Research & reports

Virginia L. J. Bolshakova, John Gieng, C. Sheena Sidhu, Mary Vollinger, Lorena Gimeno, Jessica Guild · Journal of Youth Development · United States (California)

The "Healthy Living Ambassador" school garden program in low-income communities integrated resources from schools, community programs, and the University of California Cooperative Extension. This program utilized culturally competent teenagers as teachers to educate elementary school youth on healthy living. The successes and challenges of the program development were discussed, revealing that public schools often lack the resources and support to establish sustainable garden-based programming.

Lucas Chan, Lily Han, Lia Monteferrante, Ryah Rondolo · cIRcle (University of British Columbia) · Canada

The UBC Agronomy Garden was the subject of a research project exploring strategies to increase community engagement. The research team conducted a literature review, in-person interviews, and an online survey to investigate ways to make the garden more attractive. Findings indicated that installing multilingual, informative, and welcoming signage is key to increasing engagement, with 63% of students preferring handmade, creative, simple, and colorful welcoming signs.

Kelly Gordon, Adrianne Lickers Xavier, Hannah Tait Neufeld · Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l alimentation · Canada

The Healthy Roots initiative in the Six Nations community in southern Ontario, Canada, aimed to promote traditional food consumption among First Nation families facing food insecurity. A small number of participants who consumed only locally available foods reported improved blood glucose control, positive weight changes, and increased traditional food knowledge. The program also fostered new relationships and partnerships, including with the community organization Our Sustenance, to further community-based initiatives like developing a Haudenosaunee Food Guide.

Duncan Hilchey · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

This reflective essay recounts the U.S. farm-to-school movement's evolution from a mid-1990s workshop grappling with National School Lunch and Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program protocols to the present, noting that the National Farm to School Network is now well established with federal and foundation support and that nearly half of U.S. schools purchase at least some local farm products. It traces this as a 20-year progression from the 1970s resurgence of farmers markets and 1980s community supported agriculture, extending now into farm-to-college, farm-to-prison, farm-to-hospital and farm-to-childcare programs.

Sheri Dorn, Lucy Bradley, Debbie Hamrick, Julie Weisenhorn, Pam Bennett, Jill Callabro, Bridget K. Behe, Ellen M. Bauske, Natalie R. Bumgarner · HortTechnology · United States

The National Initiative for Consumer Horticulture (NICH), a diverse consortium of leaders in the United States, aims to provide a unified voice promoting the benefits and value of consumer horticulture (CH) by uniting national research efforts with the goals of stakeholders across industry, the public sector and home gardeners. As of this 2018 report, NICH members had set three broad goals: recognizing CH as a driver of the agricultural economy; highlighting that CH restores, protects and conserves natural resources through research and education; and cultivating healthy, connected and engaged communities through CH. Three committees (Economic, Environmental, and Community and Health Benefits), representing about 30 members, had focused on these goals over the preceding 10 months; their chairs presented results and future directions. The Economic and Environmental committees pursued campaigns to better market CH benefits and to increase environmental benefits by changing consumer behavior. After reviewing current research, the Community and Health Benefits Committee identified a gap in research specifically on the benefits of CH and personal gardening, as distinct from benefits attributed to forests, horticultural therapy, indoor atriums, community gardens, parks and other public places, and concluded that closing this gap requires strategic collaboration among a more diverse group of industry representatives, specialists and scientists.

Susana Clasen Moritz, Micheli Mari da Costa · · Brazil

A report on the Horta Comunitária Semeando Saúde community garden established in 2012 at the Centro de Saúde Santo Antônio de Lisboa health center in Brazil, where residents and health professionals collaborated to grow and consume healthy food. The project describes increased intake of healthy foods and knowledge-sharing among participants, with no quantitative outcome data given.

Aline Souza, Daniel Calbino · Revista Em Extensão · Brazil

A study in the municipality of Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais, Brazil, internationally recognized for 34 years of urban community gardening, examined a community garden established within the Association for the Protection and Assistance of Convicted People (APAC), which reports lower recidivism than traditional prison systems. Using participatory qualitative research (questionnaires, field diaries and photographs), the study analyzed effects on 30 subjects in recovery over 17 months. Results pointed to the garden serving as a means of income generation and producing social and psychological gains such as strengthened social interaction and greater food and nutritional diversity.

Pedro José Santos Carneiro Cruz, Renan Soares de Araújo · Interagir pensando a extensão · Brazil

A report on the "Integrated Health and Nutrition Promotion Practices in Primary Care" (PINAB) program, a university extension initiative guided by popular education principles, carried out in the Boa Esperança community in João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil. The program organized activities around two operative groups, "Horta" (garden) and "Health in the Community": the first prioritized building a community garden, and the second held meetings to discuss environmental and local health, quality-of-life and sustainability issues, integrated with cleaning, conservation and planting activities for vegetables and medicinal herbs. Participatory and dialogical methods — conversation circles, creative dynamics and posters expressing local popular culture — were used, positioning the garden as a space for learning through labor and for building solidarity, welcome, dialogue and shared knowledge.

Amy J. Williams · VCU Scholars Compass (Virginia Commonwealth University) · United States

This project proposes a grocery store and garden design for a food desert neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia, US, where grocery chains avoid low-income areas and where about 49 million people nationally experience food insecurity (citing Whittle et al., 2015). Its methods combine case studies of community gardens, farms, and markets with resident interviews and a literature review; drawing on that literature, it reports that autonomy over a garden keeps participants invested in their community, that convenience stores are prevalent in the studied neighborhood, and that marketing of nutritious foods is less common than for packaged foods though point-of-sale kiosks show promise for marketing fresh produce to children.

Matheus Fernandes Iida Domiciano, Andressa Giovannini Costa, Tatiane Melo de Lima, Bruno Nery Fernandes Vasconcelos, Leidiane da Silva Rodrigues, Cleuder Roque Arruda de Matos · Cadernos de Agroecologia · Brazil

A university extension project (UFU's PEIC, with the Nucleus of Agroecology Studies of Cerrado Mineiro, NACEM) installed and maintained a vegetable garden at a nursing home for the elderly in Monte Carmelo, Minas Gerais, Brazil, involving university teachers, students, community volunteers, and elderly residents. The project reports indirect social and economic benefits, including interaction between students and elderly residents, inclusion activities for the elderly, and sale of garden produce to the community, which contributed to the residents' diet quality.

Emma Sutphen · Clark Digital Commons (Clark University) · United States

This practitioner report examines the Giving Garden, a community garden at Coogan Farm established in 2013 by the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center in New London County, Connecticut, and its effects on community health and regional food security. Based on participatory research drawing on the author's experience as a 2017 summer intern and subsequent Assistant Garden Manager, the garden contributes to reducing local food insecurity by supplying seasonal fruits and vegetables grown through biointensive, regenerative practices. Findings suggest Giving Garden members experience a heightened sense of community, recipients of garden produce achieve greater overall health, and educational programs teaching sustainable farming practices promote more ecologically friendly household farming and gardening.

Roberta Hoepers Mascarenhas, Adrian José Ramos, Ana Beatriz Boos dos Santos, Eduarda Nunes, Emile de Lima Pollheim, Eric Schwamberger, Gabriela Santos Patriarca, Julia Novak Baumgart, Kassia Kathellyn Barboza, Lucas Augusto Venske, Mara Alice Pereira, Maria Eduarda Batista Tiago, Naira Zesuino, Rossie Katherine dos Santos, Samuel Carvalho de Matos-Filho, Vinícius Verwiebe, Helenadja Santos Mota, Tatiane Sueli Coutinho · Anais da Mostra Nacional de Iniciação Científica e Tecnológica Interdisciplinar (MICTI) - e-ISSN 2316-7165 · Brazil

A community medicinal-herb garden project in Brusque, Brazil, catalogued 32 medicinal herbs through a literature review and selected 28 of them for planting and further study, aiming to raise community awareness of natural treatments through a booklet and talks at schools in the Brusque municipal school network. The first activity was carried out with students from APAE, a special-education institution.

Virginia L. J. Bolshakova, John Gieng, C. Sheena Sidhu · California Agriculture · United States (California)

In San Mateo County, California, teen ambassadors trained by UC Cooperative Extension educators and volunteers at UC Elkus Ranch taught nutrition science, food cultivation and healthy living skills to elementary schoolchildren in an urban setting through an 8-week, garden-based after-school program (the Healthy Living Ambassador Program) in spring 2015. A mixed-methods pilot study measured children's vegetable selection and consumption preferences and teens' perceived self-efficacy in healthy living behavior. Children trended toward increased preference for gardening, cooking and science, and teens showed an increase in perceived health self-efficacy.

Lee R.E., Parker N.H., Soltero E.G., Ledoux T., Hernandez I., Sahnoune I. · BMC Public Health, 17:242 · United States

Piloted SAGE—a 12-session garden education program with songs, games, taste tests and garden care—for 89 children aged 3–5 in six early care and education centers across two US cities, evaluating reach, efficacy and implementation using the RE-AIM framework for PA and fruit and vegetable intake.

Rosalie M. Sharp, Daniel J. Brabander · GeoHealth · United States (Boston)

This study assessed lead (Pb) bioaccessibility, transport, and exposure pathways in urban gardens in Roxbury and Dorchester, MA, in partnership with The Food Project, which brings local farmers into the research. Compost had lower total Pb, lower gastric Pb solubility, and less fine-particle resuspension than soils, with a mean bioaccessible Pb of 265 mg/kg—nearly an order of magnitude lower than soils. Across all matrices, grain sizes under 37 μm held a disproportionate share of bioaccessible Pb, whose isotopic composition pointed to leaded gasoline and leaded paint.

Maia G. Fitzstevens, Rosalie M. Sharp, Daniel J. Brabander · Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene · United States (Boston)

To support urban agriculture and limit childhood lead exposure from resuspended urban soils, this study measured bulk and bioaccessible lead in five types of compost used in Boston urban gardens. Different feedstocks showed unique geochemical fingerprints; bulk lead in compost was a fraction of that in urban soils, yet the bioaccessible fraction exceeded the IEUBK model's default parameters. Based on the observed bioaccessibility, 170 mg/kg total lead in compost yields the same bioaccessible lead as the model predicts for the 400 mg/kg EPA soil benchmark, so risk assessments should treat compost as an urban matrix.

Gatto · Pediatric Obesity · USA (Los Angeles)

A randomized controlled trial of a 12-week after-school nutrition, cooking, and gardening program held at a community garden, assessing reductions in obesity and metabolic risk among Hispanic/Latino youth.

· Frontiers in Environmental Science · Brazil (Sao Paulo)

PAHs, including carcinogenic congeners, were detected in vegetables grown in urban gardens of Sao Paulo, showing that urban air pollution and soil contamination drive PAH accumulation in city-grown produce.

Melissa N. Poulsen, Roni Neff, Peter J. Winch · Local Environment · United States (Baltimore)

This qualitative case study in Baltimore, Maryland, explored community perceptions of how urban farms benefit neighborhoods. Interviews with residents, neighborhood leaders, and urban farmers in three residential neighborhoods revealed that benefits stemmed from the creation of public projects, physical improvement of degraded spaces, local food production, and new businesses. These changes led to perceived benefits such as increased social connectedness, a transformed physical landscape, improved neighborhood reputation, and enhanced access to fresh produce, demonstrating the importance of a multifunctional paradigm beyond traditional economic indicators.

Lucy Diekmann, Rob Bennaton, Jessica Schweiger, Cole Smith · Journal of Human Sciences and Extension · United States (California)

This article illustrates how Extension in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, develops urban agriculture programming and engages in food-system-related partnerships. The Extension practice in this metropolitan region aligns with research findings on local food system involvement, focusing on educational opportunities and collaborative work with community and government partners. This case study provides insights for Extension personnel designing urban food system programs.

Rebecca A. Seguin‐Fowler, Emily H. Morgan, Karla L. Hanson, Alice S. Ammerman, Stephanie Jilcott Pitts, Jane Kolodinsky, Marilyn Sitaker, Florence Becot, Leah M. Connor, Jennifer Garner, Jared T. McGuirt · BMC Public Health · United States

Farm Fresh Foods for Healthy Kids (F3HK) is a community-based, randomized intervention trial designed to assess the impact of subsidized community supported agriculture (CSA) coupled with nutrition education to prevent childhood obesity in low-income families and strengthen local agricultural economies. Conducted in New York, North Carolina, Vermont, and Washington, the study targets low-income families with children aged 2-12 years. Primary outcomes include children's intake of fruits and vegetables, sugar and fat, and diet quality, with data collected over three years.

Kellen Zale · Maine law review · United States

This presentation connects Senator Muskie's legacy in urban development and Model Cities to contemporary urban development legislation. It highlights that while urban development legislation can originate from any government level, local governments are crafting innovative responses to urban challenges. Examples include Detroit's blight reduction, Seattle's living wage ordinance, San Francisco's urban agriculture zoning, and New Orleans' mixed-use public housing redevelopment.

Katherine Frances Petroka, Rania Campbell-Bussiere, Dan Dychtwald, Brandy‐Joe Milliron · Nutrition and Health · United States (Philadelphia)

This 2017 qualitative study in Philadelphia, USA, investigated barriers and facilitators to healthy eating among 24 low-income seniors (65-75 years old) in subsidized housing, which included a community garden and food pantry. Personal barriers included food cost, physical limitations, and low self-efficacy, while external barriers involved lack of transportation and market distance. Facilitators focused on food preparation, and participants expressed interest in community nutrition programming.

Lisa M. Butler Harrington · Geographical Review · United States

This study in the United States identified connections to ideals of rurality in popular culture, despite the shrinking rural population. Based on literature, field observation, computer searches, and U.S. Census of Agriculture data, manifestations include rural tourism, small-scale farming, urban agriculture, farmers’ markets, and housing developments centered on farm activities. These idealized relationships with rurality are linked to health, well-being, nature connection, aesthetics, privacy, and nostalgia.

Kathy B. Knight, Janie W. Cole, Lacy M. Dodd, Charlotte B. Oakley · International Journal of School Health · United States

The "Eating good and moving like we should (EGMLWS)" school-based intervention aimed to prevent and reduce childhood obesity among primarily African American third-grade students in 7 Mississippi Delta schools. The program included curricula, school gardens, and school menu consultation. Pre- and post-intervention BMI z-scores and Fitnessgram parameters (PACER and back-saver sit-and-reach) were compared. Mean BMI z-scores significantly lowered in 2 schools, did not change in 4 schools, and increased in 2 schools. PACER scores increased in 5 of 7 schools, and sit-and-reach scores increased in 5 and 6 schools respectively.