Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
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Critical findings
7626 results(153 / 306)
Overcoming Barriers In Urban Agriculture To Promote Healthy Eating On College Campuses
2020Kyle Richardville · Purdue e-Pubs (Purdue University System) · United States
With Purdue University's campus and much of its surrounding area classified by the USDA as a food desert, this study surveyed graduate students using a voluntary 33-question online Qualtrics survey distributed campus-wide, to identify barriers to purchasing and consuming fresh produce and to participating in local urban agriculture, and to assess how the COVID-19 pandemic affected food access and motivation for healthy eating and community garden engagement. Results show many Purdue graduate students face both individual and structural barriers to accessing fresh fruits and vegetables, with international students particularly vulnerable to structural barriers; lack of access to a personal vehicle was the primary predictor of vulnerability, especially during the pandemic. Students expressed interest in participating in local urban agriculture initiatives but most were unaware such initiatives existed. A second objective of the study tested whether leaf mold compost could improve degraded urban soils.
Governance failureCommunityHealthFood educationWelfareThe role of urban gardening in building city resilience to climate change
2020Małgorzata Burchard‐Dziubińska · Economics and Environment · Europe
An analysis of urban gardening's role in building city resilience to economic and social change and global warming examines whether Polish cities use it to strengthen resilience to climate change. It finds that using urban gardening for climate resilience is becoming more common worldwide, but that Polish cities have not yet joined this trend.
Climate changeCommunityPolicyAtlantiCare healthy school edible garden startup grants: A content analysis of post-grant follow-up reports
2020Elizabeth G. Calamidas, Tara L. Crowell, Laura Engelmann, Heather Watkins-Jones · Health Education Journal · United States
A content analysis of post-grant follow-up reports examined 73 schools in southern New Jersey, USA (Atlantic, Cape May and Ocean Counties) that received edible-school-garden startup funding from AtlantiCare Health System over three academic years, 2014 to 2017. Analyzing responses to 12 open-ended questions, the study documented community partnerships, garden maintenance and harvest outcomes alongside effects on curriculum and policy, changes in participants' knowledge, attitudes and behavior, and areas needing improvement, finding that schools were appreciative of the opportunity and planned to continue their gardens.
Food educationCommunityHealthMaize (Zea mays) yield and its relationship to soil properties under integrated fertility, mulch and tillage management in urban agriculture
2020A Shumba, N Dunjana, B. Nyamasoka, P. Nyamugafata, Simon Madyiwa, J. Nyamangara · South African Journal of Plant and Soil · Zimbabwe
In Harare, Zimbabwe, an experiment on sandy and red clay soils tested combinations of cattle manure plus mineral nitrogen fertilizer, 0 or 5 t/ha of mulch, and reduced (RT) or conventional (CT) tillage, assessing effects on soil organic carbon (SOC), aggregate stability, bulk density, steady-state infiltration rate (SSIR) and maize yield over two cropping seasons. Reduced tillage improved SOC and aggregate stability by at least 6% over conventional tillage in the 0-5 cm depth (p < 0.01); cattle manure plus mineral fertilizer increased SOC and aggregate stability by at least 13% and SSIR by at least 17% over mineral fertilizer alone, while mulching improved SSIR by at least 8% and reduced tillage improved it by 27% in both soils. Maize yields increased significantly under mineral fertilizer in both soils (at least 3.7-fold, p < 0.05), and principal component analysis showed yield could be predicted from bulk density in sandy soil and from aggregate stability and SSIR in red clay soil.
Organic cycleCommunityEconomicsAgricultura urbana em Lisboa: uma leitura histórica e uma perspetiva de futuro
2020Flora Del Debbio · estudoprévio revista do centro de estudos de arquitectura cidade e território da Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa · Europe
Using primary sources such as historical written documents and cartography, an article examines how the interpenetration of urban and rural space has been a defining feature of Lisbon, Portugal's history, and attempts to map in detail the agricultural land occupation within the city's urban soil. The available abstract breaks off mid-sentence while describing a balance maintained over the centuries, and no further specific findings are given.
CommunityUrban–rural linkageMapping the history of school gardens
2020Lexi Earl, Pat Thomson · · Global
This chapter explores historical aspects of the current school-gardening movement, showing how gardens were taken up in educational theory by Comenius, Rousseau, Froebel, Pestalozzi, and Montessori, and examining how ideas for children's gardening developed in the late 19th century and how children were viewed as beings to be "cultivated." It discusses how the garden emerged as a further space where children could be civilised -- moulded and shaped into particular kinds of beings -- and analyzes early US school gardens of the 20th century. It analyzes texts produced about and for "children's gardening," focusing on how garden writers sought to encourage gardening and an interest in the natural world.
Food educationCommunityHeirloom & landraceWADAH AKTIVITAS MASYARAKAT DI TANAH SEREAL
2020Chantika Mayadewi, Dewi Ratnaningrum · Jurnal Sains Teknologi Urban Perancangan Arsitektur (Stupa) · Indonesia (Jakarta)
An architectural design study for a dense settlement in Tanah Sereal, Tambora District, West Jakarta, Indonesia, where residents lack proper social-interaction spaces and use narrow streets and alleys instead. Using an analysis-synthesis method with data from field observation, interviews with local residents, literature study, and regional mapping, the project proposes a "third place" design called the Tanah Sereal Community Activity Space, integrated with a green alley to address social and environmental problems in the dense settlement. Its main program is a hydroponic urban farming area, supplemented by a foodcourt, play areas, teenage discussion areas, communal areas, a seminar room, an event room, and community development programs such as hydroponic and garment workshops intended to improve residents' skills, productivity, and living standards. The output is the design proposal itself rather than measured outcome data.
CommunityBiodiversityAnalysing the school garden
2020Lexi Earl, Pat Thomson · · Global
A book chapter examining the discourses encountered in school gardens and how the framing of gardening as "the solution" is entangled in different discursive assemblages. It also attends to the silences of gardening "talk"—what is left out of current conversations about children's gardening—asking what is excluded from a school garden, what goes unsaid in garden spaces, and how this shapes (or fails to shape) a school's identity and its relationships with outsiders and parents. The chapter is a conceptual discussion and does not present empirical findings or data.
Food educationCommunitySurveying the Landscape of Urban Agriculture's Land Politics: Civic, Ecological, Heritage-Based, Justice-Driven, and Market-Oriented Fields
2020K. Michelle Glowa, Antonio Roman-Alcalá · · Global
A chapter examining the politics that shape land-access strategies and dynamics in urban agriculture (UA) through five heuristic categories—Civic, Ecological, Heritage-based, Justice-driven, and Market-oriented. These categories are used to trace how different lineages of urban agroecology intersect to produce existing UA land politics, agroecological dynamics, and their interrelations. The chapter surveys various UA projects and instances, tracing their histories of land access, land politics, and agroecology across different lineages of practice. It notes that while Civic UA tends to comply with land-use normalization, all garden projects retain the potential to destabilize the meaning of land and its agricultural use, and that the Civic field is hegemonic in land politics but not exclusively so. Justice-driven projects, the chapter finds, often arise from long-term patterns of marginalization in urban contexts and operate on principles grounded in participants' lived experiences and analyses of injustice.
PolicyCommunityDesign de Serviços para a Inovação Social: Um estudo de caso sobre design, serviços relacionais e desenvolvimento sustentável
2020Thalita Barbalho, Rita de Castro Engler · Design e Tecnologia · Brazil
A study examining design's contribution to social innovation and sustainability, aimed at showing how the design field can help improve and expand the practice of urban gardens in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Using service design tools, the study designed a service for the collective "Agroecologia na Periferia" (Agroecology in the Periphery), seeking to understand its current activities and how they could be strengthened. The methodology was a qualitative, applied approach with exploratory and descriptive aims, carried out in two stages: (1) a systematic literature review covering social innovation, service design, relational services, sustainable development, and urban agriculture; and (2) a case study following a four-stage method of exploration, reflection, ideation, and prototyping. The study concludes that service design for social innovation proved to be an approach capable of helping resolve the stated objective and build viable futures, fostering and guiding social innovations toward gradual, meaningful change toward sustainability.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justicePolicyThe Motivation of Urban Gardens in Mountain Areas. The Case of South Tyrol
2020Valentina Cattivelli · Sustainability · Italy
Urban gardens have attracted considerable academic attention in recent years, with studies emphasizing their positive contribution to social integration, community health, urban regeneration, and food security, as well as exploring individual gardeners' motivations. While these topics are well documented for metropolitan urban areas, few studies have examined mountain areas, an interest gap likely due to lower urbanization in such areas, a preference for other forms of horticulture (essentially home gardens), or the use of different approaches to mitigate negative social effects. The recent proliferation of urban gardens in South Tyrol, Italy, makes this mountain province an interesting setting for studying the practices and narratives associated with socially innovative urban gardening. The paper characterizes all urban gardening initiatives in South Tyrol through cartographic representation and explains gardeners' and public institutions' motivations as well as non-gardeners' perceptions, based on semi-structured interviews conducted in the South Tyrolean municipalities where urban gardening projects have been undertaken. The results suggest that the social and environmental aspects of urban gardens are of great importance, and that there is interest in reconnecting with food practices even when food access is not a priority.
CommunityHealthFood sovereignty & justiceHigh School Gardens Program across the Nation: Current Practices, Perceived Benefits, Barriers, and Resources
2020Bareng Antolin · Digital Scholarship - UNLV (University of Nevada Reno) · United States
A survey distributed via Farm to School state lead contacts to school garden networks nationwide in the United States collected data on high school-level garden programs, an area with limited prior research compared to elementary and middle school garden studies; 42 respondents completed the survey and were included in the final analysis. Many respondents reported perceiving positive benefits from having a high school garden program, and the study documents current practices, barriers, and implementation and sustainability strategies reported by these programs.
Food educationHealthCommunityGrowing a Garden Community: A Film Review
2020Brian Raison · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States
This is a review of "A Garden Experience: Growing Organic," a film about an organic community garden project in Colorado, United States, that centers on a participating gardener's statement, "It's not about the vegetables. It's about community," and is framed as potential inspiration for local food groups, garden clubs or food-and-community events.
CommunityFood educationOrganic cycleA A construção de políticas públicas para a sustentabilidade urbana
2020Alex Dias da-Silva · Revista Geográfica de América Central · Brazil
A qualitative, descriptive and exploratory study investigating public policies that promote urban agriculture as an instrument of urban sustainability in the city of João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil. Because urban agriculture promotion is a recent phenomenon locally, the study examines whether a specific legislative framework exists for it. It finds that the municipal government has fostered public policies supporting urban agriculture management and improvement since 1993.
PolicyCommunityFood sovereignty & justiceRoles of Local Governance Institutions and Promotion of Urban Agriculture Practices in Western Kenya
2020Isaac Otieno Dawo, George Mark Onyango, Francis Ang’awa Okere · International Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research · Africa
A cross-sectional survey of urban farmers in three towns in western Kenya — Eldoret (n=137), Kakamega (n=145) and Kisumu (n=158) — examining how local governance institutions' economic, social and environmental roles influence urban agriculture (UA) practice. A stratified sample of 205 respondents (63 in Eldoret, 68 in Kakamega, 74 in Kisumu) completed questionnaires and key-informant interviews. The department of agriculture, livestock and fisheries was identified as the most important institution promoting UA, cited by 64.8% of respondents in Eldoret, 42.2% in Kakamega and 40.0% in Kisumu. Pearson correlation showed a statistically significant moderate positive relationship between county government institutional roles and UA practice (n=205, r=.532, p<.05).
CommunityPolicyPeri-urban agriculturePrivilege in a place ballet: an incomplete argument of places and bodies
2020Samantha Senda-Cook · Argumentation and Advocacy · United States
Gifford Park, a neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, has been recreating itself through urban agriculture like many neighborhoods across the country. This case study conceptualizes urban agriculture as a "place ballet" — describing interactions between places and bodies — extending the idea that places can function as spatial arguments. The analysis found that urban agriculture reveals a complex material argument about the positive impacts places and bodies can have on communities and their members, while simultaneously overlooking the economic and racial privileges inherent in these efforts, and concludes that the place-ballet concept itself carries its own implications of economic and racial privilege.
Equity & displacementCommunityPolicyGuide to Urban Gardening in Winooski Valley, Vermont
2020Grace Claire O'Neil · ScholarWorks -A service of University of Vermont Libraries (University of Vermont) · United States
This guide established a baseline of soil health for community gardens in the Burlington, Vermont, area of the United States. Ten sites in the Winooski Valley area were soil-sampled in fall 2018, and eight sites in the Chittenden County vicinity were sampled in spring 2019 for comparison, using the Modified Morgan's Universal Extraction Solution to quantify phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), pH, and percentage of organic matter, along with testing hypotheses about nutrient concentration changes from 2011 to 2018 under till and no-till management. Nearly all soils sampled in the Winooski Valley area were found excessive in phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium, most likely due to soil amendment application. Comparing the 2018 tests with tests done by Burlington Parks, Recreation, and Waterfront in 2011, only potassium had increased significantly, and tillage (till vs. no-till) did not affect nutrient concentrations. The guide notes concern that these excess soil nutrients could be exported from the gardens via erosion and leaching, given the gardens' proximity to the Winooski River and Lake Champlain.
CommunityHealthUrban Mining und Urban Farming im Haus der Zukunft
2020Devi Bühler · Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften digital collection (Zurich University of Applied Sciences) · Germany
An essay in the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) digital collection argues that "urban mining" and "urban farming" have little in common with conventional mines and farms, proposing instead that buildings themselves can serve as the mines and farms of the future. The piece presents no empirical study, data or measurements.
CommunityUrban agriculture - the case studies of Havana and New York City
2020Tudor Traian Bojan, Oana Pusco · · Global
A comparative article examines two approaches to urban agriculture: Havana, Cuba, and New York City. In Havana, the article describes urban agriculture as implemented out of necessity, with the state creating the institutional premises for it and a high degree of population mobilization treated as essential for food security. In New York, implementation is described as occurring over a longer period with resident and community involvement and local-authority support, with areas of potential for urban agriculture identified across neighborhoods. The article characterizes both cases as successful implementations that have become a permanent or temporary layer of each city's cultural and green fabric.
CommunityPolicyOrganising Alternative Food Networks (AFNs): Challenges and Facilitating Conditions of different AFN types in three EU countries
2020Ana Poças Ribeiro, Robert Harmsen, Giuseppe Feola, Jesús Rosales Carreón, Ernst Worrell · Sociologia Ruralis · Europe
A study of 17 alternative food networks (AFNs) across Poland, Portugal, and the Netherlands, drawn from interviews with AFN organizers, examined the factors that constrain and facilitate the emergence and consolidation of different AFN types. Using a multi-actor perspective framework, the researchers categorized six AFN types: consumer-led, producer-led, third-sector led, community supported agriculture, public-led, and business platforms. Key challenges and facilitating conditions varied by AFN type and country; unlike in the Netherlands, low social capital was commonly cited as a challenge in Portugal and Poland. AFN organizers exercised innovative power in creating new forms of food provision, but the study concludes that a wide scope of actions by both governmental and non-governmental actors is needed to support the emergence of more AFNs.
CSA & TeikeiCommunityFood sovereignty & justicePolicyContribution of Integrated Urban Agriculture to Household Income: A Case of Mgbirichi in Ohaji–Egbema Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria
2020Ezeano Ike, Ibe E.C., Osuji C.N · Research Journal of Food and Nutrition · Nigeria
In Mgbirichi, Ohaji-Egbema Local Government Area, Imo State, Nigeria, this study assessed integrated urban agriculture—combining crop, livestock, and fish subsectors—as a livelihood strategy and its contribution to household income, using descriptive statistics. The large majority (98.5%) of urban farmers practicing integrated farming concentrated on crop-livestock combinations, while fish-livestock and crop-livestock-fish integration were each adopted by only 0.75% of farmers, indicating that most urban farmers did not practice the fish subsector.
EconomicsCommunityGrowing Ecologies: Growing Communities
2020Matthew Potteiger · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States
A review of The Community Food Forest Handbook by Catherine Bukowski and John Munsell of Virginia Tech, a systematic analysis of 30 community food forest projects — landscapes producing food modeled on forest ecosystem form and function. The review reports that only one of the 30 projects has existed for more than 10 years, and situates the food forest movement, like earlier urban agriculture and CSA efforts, as a grassroots phenomenon that has spread across the country with little coordination among individual projects.
CommunityBiodiversityFood educationTeachers’ perception on the role of early childhood education in promoting moral and intellectual virtues in pupils in Nsukka urban
2020F.O. Okechukwu, CL Ezeonyeche, E.J Nnodim, U.I Nnubia, CJ Abonyi, EC Eze · ResearchSpace (University of Auckland) · Nigeria
A cross-sectional survey investigated teachers' perceptions of early childhood education's role in promoting moral and intellectual virtues among pupils in Nsukka urban, Enugu State, Nigeria, drawing a sample of 176 early childhood education teachers from 42 randomly selected schools out of a population of 876 teachers across 82 public and private primary schools. Data, collected via questionnaire, were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, and Pearson's correlation coefficient. Respondents identified group projects, daily morning assembly, tending the school garden, role-playing, picnics, excursions, and community service among the activities that promote virtues in pupils, citing truthfulness, humility, respect, and patience as commonly promoted moral virtues and courage, curiosity, attentiveness, and thoroughness as intellectual virtues. No significant relationship was found among teachers' years of experience, school ownership, educational qualification, perceptions of virtue-promoting activities, and the extent to which they promoted them. Challenges cited included inadequate supply of learning materials, poor educational funding, inadequate adult-child ratio, poor time management, and lack of parental involvement.
Food educationCommunityThe impact of care farms on quality of life, depression and anxiety among different population groups: A systematic review
2019Murray J., Wickramasekera N., Elings M., Bragg R., Brennan C., Elsey H. · Campbell Systematic Reviews, 15(4):e1061 · Global
A systematic review assessing how care farming (social farming) affects quality of life, depression and anxiety across different service-user groups. It finds that agriculture-based welfare support may improve mental health and social interaction, while highlighting the need for more robust evidence.
HealthWelfareCommunityPolicyRelationship between Community or Home Gardening and Health of the Elderly: A Web-Based Cross-Sectional Survey in Japan
2019Machida D. · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(8):1389 · Japan
A web-based cross-sectional survey of community-dwelling older adults in Japan examined links between community or home gardening and health-related indicators. Gardening with others was significantly associated with exercise habits, physical activity, vegetable intake and neighborly connections, and with higher subjective happiness and sense of purpose, supporting gardens as a means to counter isolation among the elderly.
HealthWelfareCommunityFood education