunityThe roles of Malaysian university-of-the-future in digital era: engagement in community to improve B40 youth wellbeing through urban farming programme anddigital entrepreneurship
2020Irmane Mze Ali, Mohd Wajdi Mohd Feham, Yahia Siddique, Abdul Rahman Ahmad Dahlan · · Malaysia
As part of Malaysia's "University-of-the-Future" (UotF) concept, this paper designs an approach to improving the wellbeing of low-income (B40) youth by normalizing an urban farming programme and expanding economic opportunity through digital entrepreneurship, using a literature review together with a Business Model Canvas (BMC), a Value Proposition Design Canvas (VPC), and surveys of participants for feedback. It reports using these tools to formulate both an initial and a validated version of the BMC and VPC.
CommunityFood educationDigital agricultureMinor crops.
2020Todd C. Wehner, Rachel P. Naegele, James R. Myers, Narinder P. S. Dhillon, Kevin M. Crosby · CABI eBooks · Asia
This book chapter covers the cultivation and uses of numerous minor cucurbit crops — including Benincasa hispida (wax gourd), Coccinia grandis (ivy gourd), wild Cucumis species, wild Cucurbita species, Luffa species, several Momordica species, Praecitrullus fistulosus, Sechium edule (chayote), Sicana odorifera, Telfairia species, and Trichosanthes species. It states these cucurbits are primarily cultivated by smallholder farmers in Asia and are often grown as part of home, school, and community gardens.
CommunityFood educationSquatter'S rights, garden delights? the battle over a vacant lot in montreal leaves a community garden in ruins.
2020Zach Mortice · Landscape architecture · Canada
This article covers landscape architect Alexander Cassini's (ASLA) involvement with the Carré Casgrain community garden in the Little Italy neighborhood of Montreal, Canada. The city and Le Carré et sa Ruelle began a process of establishing the site as a real estate reserve, transferring ownership to the city with management handed to the community members who had rehabilitated the land, but the piece reports that the battle over the vacant lot left the community garden in ruins.
Governance failureCommunityMultifuncionalidade da horticultura urbana e sua integração ao ecossistema urbano
2020João Flávio Bomfim Gomes, Renata da Silva Brant Gomes, Alex Oliveira de Souza · Horticultura Brasileira · Global
A review-style introduction on the multifunctionality of urban horticulture. It cites United Nations (2015) projections that 66.36% of the world population will be urban by 2050, up from 53.60% in 2014, and an FAO 2015 report estimating about 795 million people worldwide facing food insecurity. It states that FAO (2015) puts global urban agriculture practice at 800 million people, and frames the practice as multifunctional - supplying food, supporting biodiversity, improving land and water use, and raising income and quality of life for urban farmers - without presenting original empirical data.
Food sovereignty & justiceCommunityHealthBiodiversityCommunity-Supported Agriculture as a Perspective Model for the Development of Small Agricultural Holding in the Region
2020Mirosław Struś, Magdalena Kalisiak-Mędelska, Michał Nadolny, Marian Kachniarz, Magdalena Raftowicz-Filipkiewicz · Sustainability · Poland
A survey of 400 agricultural holdings across nine municipalities of the Wrocław district in Poland examined the potential for Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) to develop in the district, given its proximity to the Wrocław market in Lower Silesia. The research found that the CSA model opens opportunities for long-lasting cooperation between farmers and consumers, but that implementing it requires raising the prices farmers charge for their produce by about 50%, along with solutions to problems related to the cost of transporting agricultural products.
CSA & TeikeiCommunityEconomicsParticipation targeting the local community
2020Kim Viborg Andersen, Jakob Ohme, Camilla Bjarnøe, Mats Joe Bordacconi, Erik Albæk, Claes H. de Vreese · · Global
This book chapter examines how participation in local communities varies by generation, finding that local community participation is highest among older generations and lowest among the youngest. Political news exposure has a positive effect on this type of participation, particularly among Baby Boomers, mediated through political interest and efficacy. Citizens engage with their local communities in various ways, including through local organizations such as an urban gardening community or by attending local meetings. Using the authors' Engagement-Participation-Information-Generation (EPIG) model, the chapter tests whether the positive effect of political news exposure on local community political participation is mediated through three dimensions of political engagement — interest, knowledge and efficacy — and concludes that the EPIG model is useful for understanding local political participation.
CommunityFood educationMayol Pascal, Gangneron Etienne, 2019, L’agriculture urbaine : un outil déterminant pour les villes durables. Les avis du Conseil économique, social et environnemental (CESE), éditions du Journal officiel, juin 2019, 98 p.
2020Pierre Donadieu · Territoire en mouvement · France
This is a review-style article introducing a June 2019 opinion document from France's Conseil economique, social et environnemental (CESE), L'agriculture urbaine: un outil determinant pour les villes durables (98 pages). It notes that during the 2010s, six major publications sought to characterize urban agriculture as an economic and social phenomenon that has been emerging or resurging in France and worldwide for at least 20 years, and traces this literature back to three earlier French-language collective works, including one titled Agriculture urbaine: amenager.
PolicyCommunityClimate changeUrban agriculture and local communities: encouraging engagement, building cohesion, and linking to global agreements
2020Laine Young, Alison Blay‐Palmer · · Global
The abstract provided for this record consists only of a repetition of the title, indicating the piece addresses urban agriculture and local communities in relation to encouraging engagement, building cohesion, and linking to global agreements, but no further content is given.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceThe role and potential of edible landscape in regional revitalization
2020Yumiko Fujiwara, Kaoru Matsuo, Shigeaki TAKEDA, Hiroyuki KAGA · Proceedings of The City Planning Institute of Japan Kansai Branch · Japan
A literature review and interviews with resident-led edible landscape initiatives in Japan examined the role of edible landscape in regional revitalization. Edible landscape was found to have taken on a comprehensive regional-revitalization role encompassing food security, educational effects, economic effects and community regeneration. Across the process from planting to eating edible plants, the edible theme appeared able to draw in collaboration with public bodies, businesses and resident groups beyond existing local community ties.
CommunityFood educationPolicyEconomics