Research & reports

Colleen Saxen, Yoko Miura, Alan R. Wight, Michelle A. Fleming · Educational Action Research · United States

Using Participatory Action Research (PAR) with community partners and school staff who led a school garden project in a low-income neighborhood of a small mid-western U.S. city, this study explored the meaning of the garden through photovoice, mapping, and interviews. Three overarching themes emerged from participants' perspectives: community, empowerment, and justice. The garden project was experienced as holding depth of possibility for participants that went beyond the typical outcome measures — content knowledge, physical health, and ecological stewardship — used to assess school gardens.

Brent F. Kim, Sara N. Lupolt, Raychel Santo, Grace H. Bachman, Xudong Zhu, Tianbao Yang, Naomi K. Fukagawa, Matthew L. Richardson, Carrie Green, Katherine M. Phillips, Keeve E. Nachman · PLoS ONE · United States

A pilot study (2024, PLoS ONE) planted Darkibor kale seedlings at three urban and four rural farms in and around Baltimore City, Maryland, had farmers grow them using their usual practices, and analyzed harvested kale for carotenoids, vitamins C and K1, ten nutritional elements, and eight non-essential metals. Sample sizes were in some cases too small to yield statistical significance, but the study identified potentially meaningful differences between urban and rural kale: mean carotenoid and vitamin concentrations were 22-38% higher in rural samples, while mean concentrations of eight nutritional elements were higher in urban samples, by as much as 413% for iron. Most of nine non-essential metals were higher on average in urban samples, though lead and cadmium concentrations across all samples stayed below public health guidelines; for six elements, variance within urban or within rural farms exceeded variance between the two groups, suggesting urbanicity may not be the primary driver of some differences, and some urban-rural gaps were more pronounced than in prior research.

Nick DeMarsh, Alfonso Morales · Urban agriculture · United States

Focused on cities in the United States, this paper (2024) frames urban agriculture as an opportunity to challenge the status quo of current urban and food systems, discussing the opportunities and challenges that increased urban population and density create for it through Howe and Kaufman's ethical framework of means and ends. Noting the tendency for ethical ends (economic or other outcomes) to preempt consideration of ethical means or processes, it applies this means-and-ends framework to propose three key ideas for framing the ethics of urban agriculture: a place-based historical perspective, a bridge connecting cities and regions, and a nested approach to reimagining healthy socio-ecological systems. It argues that urban agriculture practitioners must understand the history of urban places and agricultural processes both as consequences of national historical processes and in present place-specific contexts and future orientations; that urban agriculture's contribution to an environmentally sustainable future rests on recognizing food production and consumption as an essential part of human life; and that its transformative potential stems from its significant role in the urban and food systems that shape everyday life — while cautioning that this potential does not mean change through urban agriculture is inevitable, since it requires participants and stakeholders to critically examine their own practices and expectations.

Tatiana Hlinka · Journal of Student Research · United States

In New Jersey, 50 food desert areas face the most severe food insecurity across both rural and urban contexts. This study identified nine barriers to implementing urban agriculture initiatives in New Jersey's urban food deserts, using a sequential quantitative analysis combining a survey of food systems professionals with a GIS-based spatial analysis to identify the most prevalent barrier. Working in partnership with New Jersey urban agricultural organizations, the study found that lack of funding was the most commonly cited barrier to expanding urban agriculture initiatives. The GIS-based spatial analysis found that high-priority barriers varied by region, but that all organizations identified funding, or lack of access to funding, as a significant barrier regardless of whether they operated in a low- or high-income neighborhood. The study concludes that policymakers must reevaluate the role of urban agricultural organizations in New Jersey's urban food deserts.

Tiffanie F. Stone, Janette R. Thompson, Emily Zimmerman, Tássia Mattos Brighenti, Matt Liebman · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · United States

In the US Corn Belt near Des Moines, Iowa, researchers combined land-use visualization with producer surveys to examine a future scenario supplying 50% of a metropolitan population's dietary needs from local "table food" (fruit, vegetable and grain crops for direct human consumption) by 2050. Surveys were sent to 1,360 row crop and 55 specialty crop producers, yielding 316 and 25 eligible responses respectively. The scenario would require less than 3% of available agricultural land and roughly 130 additional producers, mostly in grain production. Based on producers' stated plans, local production could supply about 25% of residents' fruit, vegetable and grain needs, up from a 2% baseline. Row crop producers ranked food safety regulations as their strongest constraint, specialty producers ranked labor availability, and both groups cited crop insurance and processing facilities as important.

Bruno Dias Magalhães, D. B. Almeida, Gabriel Mattos Ornelas, Lara Andrade Silva Viana, Flávia de Paula Duque Brasil, Carneiro, Ricardo José, 1955-, Fundação João Pinheiro, Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais, Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais, Fundação João Pinheiro, Fundação João Pinheiro, Fundação João Pinheiro · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Brazil

An analysis of the process of building the Participatory Guarantee System (SPG) for organic/agroecological production in the Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region (RMBH), Brazil. The SPG's construction traces back to 2004, driven mainly by social movements and civil society actors engaged with urban agroecology; in 2018 the Belo Horizonte municipal government initiated the first protocol of intentions to strengthen agroecology in the RMBH, creating an Inter-institutional Support Committee with SPG consolidation as one of its goals. The article traces this articulation trajectory, emphasizing civil society and social movements' role in what it frames as a "peri-institutional" space, examining how the Committee builds capacities as agroecology draws closer to the state, while also questioning how much real autonomy and agency the people who actually produce and sell within this arrangement retain.

C. HAURESKO · · Brazil

The available abstract text is fragmentary, breaking off mid-sentence after stating that "society, democracy, and sustainable development are taking on new and inspiring forms of struggle and adaptation" and that academic research on Latin America allows for a deeper understanding of the transformations and challenges its societies face. It does not contain specific content—methods or findings—about urban agriculture itself despite the title.

Laurence Bhérer, Pascale Dufour, Françoise Montambeault · Urban Affairs Review · Canada

A two-level analysis tracing the trajectory of urban gardening and dumpster diving/food recuperation practices in Montréal, Canada, from grassroots emergence to inclusion within institutional frameworks. Rather than treating citizen-led initiatives as either co-opted by formal institutions under austerity or as pure "spaces of resistance" to neoliberalism, the study shows that individuals and loosely organized collectives involved in these practices are embedded in complex relationships with local institutions and third-sector organizations, which in turn structure the practices and their consequences. It describes this institutionalization as occurring gradually, through practitioners' interactions with each other and with their social and institutional environment.

Raul Augusto Barroso, Otavio Neto · Revista Multidisciplinar do Nordeste Mineiro · Brazil

A literature review of scientific articles, established websites, books and magazines — searched online using keywords such as "urban agriculture," "urban gardens," "vertical gardens," "small-space agriculture" and "sustainable agriculture" — examined how urban agriculture is transforming urban spaces. An initial 622 related documents were identified and narrowed to the most recent (2021-2022), leaving 20 used in the analysis. The results show urban agriculture consolidating as a transformative force that shapes urban spaces beyond simple food production, providing both environmental and social benefits, promoting food security for participants and their communities, and making use of underused and often abandoned spaces.

Karen R. Klinger, Aster F. Hasle, Karen S. Oberhauser · Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution · United States (New York City)

Working with community scientists in the Chicago metropolitan area, researchers monitored monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) eggs and caterpillars on milkweed patches in yards and community gardens. Peak egg counts per patch ranged from zero to 170 across observation years; patch age and the presence of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) affected whether eggs were present, and patches with the highest egg counts tended to have A. syriaca, more milkweed plants, and greater diversity of blooming nectar plants.

Antônio Pampana · Revista VérticeFIB · Brazil

This review essay traces the history of urban agriculture in Brazil—from backyard cultivation of Portuguese origin, through its post-industrial decline, to worsened food insecurity during the Covid-19 crisis—and argues that agroecological urban agriculture (AUA) can combine sustainable management with social benefits, increased biodiversity, and diversified food production including unconventional food plants (PANCs). It cites the green infrastructure project in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, and the Oriente corridors project in metropolitan Medellín, Colombia, as examples of AUA in strategic green-infrastructure planning, while noting that AUA remains largely absent from urban public policy.

Gamal El Afandi, Hossam Ismael, Souleymane Fall · Sustainability · United States

Using a hybrid approach combining the HYSPLIT and AgDRIFT models, this study estimated organophosphate pesticide spray drift from corn and soybean fields into urban-agricultural interface communities in Sangamon County, Illinois, at both field and county scales. Preliminary findings indicate that all residential areas near agricultural land are at risk of pesticide drift, since buffer zones do not exceed 25 meters; of 34 water bodies (rivers, lakes, streams, and drains) within the 30,200-acre study region, 12 fall within the high-drift zone, and roughly 106 buildings across an estimated 10,300 km² were found to have potential exposure to drift.

Edson Fonseca de Oliveira, René Eugênio Seifert, Thiago Cavalcante Nascimento, Luan Matheus Pedrozo Kolachnek · Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural · Brazil

A qualitative, descriptive-exploratory multicase comparative study of Curitiba, Brazil, characterized three modes of urban agriculture organization based on Feniman's (2014) typology: Assisted, Vernacular, and Politicized. The Assisted mode was technically driven and dependent on government assistance, favoring production of market-value species, with formalized social structures that limited internal and external social integration and less use of unconventional production technologies. The Vernacular mode had an informal, affective structure valuing ancestral knowledge and traditional practices anchored in strong family ties. The Politicized mode expressed participants' desire to make urban agriculture integrative, alternative, sovereign, autonomous, and innovative, but showed limitations in building a stable communal life.

Pamela Eduarda Lopes dos Santos Rezena, Luciana Boemer Cesar Pereira, Mariana Ranchuka dos Santos, Anelize Queiroz Amaral, Geisiane dos Santos de Souza · Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental · Brazil

At a public elementary school (Foz do Chopim Municipal School) in the riverside community of Foz do Chopim, in the municipality of Cruzeiro do Iguaçu, Paraná, Brazil, a university extension workshop run jointly by the Sala +Verde and Hortas projects built a school garden to teach environmental education themes including care for the environment, the society-nature relationship, sustainable societies and food sovereignty. The workshop produced a sense of belonging and care for the garden space among participating students and gave them practical information to take home.

· Civil War Book Review · United States

A Fall 2024 magazine issue profiling research activity at the LSU AgCenter covers researcher Erin Oberhaus's work collecting data to inform Louisiana horse owners about medication use, a water quality specialist's study of whether noneconomic water bodies including agricultural ponds could help generate electricity, results from soybean studies, and success stories from the AgCenter's farm-to-school program involving school gardens across the state.

Composting Consortium (Closed Loop Partners) · Closed Loop Partners · United States

The largest field test of its kind in North America — 18 months, 10 facilities, over 23,000 units — found that certified compostable packaging breaks down in properly managed compost facilities. Compostable plastics averaged 98% degradation by surface area and fiber packaging averaged 83%, both exceeding industry thresholds (90% and 80% respectively). The market is projected to grow 16% annually.

Cascadia Consulting Group · Washington State Department of Ecology · United States

A report to the Washington State legislature summarizing an advisory committee's research on standards for managing compostable products at composting facilities. Compostable products make up only 0.4% by weight of material sent to commercial compost facilities in the state, yet the associated contamination disproportionately raises processing costs, and consumer confusion is identified as a major driver of misdisposal.

· BioCycle · United States

A report on EREF's 2023 survey of U.S. landfill tipping fees. The national unweighted average fell to $56.80/ton, a 3% decrease from the prior year and the first decline since 2020, with fees dropping in most regions except the Northeast.

California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) · California Code of Regulations, Title 14 (via Cornell Law) · United States

A California regulation setting the physical contamination limit for compost: material larger than 4 mm must not exceed 0.5% by dry weight, of which film plastic must be no more than 20%. Operators must sample every 5,000 cubic yards.

Closed Loop Partners, Composting Consortium · Closed Loop Partners / Composting Consortium · United States

Closed Loop Partners' Composting Consortium conducted the largest known North American field test of certified, food-contact compostable packaging, analyzing over 23,000 units across nine commercial composting facilities. While roughly 70% of food waste composters already accept such packaging, the report says public data on actual disintegration performance and optimal composting conditions had been limited. Data will feed a public database and the first ASTM field test standard for compostable packaging.

Advocates for Privately Owned Public Space (APOPS) · Advocates for Privately Owned Public Space (APOPS) / Municipal Art Society of New York · United States

New York City's 1961 zoning resolution created incentive zoning, letting private developers earn floor-area bonuses in exchange for providing public plazas and similar spaces. From 1961 to 2000, developers built more than 500 POPS, gaining about 16 million square feet of bonus floor area while providing roughly 80 acres of public space. However, a 1998–99 field survey found about half of POPS out of legal compliance, and a 2000 study rated 41% as of limited quality.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Department of the Treasury · Federal Register · United States

On 8 October 2024 the IRS and Treasury issued final regulations (TD 10007, RIN 1545-BQ39) identifying certain syndicated conservation easement transactions and substantially similar transactions as listed transactions, a type of reportable transaction. Material advisors and certain participants must file disclosures with the IRS and face penalties for failing to do so. Public comments on the proposed rule extensively discussed the so-called '2.5 times rule' — a multiple-of-investment threshold used to flag transactions.

Willowsford Conservancy · Willowsford Conservancy · United States

This 2024 FAQ from Willowsford Conservancy, the nonprofit tied to the Willowsford residential development in Virginia, explains that it operates independently from the developer and manages about 2,300 acres of open space (including 200+ acres of farmland and 2,000+ acres of grassland, wetland, and forest) plus 40+ miles of trails, funded in part by a 0.25% transfer fee paid by homebuyers. Its seven-seat board currently has six resident members, and the resident-led board structure began in 2021.

· The Dirt · United States

Published July 31, 2024 by local outlet The Dirt, this article reports that Spork Food Hub announced the immediate closure of its farmstand at The Cannery agrihood in Davis, California. In a Facebook post, the operator said that after two years of operation it had been unable to grow its customer base enough to make the stand profitable, and would instead focus its community outreach on other farm and food-hub events.

USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) · USDA Economic Research Service · United States

A USDA Economic Research Service 'Chart of Note' based on the 2022 Census of Agriculture. 39% of the 880 million acres of U.S. farmland was rented or leased in 2022, a rate similar to 2017. Rental activity is concentrated in grain-producing regions such as the Mississippi River corridor, Corn Belt, and Northern Plains, with roughly two-thirds (68%) of rented farmland on operations of 2,000 acres or more.