Research & reports

Les Levidow · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · United Kingdom (London)

This research examines the role of 'community' in London's food initiatives and how it stimulates congenial activities through social innovation. These initiatives involve forms of social innovation such as enhancing socio-political capabilities, fulfilling unsatisfied needs, and redefining societal problems. London's food initiatives face challenges in combining these diverse aims and activities.

Matthew Reed, Evy Mettepenningen, Paul Swagemakers, M.D. Domínguez García, Ingrid Jahrl, Marlinde Koopmans · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · Europe

This paper examined urban food governance in four European city-regions: Bristol (UK), Ghent (Belgium), Vigo (Spain), and Zurich (Switzerland). The case studies demonstrated the role of citizens in urban food and the challenges this presents to city-region governance. Urban food activists, through horizontal networking and clear communication of demands, have raised significant questions about how cities are governed.

Juan Soriano-Baeza, Raimundo Otero-Enríquez, Estefanía Calo · Semata: Ciencias sociais e humanidades · Spain

This study conducted a quantitative sociological investigation in three community gardens on the periphery of A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. The research aimed to theoretically define the concept of urban community gardens and to extrapolate data and reflections on their multifunctionality and the motivations supporting their production to the Galician territorial context.

Toni Karge · Journal of Place Management and Development · Germany (Berlin)

This participatory action research examines the Himmelbeet urban community garden in Berlin from an urban planning perspective, using placemaking principles for ex-post analysis. The study found that the garden functions as a placemaking scheme, despite not being planned with placemaking instruments. Its process demonstrates strategies to address exclusion, disinvestment, and depoliticization of public spaces, showcasing the potential of citizen-controlled placemaking.

Luciana Macaluso · Nova Science Publishers (Nova Science Publishers, Inc.) · Europe

This paper discusses the historical perspectives of architects Leberecht Migge (1919) and Giuseppe Samonà (1976) on urban and rural connections. Both recognized the necessity of gardens within large towns and saw urbanization as a partial solution to agricultural production crises. The authors suggest that integrating gardens into urban design, inspired by these ideas, can contribute to soil conservation, especially as soils are increasingly recognized as cultural heritage.

S. Parsisson · · Netherlands (Rotterdam)

This study investigated how urban farmers at Rotterdamse Munt, an urban herb garden in Rotterdam, Netherlands, discursively negotiate their status as a 'social enterprise' using ethnographic fieldwork and a semiotic approach. The research found that Rotterdamse Munt has not fully transformed into a sustainable ecological social enterprise. Instead, urban farmers constantly negotiated between altruistic and commercial approaches, failing to fully achieve both, which obliged them to combine two contrasting identities through dual visual identity, services, and products to reach two different populations.

Marie Gisclard, Richard Raymond · Institut français d’études anatoliennes eBooks · Turkey (Diyarbakır)

This article examines the Hevsel Gardens in Diyarbakır, Turkey, which face sustainability challenges due to the city's growth and an asymmetric relationship where the city dominates the gardens. It highlights the unbalanced relationships between the gardens and the city, stemming from a lack of quality and quantity in water resources. The coexistence and competition of three socio-political projects, including centralized political networks and farmer-specific adaptations, call for a re-examination of this relationship and an alternative to the concentration of powers in the metropolis.

Alisa Koroļova, S. Treija · Architecture and Urban Planning · Europe

This article provides evidence of the multi-functionality of urban gardening in addressing various societal issues. Case studies from Malmo, Birmingham, and Riga demonstrate how urban gardening contributes to social integration, inhabitants' well-being, and urban regeneration.

Attila Tóth, Barbora Duží, Jan Vávra, Ján Supuka, Mária Bihuňová, Denisa Halajová, Stanislav Martinát, Eva Nováková · Nature and Culture · Europe

A historical review article on allotment gardening in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Tracing back to the eighteenth century, it identifies the periods and events that shaped Czech and Slovak society and urban gardening in particular, and analyzes the development of allotments before and after 1989 using case studies and examples. The article offers this historical narrative as a basis for discussing contemporary trends, challenges and visions for allotment gardening in both countries.

Céline Henne · European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy · Europe

A review of French philosopher Joëlle Zask's book "La Démocratie aux Champs," which argues against the prejudice that democratic ideals essentially grow out of and thrive in big cities and are antithetical to agricultural life. It notes that both in nineteenth-century Europe and in the contemporary United States, peasants have widely been seen as conservative, bigoted and apolitical, while urban residents are typically seen as more progressive and politically minded. Against this view, and against an alternative romanticized picture of an idyllic rural world, Zask argues that the values and practices associated with democratic freedom "primarily come... from the farm" (p. 7), with "farm" understood broadly to encompass different kinds of agriculture, including urban community gardens, rather than being restricted to the peasant lifeworld.

Patrick Oehler, Nicola Thomas, Timo Huber · Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster · Europe

This German-language sociological article uses the example of allotment garden communities (Familiengartengemeinschaften) to argue that sustainability research and local policy should attend not only to self-identified pioneer groups such as new community gardens, but also to traditional allotment garden groups that are less familiar with sustainability discourse yet still act as practitioners of sustainable resource use; the article argues that sustainable development requires a democratic dialogue between such different actors.

Wojciech Sroka · Annals of the Polish Association of Agricultural and Agribusiness Economists · Poland

A study of opinions and perceptions of the benefits of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) among 512 inhabitants of Polish metropolitan areas (MA), based on a survey. The research found that the concept of urban agriculture is relatively little known in Poland, and inhabitants are fairly skeptical about the benefits generated by agriculture in metropolitan areas. Acceptance of agricultural functions was lowest among inhabitants of the metropolitan core and increased with distance from the core, with residents of rural municipalities furthest from the core attributing the highest social, environmental and economic importance to agriculture.

İşık Sezen · DergiPark (Istanbul University) · Europe

The paper traces the history of allotment gardens (AG), which originated in the United Kingdom, and shows that in European countries such as Germany they now function mainly as recreational and social sites rather than agricultural production areas. Examining Turkish examples — Atatürk Forest Farm, the Yedikule Gardens adjacent to Istanbul's UNESCO World Heritage territorial walls, Boğazköy Kuzguncuk Garden, and the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Diyarbakır City Walls and Hevsel Gardens — it concludes these sites have long served the same function as European allotment gardens, as urban agricultural land in Turkey.

Ciska Ulug, Lummina Horlings · Local Environment · Europe (Netherlands)

Using in-depth interviews and participant observation in rural, peri-urban, and urban community gardens in the North of the Netherlands, this research examined the conditions and processes through which resourcefulness—a community's capacity to engage with its local resource base—facilitates social innovation. Comparing differing contexts, it identified five enablers for altering social relations and community empowerment: clear goals and motivations, diversity in garden resources, experimental knowledge processes, strong internal support and recognition, and place-based practices.

Céline Tanguay, Jean Louis Yengué, José Serrano · VertigO · France

Focusing on the Tours urban agglomeration in France, this article analyzes how an urban agriculture project takes shape, both politically and technically. It argues that feeding city dwellers is only a pretext for addressing economic issues (structuring a sector), social issues (social cohesion), and environmental issues (biodiversity, protection of soil and groundwater), and that the success of an urban agriculture project therefore depends on mobilizing all actors involved in urban planning. This multifunctional territorial vision, the article argues, can overcome the persistent divide between environmental and food objectives given their converging underlying goals, and it proposes linking biodiversity conservation with food production through a "green, blue and food network" (trame verte, bleue et alimentaire, TVBA).

Alexander Wezel, Julia Goette, Elisabeth Lagneaux, Gloria Passuello, Erica Reisman, Christophe Rodier, Grégoire Turpin · Sustainability · Europe

A study mapping the development of agroecology in Europe through a literature review, interviews, conference participation and internet search. It finds that agroecological research and higher education are concentrated more in western and northern Europe, though farm schools and farmer-to-farmer training exist in other regions too. Bottom-up initiatives and national or continental networks and movements are increasing, with food sovereignty and access to land and seeds as major themes. Except for France, the study states there are very few concrete agroecology policies in Europe.

Bas Spierings, Ilse van Liempt, Emiel Maliepaard · Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie · Europe

A study of social inclusion and exclusion processes in and around the Wijsgeren community garden in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Positioned against a literature that has largely emphasized and celebrated community gardening's benefits, it examines the practices and experiences of both gardeners and non-gardeners, and identifies specific exclusionary barriers based on non-ownership and non-membership operating in and around the garden.

Justyna Kleszcz · Architecture Civil Engineering Environment · Europe

This paper compares urban farm initiatives across European cities (Paris, Barcelona, Vienna) and non-European cities (New York, Brasilia, Hong Kong), differentiating them by scale, purpose, and the role urban agriculture plays according to a developed taxonomy. A system analysis identifies common characteristics behind the growing popularity of new forms of urban agriculture. The paper argues that comparing the causes behind their emergence, how different solutions have been implemented, and the modifications arising from functional analysis of existing facilities is important for developing guidelines for the further development of urban agriculture systems, including in Poland.

Luisa De Marco, Susan Denyer, Regina Durighello, Ege Yıldırım · · Germany

This chapter uses Bamberg, Germany, as a case to examine how a World Heritage site addresses its Outstanding Universal Value alongside intangible cultural heritage connected to the city's urban gardening tradition, and discusses environmental sustainability, social inclusion, and peace and security. It concludes that social cohesion, broad site accessibility, and municipal investment in heritage conservation support inclusive economic development in Bamberg, and that the city is generally peaceful and safe with a high degree of social cohesion, meaning all principal dimensions of sustainable development apply to the Bamberg World Heritage site.

Andrea Colantoni, Ilaria Zambon, Maria Gras, Enrico Maria Mosconi, Alessandra Stefanoni, Luca Salvati · Sustainability · Europe

This study uses multivariate analysis to identify the socioeconomic transformations shaping cropland distribution in the Athens metropolitan region, Greece, from 1960 to 2010. The share of cropland in total municipal area increased moderately, with a non-linear relationship to distance from downtown Athens: the highest cropland rates occurred 20-30 km from the inner city. Decade-by-decade multivariate regressions using 11 predictors per municipality found distance from downtown, soil and climate quality, population growth rate, and competing land use to be the factors most associated with cropland change. Competing land use drove cropland decline during the first urbanization phase (1960-1980), while population growth became positively associated with cropland in a later phase (1990-2010); per-capita urban land was negatively correlated with cropland in 1960 and 1970 but positively in 2010, suggesting a shift from a monocentric toward a more dispersed metropolitan structure.

Franklin Ginn, Eduardo Ascensão · Antipode · Europe

This article examines collective gardening spaces that have existed for decades across Lisbon, Portugal, analyzing the racialized urban geography revealed by the differing fortunes of makeshift gardens built by black migrants from Portugal's former colonies compared with white Portuguese community gardening spaces. Framing urban gardens as commons-in-the-making, it sets subaltern urbanism and the emergence of autonomous gardening commons against state erasure, overwriting, or top-down construction of commons. While urban gardening produces commons of varying persistence, the commons are shown to be closely entwined with processes of enclosure; the article argues these gardening commons are divergent, cannot be judged against any single abstract ideal, and ultimately do not share a "common" in common.

Generalitat Valenciana · Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE) · Spain

A law enacted by the Generalitat Valenciana on 6 March 2018 to protect the Huerta de València, published in the official state gazette (BOE) on 20 April 2018 and in effect from 13 March 2018. It consists of 47 articles across 8 chapters, aiming to preserve, restore and revitalize the huerta as a space with agricultural, environmental, landscape, historical and cultural value, while promoting economically viable farming in the metropolitan area of Valencia.

Michael J. Roy, Neil McHugh, Stephen Sinclair · Stanford Social Innovation Review · United Kingdom

Published 1 May 2018. The authors argue that Social Impact Bonds look like an ideology-neutral financing fix but carry significant technical problems and a troubling ideological shift. At the time of writing the UK had 32 SIBs; government had put in $28 million in 2012 and a further $113.4 million through the Life Chances Fund in 2016, with the UK market predicted to reach $1.4 billion by 2020, while the US had at least 10 SIBs and 19 more existed across 14 other countries. The Peterborough prison SIB's initial result was an 8.4 per cent reduction in reoffending. They find little evidence that SIBs encourage innovation, note the heavy administrative burden, and contend that prioritising investor returns over service users turns citizens into commodities.

Watanabe Y., Amemiya M., Shimpo N. · 都市計画報告集 (Reports of the City Planning Institute of Japan), No.16 · Germany

Surveys the management and social background of Germany's 'intercultural gardens' (Interkulturelle Gärten), which aim to integrate immigrants and refugees into local society, and considers their applicability in Japan. Finds that the gardens originated as a grassroots activity by locals and spread across Germany through a supporting organisation.

Kaduna-Eve Demailly, Ségolène Darly · ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies · France (Paris)

Shows how Paris's temporary 'licence to occupy' model for urban gardens produces extreme precarity: gardens are placed on vacant lots slated for building and must physically relocate ('nomadic' gardening) when the temporary permit is revoked, revealing interim-use policy as structurally unstable.