Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
1180 results(16 / 48)
Food challenges, technological changes and food geopolitics
2023Georges Flexor · Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural · Global
This article explored various technological paths that can emerge in response to rising food prices and the need to preserve land. Based on a diagram analysis of the economic model of technological change, it indicated through specialized literature that the hypotheses derived from the model already exist. It also investigated the potential geopolitical effects of these technological shifts on the global agri-food industry, stating that changes aimed at conserving land must encourage urban food production.
Urban–rural linkageFood sovereignty & justiceEconomicsPolicyChallenges and potential solutions in developing community supported agriculture: a literature review
2023Catharina Any Sulistyowati, Suraya Afiff, Muhammad Baiquni, Mia Siscawati · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Global
A literature study conducted from October 2021 to June 2022 identified challenges in the development of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Farmers face expenses for sustainable practices and labor shortages, while CSA members encounter issues with time commitment, cost, and adapting food consumption habits. Organizational challenges include member recruitment and retention, competition, and CSA sustainability.
Economic viabilityCSA & TeikeiEconomicsCommunityPolicy« Nous sommes la montagne qui ressent »
2023Victorine Dréau · EcoRev · Colombia
In Bello Oriente, Medellin, Colombia, displaced peasant communities resist extractivist expansion and neoliberal territorial reconfiguration through practices like urban agriculture, reasserting collective land use. This research reveals a struggle to reclaim land from the control and speculation logics of criminal gangs and urban planning institutions, indicating critical governance issues.
Governance failureCommunityFood sovereignty & justicePolicyOpportunities and Constraints for Creating Edible Cities and Accessing Wholesome Functional Foods in a Sustainable Way
2023Katarzyna Świąder, Dražena Čermak, Danuta Gajewska, Katarzyna Najman, Anna Piotrowska, Eliza Kostyra · Sustainability · Global
This review analyzed opportunities and constraints for creating edible cities and accessing wholesome functional foods sustainably. While urban food production methods like controlled-environment farms and home gardens exist, significant constraints include pollution, a lack of government support, and economic challenges for urban farms. These issues must be resolved for edible cities to become widespread.
Governance failureFood sovereignty & justiceClimate changeHealthPolicySustainability indicators for evaluation of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in urban agriculture
2023Leila Babaei, Mohammad Hossein Niksokhan, Ali Torabian, Masoud Negahban‐Azar · International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology · Iran
This study proposed sustainability measurement indicators to evaluate the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus sustainability in urban agriculture. Focusing on Varamin, a semi-arid city in Tehran, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to identify crucial indicators across social, environmental, and economic dimensions. Results indicated that water-related components are critical in arid and semi-arid regions, and pollution prevention holds a 52.8% priority as an environmental sustainability indicator.
Climate changePolicyEconomicsOrganic cycleMeanings
2023Amartya Deb · · Global
This chapter examines the multi-layered social construction of "ambivalent landscapes" in wild green spaces, connecting them to concepts like age-value in heritage conservation and guerrilla gardening. It argues that plant-built assemblages offer novel imaginations of urban nature and contribute to environmental justice. The chapter also explains that the isolation of spontaneous nature on buildings from a city's metabolic processes makes it difficult to value as green infrastructure, yet microsites of wild vegetation hold potential for greening resource-scarce neighborhoods.
CommunityBiodiversityFood sovereignty & justicePolicyPlanting Commons through Art ?
2023Mareike Schwarz · Street Art & Urban Creativity · Global
This paper analyzes the intersection of urban art and community gardens to explore whether commons can emerge from this collaboration. Through a comparative study of two community garden projects in Berlin and Dakar, the research examines the impact of funding structures, accessibility, artistic concepts, and design on commoning. Findings reveal that the two projects differ significantly in their development context and underlying structures, affecting their ability to function as commons. Furthermore, the paper argues that the dependency of artistic involvement on third-party funding contradicts the principles of commoning.
Governance failureCommunityPolicyEconomicsNature-based solutions in informal settlements: A systematic review of projects in Southeast Asian and Pacific countries
2023Erich Wolff, Hanna A. Rauf, Perrine Hamel · Environmental Science & Policy · Global
This study analyzed past Nature-based Solutions (NbS) projects in informal settlements across Southeast Asian and Pacific countries, utilizing both grey and academic sources. Six main types of NbS were identified, used to address various social, ecological, and cultural challenges in these settlements, including traditional community gardens and constructed wetlands, some differing from those in the Global North. NbS are often framed as grassroots initiatives led by local communities or as technical systems implemented within "upgrading programs."
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceClimate changePolicyUrban and Peri-Urban Agriculture Sourcebook – From Production to Food Systems
2022FAO, Rikolto, RUAF · Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rikolto & RUAF · Global
A comprehensive guide co-published by FAO, Rikolto and RUAF for local decision-makers, urban planners and practitioners. It frames urban and peri-urban agriculture from production through to urban food systems and policy, promoting reduced food loss via short supply chains, biodiversity protection, social inclusion, and urban-rural linkages.
PolicyCommunityOrganic cycleFood lossEconomicsBiodiversityまちを変える都市型農園 コミュニティを育む空き地活用
2022Shimpo N. · 学芸出版社 (Gakugei Shuppan), ISBN 978-4-7615-2821-8, 208pp · Global
Shimpo's single-authored book on 'urban-type gardens' that activate underused spaces scattered through cities—suburban abandoned farmland, corners of urban parks, commercial-building rooftops, housing-estate grounds. Drawing on advanced cases and practitioner interviews from Germany, Austria, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and Japan, it shows how such gardens address vacant-land use, community revitalisation, greening and food/environmental education.
CommunityFood educationOrganic cyclePolicyMeanwhile Use for London
2022Greater London Authority, Arup · Greater London Authority (GLA) · Global
A GLA report institutionalising 'meanwhile use' of vacant land/units awaiting development, presenting support via competitions, guidance, land provision and time-limited change-of-use permissions for interim community uses including gardens.
PolicyCommunityEconomicsThe 'Covid-Trigger': New Light on Urban Agriculture and Systemic Approach to Urbanism to Co-Create a Sustainable Lisbon
2022· Systemic Practice and Action Research · Portugal (Lisbon)
A study examining, through a systemic urbanism lens, how COVID-19 brought new attention to urban agriculture in Lisbon, exploring how participatory urban farming can be co-created and embedded in sustainable city-making.
CommunityPolicyState of ex situ conservation of landrace groups of 25 major crops
2022Ramirez-Villegas J., Khoury C.K., Achicanoy H.A., Diaz M.V., Mendez A.C., Sosa C.C., Kehel Z., Guarino L., Abberton M. · Nature Plants 8:491-499 · Global
A global gap analysis predicting distributions of over 70 landrace groups across 25 crops, finding a mean 63% represented in genebanks and major collecting gaps in South Asia, the Mediterranean, the Andes and Africa.
Heirloom & landraceBiodiversityPolicyCommercial urban agriculture: A review for sustainable development
2022Dias G. M., Ayer N. W., Khosla S., Van Acker R., Young S. B., Whitney S., Hendricks P. · Sustainable Cities and Society 87:104198 · Global
Text-mining review of commercial urban agriculture literature, identifying economic drivers such as employment generation, supply-chain cost reduction, and market proximity as the main forces behind for-profit urban farming.
EconomicsPolicyManaging Urban-Rural Linkages for Biodiversity
2022UN-Habitat · UN-Habitat · Global
Frames the role of urban-rural linkages in biodiversity conservation, presenting integrated urban-rural governance through ecological corridors, green belts and farmland protection.
BiodiversityPolicyUrban–Rural Linkages and Ecosystem Restoration
2022UNCCD · UNCCD (UN Convention to Combat Desertification) Working Paper · Global
A policy analysis of how urban expansion cascades into rural land degradation and ecosystem loss, arguing for urban-rural linkage governance to drive land restoration and combat desertification.
BiodiversityPolicyPotential of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global South: Priority investments for innovation
2022CoSAI, IWMI · CoSAI / IWMI (International Water Management Institute) · Global
Identifies priority investment areas for urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global South—Asia holds 49% of the world's urban irrigated cropland—and proposes investment priorities across technology, policy and finance.
PolicyEconomicsIn the garden: capacities that contribute to community groups establishing community gardens
2022Doyle G. · International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development · Ireland (Dublin)
Based on case studies in Dublin, this paper identifies the key capacities—diverse expertise, supportive organisations, and access to land and resources—that enable community groups to successfully establish and sustain community gardens in Ireland. Published in the International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development (Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 15–32).
CommunityPolicyFood educationUrban, periurban and horticultural landscapes – Conflict and sustainable planning in La Plata district, Argentina
2022Baldini C., Marasas M.E., Tittonell P., Drozd A.A. · Land Use Policy · Argentina (La Plata)
Using multicriteria analysis in La Plata's periurban horticultural belt, the study maps land-use aptitude and identifies conflict zones between urban expansion and agricultural production, calling for integrated sustainable planning.
PolicyCommunityEconomicsA sustainable pathway towards prioritization of multifunctional benefits in urban agriculture contributing to shrinking cities in developing countries — An empirical case of Sri Lanka
2022Wadumestrige Dona C.T.G., Mohan G., Fukushi K. · Current Research in Environmental Sustainability · Sri Lanka (Colombo)
A perception survey of 402 small-scale farmers in Colombo District found positive attitudes toward the social, economic, and environmental benefits of urban agriculture, with environmental benefits rated highest, supporting home and community gardens as viable open-space management strategies for shrinking cities.
PolicyEconomicsCommunityHealthChallenges of urban garden initiatives for food security in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2022Ishak N., Abdullah R., Mohd Rosli N.S., Abdul Majid H., Abdul Halim N.S., Ariffin F. · Quaestiones Geographicae, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 57–72 · Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)
A survey of 106 urban farmers across 17 community gardens in Kuala Lumpur identified weather variability, land access, and financial constraints as the primary obstacles to urban food production, highlighting the need for targeted policy support.
CommunityPolicyEconomicsEnsuring Urban Food Security in Malaysia during the COVID-19 Pandemic—Is Urban Farming the Answer? A Review
2022Murdad R., Muhiddin M., Osman W.H., Tajidin N.E., Haida Z., Awang A., Jalloh M.B. · Sustainability (MDPI), Vol. 14, No. 7, Article 4155 · Malaysia
This review examines how COVID-19 disrupted Malaysia's fresh food supply chain and argues that urban farming approaches—including community gardens, vertical farming, and hydroponics—can meaningfully strengthen urban food security for Malaysian households.
CommunityPolicyHealthEconomicsPlanning the urban foodscape: policy and regulation of urban agriculture in Aotearoa New Zealand
2022Hanna C., Wallace P. · Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 313–335 · New Zealand
Examining the four largest New Zealand cities, this paper reveals a significant policy vacuum for urban agriculture, with restrictive zoning, inadequate recognition of Māori food practices, and a failure to accommodate emerging urban food-growing forms, calling for targeted municipal policy reform.
PolicyCommunityHow well do we know green gentrification? A systematic review of the methods
2022Jessica Quinton, Lorien Nesbitt, Daniel Sax · Progress in Human Geography · Global
A systematic review of the methods used in green gentrification research — the claim that adding vegetation such as parks, street trees and gardens raises property values and displaces existing residents. It finds that studies are heavily concentrated on U.S. cases, that early qualitative work has been giving way to quantitative analysis, that almost no attention has been paid to which characteristics of greening (scale, type, location) matter, that demand-side mechanisms remain poorly understood, and that displacement itself — the central concern of the literature — has not been well documented.
PolicyCommunityHow Much Food Can We Grow in Urban Areas? Food Production and Crop Yields of Urban Agriculture: A Meta-Analysis
2022Florian Thomas Payen, Daniel L. Evans, Natalia Falagán, Charlotte A. Hardman, Sofia Kourmpetli, Lingxuan Liu, Rachel Marshall, Bethan R. Mead, Jessica A. C. Davies · Earth's Future · Global
A global meta-analysis extracting 2,062 observations from 200 studies reporting urban crop yields, compared across crops, urban spaces (allotments, rooftops, indoor systems) and growing systems. Urban yields were on par with or greater than global average conventional yields, with the largest gap for cucumbers and gherkins (17 kg m⁻² cycle⁻¹ versus 3.8 kg m⁻² cycle⁻¹ conventional). The authors flag significant limits: observations cluster in Europe (n=516), North America (n=398) and East Asia (n=361), with the seven most-studied countries supplying roughly two-thirds of the data and sub-Saharan Africa only 223 observations; many observations come from researcher-run field experiments with controlled inputs, which is likely to inflate yields relative to ordinary citizen plots; and the literature concentrates on leafy greens and tomatoes while fruit is barely studied.
EconomicsPolicy