Research & reports

Nguyen H., Schmack J., Egerer M. · Basic and Applied Ecology · Germany (Munich)

Conducted a pollination-exclusion experiment with two cultivated and two wild plant species across 13 Munich community gardens, finding cultivated-plant fruit and seed mass positively correlated with temperature and pollinator diversity.

De Simone M., Pradhan P., Kropp J. P., Rybski D. · Sustainable Cities and Society · Germany (Berlin)

Evaluates five urban space types (residential areas, allotments, rooftops, supermarket parking lots, cemeteries) and estimates the potential to produce a large share of Berlin's vegetable consumption locally.

Schäfer, Kleemann, Spyra · Sustainability · Germany (Leipzig)

Analyzes allotment garden products in Leipzig and their contribution to sustainable and resilient cities.

Haase · People and Nature · Germany (Berlin)

Assesses the social–environmental values of urban gardens for both gardeners and the wider public, using Berlin as an example.

· HardwareX · United Kingdom

Designs and validates MACARONS, a scalable, customisable, open-sourced modular platform for plant care, monitoring, and transportation. It offers per-plant dosing, automated logging of temperature/humidity/images, and Python-programmable behaviours, validated by autonomously caring for five lettuce plants over five weeks under artificial lighting.

· Local Environment · United Kingdom (Aberdeen)

Based on interviews with food-growing project participants in Aberdeen, UK, finds unexpected wellbeing effects of urban food activism, notably heavy burdens on volunteer coordinators of community gardens.

· Local Environment · United Kingdom

Uses grassroots visual storytelling to explore how community food-growing activities build community bonds through emotional attachment and placemaking.

Kizza-Nkambwe S., Mpewo M., Kasima J. S., Mfuranzima K. · Sustainable Environment · Mukono, Uganda

Assesses compost quality from a waste composting facility in Mukono municipality, central Uganda, analysing physicochemical parameters and heavy metals and arsenic in mature compost.

Marini M., Caro D., Thomsen M. · Land Use Policy · Europe (Barcelona, Lyon, Trieste, Udine)

Reviews 83+ policy documents and surveys local managers in four EU cities. Finds land-use frameworks fail to prioritise urban agriculture, that only allotment gardens are meaningfully supported, and that local policies are formulated ad hoc outside any comprehensive UA framework, weakening effectiveness.

Polman Daniel, Bazzan Giulia · European Urban and Regional Studies · Europe (26 cities)

Uses fuzzy-set QCA across 26 European Milan Pact cities. Finds that the absence of governance practices—initiative mapping, integrated food strategies, and monitoring/evaluation—prevents most cities from becoming policy-innovative, so many signatories deliver only limited food-policy innovation.

Mustafa Ali, Lenny Koh, Adolf Acquaye, Jonathan R. Leake, Jacob Nickles, Toby P. Evans, Gareth Roberts, Douglas Kemp · The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment · United Kingdom (Sheffield)

This study conducted an integrated environmental and economic assessment of organic peri-urban horticulture using primary data from a farm in Sheffield, UK. A hybrid life cycle assessment (LCA) found that the global warming potential (GWP) for case study tomatoes was 3.53 kg CO2-eq, which was 1.87 times higher than imported Spanish tomatoes. Economic analysis showed that the marginal increase in the prices of tomatoes and courgettes from the case study farm was 4.6 and 5.15 times less than the market prices, leading to the conclusion that the studied production system is economically and environmentally sustainable compared to the existing scenario.

Artëm Lytovchenko, Oksana Nekhaienko · Baltic Journal of Legal and Social Sciences · Ukraine (Kharkiv)

A 2023 paper aimed to characterize the sociological potential of the military factor in the global food crisis through the lens of food security challenges in the Ukrainian frontline city of Kharkiv. Based on results from an original reconnaissance case study conducted in Kharkiv from May to August 2022, assumptions were formulated regarding the main directions of transformation of food practices among residents of a large city undergoing combat actions. The study also proposed methods and directions for possible sociological research to verify these assumptions.

Issam Alsamara, Stefanie Felicitas Beinert, Jeanne Catelijne de Jong, Maaike Jeannette Barbara Klapp, Viktoria Sirkku Marewsk, Rana Orhan · South Eastern European Journal of Public Health · Europe

This article discusses citizen participation in achieving the European Green Deal in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion (EMR). It presents three policy options to increase citizen participation: local climate measurements, sustainable food consumption (reducing food waste), and sustainable cities through urban gardening. Recommendations include encouraging citizen science projects, gathering insights on regional greenhouse gas emissions, providing more sustainable food in institutional canteens, reducing food waste, using social media for sustainable food information, utilizing urban areas for urban gardening projects, and creating community sustainability challenges.

Lucile Vigouroux, Fanny Provent, Giulia Giacchè · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · France

This report details the ‘Potager à la Marmite’ (PAM) experiment, conducted by LAB3S and the Urban Agriculture Chair with local partners in Bondy Nord, France. The two-year experiment (2022-2023) aimed to combine a community garden with a collective kitchen. Its goals were to provide access to healthy, sustainable food, enable inhabitants to reclaim public spaces, and observe knowledge-sharing dynamics. The abstract does not state any specific findings from the experiment.

Stefano Corsi, Marta Dell’Ovo, Catherine Dezio, Antonio Longo, Alessandra Oppio · Cities · Italy (Milan)

This contribution proposes the case study of a multifunctional farmhouse, Cascina Biblioteca, in the Milan suburban area of Italy, to test an integrated preliminary evaluation model. The model aims to support urban planning and design decisions by maximizing the performance of ecosystem services provided by multifunctional agriculture (MFA), which includes food production, environmental preservation, and social inclusion.

Fürüzan Aslan, Yaşar Menteş, Oğuz ATEŞ · Kırklareli Üniversitesi Mühendislik ve Fen Bilimleri Dergisi · Turkey (Elazığ)

This study examines the city area of Elazığ province, Türkiye, from the perspective of urban agriculture, which is presented as a tool for sustainable urban development. It offers various suggestions to ensure sustainability in Elazığ, develop insights into regional food supply, and increase the importance of urban aesthetics, land use, urban environmental management, public health, and economic development.

Ayşe Öztürk Samur, Paulette Luff · İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Araştırmaları Dergisi · Turkey; United Kingdom

This phenomenological study investigated the views and experiences of 9 headteachers and 9 teachers from 6 preschool institutions in Turkey and England regarding outdoor learning. It found that in Turkey, school gardens, equipment, and time spent outside are insufficient compared to England. While family participation in outdoor learning is more common in Turkey, teachers and headteachers there experience greater family pressure concerning child safety, illness, and dirty clothes, and feel anxious due to a lack of classroom assistance. Both countries showed insufficient inclusion of outdoor learning in vocational and in-service training.

B. Wilkaniec, Agnieszka Wilkaniec, Beata Borowiak-Sobkowiak · Journal of Plant Protection Research · Poland

Winged morphs of aphids were monitored using Moericke traps in two large allotment gardens in Poznań, Poland, during four growing seasons in 2000-2001 and 2014-2015. A total of 113 aphid species or groups were captured, and major changes in the fauna structure were reported. These changes are thought to be primarily due to shifts in garden vegetation composition as the gardens' function changed from production to recreation.

Geneviève Cloutier, Émilie Houde-Tremblay, Stéphanie Gaudet · Local Environment · Canada (Québec City), Spain (Madrid)

Case studies of collective gardens in Québec City, Canada, and Madrid, Spain, operating for approximately ten years, showed that urban gardening practices offer learning opportunities extending beyond gardening itself into collective decision-making and social engagement. These gardens are sites of social processes where gardeners develop a strong identity related to alternative lifestyles and a sense of belonging that connects them to nature beyond the garden's boundaries. Gardeners learn that neighborhood-oriented actions have political implications that can help change the city.

Lara Houston, Sara Heitlinger, Ruth Catlow, Alex Taylor · Policy Press eBooks · United Kingdom (London)

Workshops critically experimented with the possibilities and challenges of blockchain as an infrastructure for food abundance and reparative work, using fictional scenarios set in a London transformed into a city farm by 2025. This experimentation suggested that blockchain presents challenges to such restorative and sustainable work. For participants, reparation involved working in the aftermath of social and environmental collapse to bring into being more-than-human-value systems that radically decentered human knowledge and experience.

Alex Opoku, Anna Duff, Moohammed Wasim Yahia, Samuel Ekung · Geography and sustainability · United Kingdom

This study investigated the use of green urban spaces for food self-sufficiency in the UK, examining how sustainable urban farms could reduce imported produce consumption and contribute to SDGs. A mixed-method approach included a survey of 115 respondents and interviews with 12 stakeholders from four urban farming groups. Findings showed a strong correlation between stakeholders' concerns about food origin/carbon footprint and imported produce, suggesting urban farms could play a vital role in food security and SDG realization.

Michele D’Ostuni, C. Stanghellini, A. Boedijn, Leonardo Zaffi, Giuseppina Pennisi, Francesco Orsini · Sustainable Cities and Society · Netherlands (Amsterdam)

The feasibility of using urine and greywater streams as nutrient solutions in a theoretical model of Building-Integrated Agriculture in Amsterdam was evaluated. Results showed it is feasible to use urine and greywater as nutrient solutions; however, treated urine had higher macronutrient concentrations than literature fertilizer recipes, requiring dilution with increasing amounts of greywater to match N or P concentrations. Consequently, P deficiencies in plants or excessive N concentration were found in the final wastewater-based nutrient solution.

J. L. Miralles i Garcia · International Journal of Environmental Impacts · Spain (Valencia)

In L’Horta de València, a historical agricultural area in Valencia, Spain, challenges and opportunities in peri-urban agriculture management were investigated. A semi-structured survey focusing on a SWOT analysis was administered to key specialists involved in the 2018 legislative protection and 2019 management plan. The study aimed to evaluate how newly implemented tools are rectifying identified issues, but the abstract does not present specific findings from the survey.

Abigail Schoneboom, Daniel Mallo, Armelle Tardiveau · Journal of Classical Sociology · United Kingdom

This sensory ethnographic study, using pinhole photography, explored how time is experienced by unemployed volunteers at a community garden in the north-east of England. It found that the garden's ability to provide meaningful time is rooted in its food-growing and composting cycles, as well as enduring elements like mature trees and volunteer-made structures. The study argues that urban community gardens offer an "elongated present" that fulfills individuals and sustains community and nature.

Wojciech Sroka, Piotr Sulewski, Jarosław Mikołajczyk, Karol Król · Agriculture · Poland

This study, based on a survey of economically successful peri-urban farms in Poland, identified success factors and major barriers to their development. The research shows a considerable convergence in business solutions in recent years, particularly in customer relationships and channels. According to respondents, the success of peri-urban farms is primarily determined by three groups of factors: motivation, diligence, and creativity; high quality of products and services; and cultivating deep bonds with customers. While farm managers indicated relatively few internal problems, urban pressure was considered the most significant external barrier to development.