Research & reports

Sofyan Sufri, Jonatan Lassa · Environmental Hazards · Indonesia (Aceh)

This article examined the barriers and opportunities of the Climate Village Programme (ProKlim) in Aceh, Indonesia. Key stakeholder interviews (N=38) and policy content analysis in three villages within Banda Aceh city revealed hypothetical barriers to CCAM, including the absence of a sustained mechanism for effective flood adaptation, insufficient resources for supporting adaptive urban agriculture practices, lack of community participation, and inadequate integration of scientific and local knowledge into early warning systems. Despite ProKlim being an innovative program, challenges remained, as past disaster events were viewed as distant memories, hindering proactive risk reduction efforts by local authorities and residents.

Salwa Yasyifa Azzahrah, Lies Sulistyowati · MIMBAR AGRIBISNIS Jurnal Pemikiran Masyarakat Ilmiah Berwawasan Agribisnis · Indonesia (Jakarta)

This study analyzed the financial and economic feasibility of urban farming projects and their role in women's empowerment in Cengkareng Barat and Duri Kosambi sub-districts, Jakarta. Using descriptive analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and the Likert scale, the research found that urban agriculture programs are financially and economically viable, showing positive Net Present Value and a Benefit-Cost Ratio greater than one. Socially, these programs contribute to women's empowerment through additional income, skill enhancement, self-confidence building, and community participation.

Ding X., Li W., Sun X., Peng Y. · Journal of Environmental Management · China

Proposes a method for assessing urban-agriculture potential at the residential-community scale, combining cluster analysis, 3D model reconstruction, multi-criteria decision-making and GIS. Low-density high-rise communities showed the strongest spatial suitability, while high-density low-rise communities scored highest on sustainable potential; overall ranking was low-density high-rise > high-density low-rise > large-footprint pitched-roof > old communities. Construction year was the key factor, with building density, gross floor area and roof slope shaping potential via sunlight, planting area and accessibility.

A Muh Alwilah Akbar, Jairin Jairin, B Sumarni, Ratnawati Tahir, Hasriani Lukman, Muh Al Aswar Rusman · Tekirdağ Ziraat Fakültesi Dergisi · Indonesia

A study of Tello Urban Village, Makassar City, Indonesia, conducted from July to September 2024, analysing the influence of social capital and women farmers' institutions on the development of urban farming. Using purposive sampling, the study involved 20 active members of women farmer groups, analysed with descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression. Results showed that social capital - characterised by information sharing, activity coordination, and collective decision-making - and women farmer institutions functioning as units of cooperation, learning, and production both played a significant role in supporting urban farming development. However, both factors were found to have only a moderate, not decisive, influence on urban farming's growth, indicating that additional external support such as government facilitation, resource access, technological innovation, and policy strengthening is still required.

Tao Shi, Ian MacLachlan · Urban Geography · China

A qualitative case study combining observation and interview data on an informal urban garden in Shenzhen, China. In contrast to formal urban horticulture practices in neighboring areas, grower-squatters were found to claim usufructuary rights through informal transactions, sustaining active urban horticulture for the past decade through non-confrontational land claims, social networks governed by tacit understandings, and self-motivated recycling of resources. Notably, these informal arrangements not only endured but consistently outperformed adjacent formal community gardens, which fell into neglect despite official sanction and investment. The authors argue that such informal practices can contribute to the development of sustainable, self-organizing urban gardens in megacities.

Warvan Barzani · REAL CORP Repository (University of Southampton) · Asia

This paper examines Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, as a case of medium-sized-city urban transformation, using planning documentation, project descriptions and spatial development interpretation to ask whether green infrastructure elements such as Sami Abdulrahman Park and the Orbital Green Belt Project function only as environmental enhancement or also as instruments of spatial governance within Erbil's updated master-planning framework, which introduces growth boundaries, zoning reforms, density regulation and environmental overlays amid pressure on peri-urban agricultural land from two decades of demographic and spatial expansion.

Asra Jabeen, Vaijanatha ., Kiran Lakshmikant Kadam, Kalyan . · International Journal of Agriculture Extension and Social Development · India

A study in Medchal-Malkajgiri District, Telangana, India examined ICT utilization among urban farmers, the relationship between farmer profile characteristics and ICT use, farmers' attitudes toward ICT tools, and constraints on their use. It found smartphones, WhatsApp, YouTube and agricultural mobile applications were the commonly used information sources, with education, age, digital literacy, income and training exposure significantly influencing usage, while constraints including lack of technical knowledge, poor internet connectivity and inadequate training limited effective use of ICT tools.

Wei-Chun Chuang, Ching‐Pin Tung, Wan-Yu Shih, Wen-Ray Su · 網際網路技術學刊 · China

This study examines the spatial equity and socio-spatial implications of urban agriculture by analysing the distribution of community gardens under Taipei's Garden City Program (TGCP) in relation to neighborhood-level income growth, using unsupervised machine learning (DBSCAN) combined with spatial statistics (Moran's I and LISA). It finds that garden service density is highly concentrated in central districts with significant service gaps in peripheral areas, while at the citywide scale no significant correlation is found between garden density and income growth -- consistent with the "just green enough" view that low-cost, small-scale, decentralized community gardens are less likely to trigger conventional green gentrification -- though several local areas do show potential spatial coupling between garden presence and income change, pointing to a need for policy attention to distributional equity.

Ane Novianty, Agus Fernando · MAHATANI Jurnal Agribisnis (Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics Journal) · Indonesia

A qualitative literature study examined forms of environmental damage caused by industrial activity in Cikarang, Indonesia—where industrial sector growth has contributed significantly to the economy while also bringing serious environmental degradation—and assessed the role sustainable agriculture can play in environmental recovery. Analysis of national and international scientific literature found that sustainable agriculture, particularly urban agriculture and environmentally friendly farming around industrial areas, has strategic potential as part of green infrastructure, functioning not only as a food source but also contributing to pollutant absorption, rainwater management, temperature control in the area, and improved soil quality and biodiversity.

Abdullah Abdullah, Abdul Haris, Andi Wisneni, Annas Boceng, Maemuna Nontji, Anwar Robbo, Muhammad Munawir Syarif · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Indonesia (Makassar)

A study in Makassar City, Indonesia, evaluated the multidimensional sustainability of urban agriculture (UA) through expert discussions and semi-structured interviews with 23 purposively selected stakeholders including academics, practitioners, urban planners, legislators and government officials. A Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) approach compared sustainability indices from two previous studies, supplemented by prospective and interdependence analyses to identify key leverage factors. Results showed the overall sustainability status of UA in Makassar during 2016-2020 remained "less sustainable," with a multidimensional sustainability index of 43.02%; the ecological (51.84%) and technological (65.09%) dimensions improved to moderately sustainable status, while the economic (46.15%), social (49.81%) and institutional (39.20%) dimensions showed declining sustainability performance. The study proposes three policy directions: strengthening UA planning and management systems, improving institutional coordination among stakeholders, and expanding UA's socio-economic and environmental functions.

Hyun-Kyung Kang, Byungsook Choi · Korean Journal of Human Ecology · South Korea

This study analyzed remodeling characteristics, physical conditions and operational models across 22 housing complexes in seven countries to propose directions for enhancing communal facilities in South Korean public rental housing. International examples emphasized creating spaces for social integration, establishing community-linked welfare hubs, and developing tailored functions for specific groups such as youth and the elderly. In physical configuration, well-being-related spaces such as walking trails and community gardens were the most frequent, appearing in 67 cases, indicating strong demand for health and quality-of-life improvements. Operational programs were found to support individual health and culture activities, family care, and resident-led community initiatives, often under a partially fee-based system with limited public access. The study concluded that improving domestic communal facilities requires incorporating multi-purpose flexible spaces at the initial planning stage, converting ground-floor areas into accessible community hubs, activating underused spaces such as rooftops and corridors, and specializing welfare functions through integrated elderly healthcare and communal childcare facilities.

Budi Hartono, Axel Giovanni, Muchammad Khusni Wafa, Mu'alfad Zulfikar Purwanto, Mirna Harsono · COMMUNITY Jurnal Pengabdian Kepada Masyarakat · Indonesia

This is a community engagement program, not an outcomes study, aimed at micro-enterprises in food security and urban farming in Indonesia that face limited business management capacity, scarce resources, and insufficient technical knowledge. Partnering with Fita Farm for its expertise in integrated agriculture, the program delivers training, hands-on mentoring, and continuous evaluation toward goals of improved business management, increased income, and greater resilience, but the abstract does not report achieved results.

Tianqi Su, Yongmei · Agriculture · China

Based on multitemporal remote-sensing data from 1985 to 2015, this study examined the evolution of urban-agricultural-ecological spatial structure and water-heat-vegetation responses driven by large-scale irrigation and drainage projects in the Inner Mongolia Hetao Plain, an arid/semi-arid region of China. It built a "multifunctionality-dynamic evolution" dual-principle classification system, combining maximum-likelihood classification of individual land types with conflict-pixel-resolution merging to achieve 90.82% classification accuracy, and used a land-use transfer matrix, a standard deviation ellipse model, land surface temperature (LST) inversion, and vegetation fractional coverage (VFC) analysis. The results showed: (1) spatial structure followed a path of short-term intense disturbance followed by long-term stable optimization, with agricultural space stability increasing 4.8%, ecological core area retention exceeding 90%, and urban space expansion shifting from external encroachment to internal filling; (2) VFC increased steadily in the central area (0.8% annual growth), fluctuated with recovery in the eastern area (±12% cyclic amplitude), and improved locally in the western area (key patches up 18%); (3) the LST-VFC relationship showed spatiotemporal misalignment, with 0.8-1.2°C anomalous cooling in the central region during construction despite a 15% VFC decrease, driven by irrigation water's thermal inertia, and a disrupted linear correlation after completion due to changes in crop phenology and plastic film mulching; and (4) the irrigation and drainage projects optimized water resource allocation, constructing a hub regulation model integrated with the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus.

Yun Wu · Architecture Engineering and Science · China

Set against the backdrop of accelerating urban stock renewal in China, this paper addresses the contradiction between "quantity" and "quality" in developing high plot ratio land—where rigid plot ratio constraints create physical barriers such as insufficient lighting, chaotic circulation, and lack of public space, while demand for quality living raises requirements for spatial openness, ecology, and social inclusiveness. It analyzes design strategies including composite utilization of underground space, ecological compensation through rooftop gardens, and cross-plot three-dimensional corridors, combined with coordination of ownership division, full-process cost control, and policy tool innovation, to construct a comprehensive improvement mechanism of "physical optimization, ownership coordination, and economic balance," intended to provide a replicable design paradigm and decision-making reference for improving the quality and efficiency of existing land in high-density urban development.

· Wikipedia · India

This Wikipedia article gives an overview of Indian agriculture. It states that agriculture employs more than 50% of India's workforce and contributes 20.2% to GDP per the 2020–21 Economic Survey, while productivity remains 30–60% of that in developed countries. The article does not specifically address urban farming, focusing instead on structural issues such as infrastructure gaps and farmer suicides.

· Wikipedia · Indonesia

Indonesian politician Ridwan Kamil (born 1971) served as mayor of Bandung from 2013 to 2018. Before becoming mayor, he was a pioneer of the 'Indonesia Berkebun' (Gardening Indonesia) urban farming movement, which had grown to 14 cities with about 4,000 members by 2011. As mayor, he also worked pro bono on creating public open spaces in crowded residential areas of Bandung.

· Wikipedia · Taiwan

The Wikipedia article 'Agriculture in Taiwan' summarizes Taiwan's agricultural sector. As of 2023, agriculture accounts for 1.51% of GDP with an output value of roughly NT$35.1 billion; there were about 760,000 farm households in 2022, and food self-sufficiency stood at 35% in 2020. The article notes Taiwan's growing vertical farming sector, including iFarm in Taoyuan, described as Asia's largest vertical farm as of 2018.

· Wikipedia · Taiwan

The Wikipedia article on Taiwan's Ministry of Agriculture traces its lineage: the Council of Agriculture was formed under the Executive Yuan in 1984, and in May 2023 the Legislative Yuan passed the Organic Act elevating it to full ministry status as the Ministry of Agriculture, overseeing agriculture, forestry, fishery, animal husbandry and food affairs.

· Wikipedia · South Korea

This Wikipedia article on recycling in South Korea (the URL 'Food_waste_in_South_Korea' redirects here) describes a pay-as-you-throw system requiring households to buy designated bags for general waste separate from food waste. The food-waste recycling rate rose from 2% in 1995 to 95% by 2013. Per-capita food waste generation exceeds 130 kg/year, and RFID-enabled smart bins reduced food waste by 47,000 tonnes over six years. South Korea's overall recycling rate reached 59% in 2013, the second-highest among OECD countries; daily household waste fell from 1.3 kg (1994) to 0.94 kg (2013) while the recycled share rose from 15.3% to 83.2%.

· Wikipedia · Taiwan

This Wikipedia article on waste management in Taiwan describes a recycling programme that began in 1989 following a 1987 amendment to the Waste Disposal Act, with the 3R Foundation established in 1994. There are 33 recyclable items across 13 categories; raw food waste is processed into fertilizer for farmers while cooked food waste is converted into livestock feed. As of August 2023, 25 large-scale incineration plants operate, 22 publicly owned (5 publicly operated, 17 privately operated) and 3 privately owned and operated. In 2016, 76.8% of fly ash from coal-fired power plants (1.703 million tons) was reused in construction.

· Wikipedia · China

Sponge city is a Chinese urban planning model that uses green and wetland infrastructure to absorb, purify, and store rainwater. China piloted the model in 16 districts in 2015 and a further 15 cities in 2016, with a central government mandate that 80% of urban space adopt sponge-city adaptations and recycle at least 70% of rainfall by 2030. However, 19 of the 30 pilot cities have still experienced flooding since implementation, indicating implementation challenges.

Liu Q., Chen T., Zhang N., Lin Z., Ye Z., Jiang K., Gao Y., Guo Y., Weng A. · Energy (Elsevier), 320:135191 · China (Yangtze River Delta)

A quantitative assessment of rooftop agrivoltaics (RAV) — co-locating solar PV and crops on building rooftops — against the SDGs. For the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration (~10,720 km² of rooftops) it estimates ~93.1 TWh/year of electricity (6.3% of regional demand), ~43.6 Mt/year of lettuce, large job creation, and ~127 Mt/year of CO2 reduction, positioning RAV as a multifunctional urban land-use that pairs 'zero food miles' food production with clean energy.

Global research network · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Australia, Canada, China

Bibliometric analysis of 710+ articles on urban food resilience, documenting evolution of connections between urban-planning-environment clusters and food-agriculture systems globally.

· Journal of Urban Planning and Development · China (Xi'an)

Analyzes the interactions and synergies between urban agriculture and urban–rural integration through a case study of Xi'an, China.

· Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · China (North China Plain)

Analyzes urban expansion and loss of potential crop yield in the North China Plain (1980–2020) and its implications for regional food security, noting much new urban land came from converted farmland.