Research & reports

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.

Paul Shing-fong Chan, Joseph Kawuki, Mythily Subramaniam, Elizabeth Broadbent, Esther Yuet Ying Lau, Kelvin Fai Hong Lui · Education Sciences · Global

This systematic review, pre-registered with PROSPERO (CRD420251250712) and conducted following PRISMA guidelines, synthesized global evidence on the effects of horticulture-based interventions (HBIs) on student well-being. It searched PubMed, Web of Science, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and APA PsycInfo from inception to June 30, 2025, and included 15 studies (more than 2,000 students aged 5-18) from South Korea (8), Taiwan (3), Mainland China (1), Hong Kong (1), Italy (1), and the United States (1). Results showed HBIs have the potential to enhance emotional/psychological well-being (e.g., stress reduction, mood improvement), social well-being (e.g., peer relations, social skills), cognitive and educational benefits (e.g., attention, academic attitudes), and physical and overall health benefits (e.g., physical activity, quality of life). The review states that future randomized controlled trials with diverse populations are needed to address limitations such as small sample sizes and geographic bias.

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.

Wendpouiré Léticia Nadège Nonguierma, Jean-Marie Dipama · Afrique contemporaine · Africa

A study of the "Ceinture verte" (Green Belt) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, as a nature-based response to climate adaptation. Established in 1976 and relaunched in 2018, the initiative combines forestry development with urban agriculture, aiming to contain urban sprawl, improve the local climate and strengthen the capital's resilience. The study combined a diachronic analysis of Landsat imagery from 1984-2024 with interviews of institutional actors, associative partners and direct beneficiaries. Results show significant contributions — expansion of dense vegetation in some areas, a perceived improvement in air quality, the creation of income-generating market-gardening activities, and the inclusion of vulnerable populations — but also reveal strong constraints: illegal occupations covering a significant share of the land, fragmented governance, limited access to water, security fragility, and still-limited involvement of local residents. The study discusses the feasibility of a trajectory to 2050 between an optimistic scenario conditional on structural reforms and a critical scenario underscoring current limits, and offers lessons transferable to urban adaptation policies in other Sahelian metropolises.

Resa Ramadhan, Fatimah Azzahra, Syifa Fauziah · JURNAL ILMIAH MAHASISWA AGROINFO GALUH · Indonesia

A quantitative study of Karangmukti Village, Bungursari District, Purwakarta Regency, Indonesia, analyzing the influence of livelihood capital on the livelihood resilience of farming households. The village has been undergoing agricultural land conversion: the agricultural land area was about 206 hectares before the change, roughly 30 hectares were converted in 2025 (mainly for industrial and residential development), leaving about 176 hectares, and further conversion is planned for 2026-2027, which may further reduce the amount of productive agricultural land. Samples of farming households were drawn using the Slovin formula and cluster sampling, with data collected via questionnaires, interviews, observation and documentation, and analyzed using quantitative descriptive analysis and Smart-PLS. The results show that livelihood capital among farming households was at a moderate level, with natural capital as the most dominant component, and livelihood resilience was also categorized as moderate; livelihood capital was found to have a statistically significant positive influence on livelihood resilience.

Siti Hadianti, Nurhasanah Nurhasanah, Teguh Prakoso, Hidayah Hidayah, Siti Hadianti · Jurnal Pengabdian Masyarakat · Indonesia

A community-service report on a community-based organic waste management program in Kurungkambing Village, Banten Province, Indonesia, aimed at improving environmental quality and supporting sustainable rural tourism. Despite the village's agricultural and tourism potential, unmanaged household and agricultural organic waste had been contributing to environmental degradation and limited community awareness of sustainable waste practices. Using a participatory, empowerment-oriented approach, the program was implemented in three stages: (1) community needs assessment and stakeholder consultation, (2) training and mentoring on composting and herbal plant cultivation, and (3) environmental improvement through school garden development and compost use. The program reported increased community awareness of organic waste management, improved practical composting skills, and active participation in greening activities involving residents and schools, as well as strengthened collaboration among the university, local government and community groups that contributed to cleaner public spaces and more sustainable village conditions.

Taira KAGAMI, Yoshiyuki Uchikawa · 農村計画学会誌 · Japan

A study of Minowa Town, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, investigating the attributes of allotment garden users and how former users progressed toward independent home vegetable gardening on farmland. Set against an increasing proportion of nonfarmers in the rural population and rising demand for allotment and home vegetable gardens, Minowa Town established an allotment garden with a beginner-level cultivation course and also encourages residents to lease farmland for vegetable gardening. The study found that user attributes were diverse, comprising both landowning nonfarmers and relocators who had newly leased farmland — a combination not reported in earlier studies — and that some former users continued to cultivate their own land or newly leased fields after completing the gardening course. Based on these findings, the study concludes that rural allotment gardens serve a different role from existing urban gardens: providing a place for landowning nonfarmers to learn vegetable cultivation for use on their own fields, and providing relocators an opportunity to acquire farmland and establish home vegetable gardens, suggesting that in rural areas where farmland is relatively accessible, allotment gardens can help expand home gardening within local communities.

AltTech LLC & Subsidiaries, The People's Coalition of Planet Earth · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · United States

This paper presents Project Ubuntu's "Big Green Web," a proposed nationwide U.S. framework of interconnected, renewable-energy-powered community-governed food forests intended to provide free, open-access food production for communities of color, drawing on principles of food sovereignty, environmental justice and mutual aid; the paper examines the framework's theoretical foundations and operational structure as a proposed model rather than reporting outcomes from an implemented program.

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.

Kulesh Bhandari · Open MIND · India

This first entry in a species documentation series on wild food forests in tribal Jharkhand, India, part of a Pollination Project-funded initiative, presents a field-based profile of Clerodendrum viscosum, a shrub of the Santhal Pargana uplands, recorded on a semi-open granite-laterite rise at 210 m elevation under conditions of 27°C, 30% relative humidity, a 15°C night low and wind gusts to about 35 kph. The profile documents microhabitat characteristics, morphology (bud, calyx, corolla, stamens), ethnobotanical use among Santhal-Paharia communities, and the species' ecological role as a pollinator-supporting, upland-stabilizing plant.

Rana Sukarieh · · Global

This chapter examines two solidarity economy initiatives in Lebanon — Nohye El Ard, a community garden in Saida, South Lebanon, and Dekkan El Mazraa, an experimental solidarity grocery — as case studies of how communities responded to the country's overlapping political, economic and social crises, arguing that this polycrisis has generated new prefigurative initiatives that form communities of resistance.

Christine Jie Li, John H. Schulz, Sa Tun Bo Bo · Journal of Community Practice · United States

Semi-structured interviews with 18 Burmese refugees in the United States explored their experiences across three types of community-assisted garden programs — individual backyard gardens, personal-use community gardens, and enterprise community-assisted gardens. The interviews produced three broad themes (benefits, challenges, and issues with recruitment and support), with reported benefits including strengthened family relationships, access to culturally relevant and fresh organic vegetables, reduced food budget spending, and improved social relationships, alongside challenges that the study describes as a complex mixture affecting refugees' nutritional, economic and social well-being.

Swayangsiddha Nayak, Lalita Dhal, Sheri Dorn, Julie H. Campbell · Urban forestry & urban greening · United States

A longitudinal qualitative participatory action research study conducted between 2023 and 2024 at a Southeastern U.S. university examined how international students engage with an autonomous, student-led campus community garden, using Berry's Acculturation Theory to explore motivations and the physical, social and psychological barriers they encountered. The study found a cyclical acculturation process in which the garden's autonomy fostered belonging through growing culturally relevant produce and intercultural exchange, while limited institutional support generated uncertainty, mistrust and communication barriers that caused students to oscillate between feelings of integration and separation, eventually prompting self-advocacy and co-leadership structures among the students.

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.

Magdalena Raftowicz, Mirosław Struś · Sustainability · Poland

An empirical study in Poland, based on a critical literature review and a 2024 CAWI (computer-assisted web interview) survey of CSA producers, examined whether social capital theory explains food producers' engagement in Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) and whether this holds in practice. It found that social capital theory does explain the mechanisms underlying CSA engagement, with implications for local food system and small-farm policy, but that because of Poland's low level of social capital, the CSA model there remains only a niche complement to traditional agriculture, functioning primarily for a narrow group of socially and environmentally conscious consumers and small producer clusters.

Roberto Arturo Berríos Zepeda, Jorge Vírchez · OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development · Canada

A 2026 article examines the city of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, as a case of sustainable transformative economy at the municipal level. Historically defined by intensive mining and severe ecological degradation, the city has pursued environmental restoration and socio-economic change through combined efforts of local government, industry, universities, nonprofit organizations, and grassroots initiatives. It describes examples including the Junction Creek Stewardship Committee, Earth Care Sudbury, the Good Food Box, and the Sudbury Community Garden Network, and how civic participation and inter-institutional collaboration have reoriented local development toward ecological stewardship, food security, and social equity.

Mitsuhito HOSAKA, Mitsuyo UEMATSU, Hironori Yagi · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Japan

A 2026 qualitative longitudinal case study interviewed nine farmers in Tokyo who use real-time image sharing (RTIS) for direct-sales marketing, assessing their information resources, market orientation, and firm performance before and after adopting RTIS. It finds that RTIS use helps farmers accumulate information resources and subsequently adopt a more market-oriented approach, with shipping efficiency improving especially among farmers who initially had limited information resources but some degree of market orientation. Farmers also developed process innovation integrating information resources and market orientation, and those who adopted process innovation after RTIS implementation saw improved farm stand sales through optimized shipping.

Joshua Garcia, Mariel Mondragon-Becerra, Ivan Moya martinez, Connie Tsz Fai Wong, Zoe Caron, Katherine Kravitz, Elaine Owyang, Olukayode Jegede, Rebecca Ryals, Cristina Lazcano · Discover Sustainability · United States

A 2026 study conducted with Local Ecology and Agriculture Fremont (LEAF), a small urban farm in the San Francisco Bay Area, US, tests whether regenerative agriculture can support soil health and biodiversity in an urban landscape, comparing uncultivated soils, soils managed regeneratively for four years (Regen.4), and soils managed regeneratively for 10 years (Regen.10). Soil chemical properties such as pH, electrical conductivity, and lead concentration differed significantly between plots, likely reflecting each plot's management and land-use history. While total soil carbon did not differ between plots, Regen.4 had a higher proportion of labile carbon than the uncultivated plot along with a greater abundance of soil microorganisms and nematodes, and Regen.4 soils also showed improved physical properties — higher aggregate stability and lower compaction — compared with both the uncultivated plot and the Regen.10 plot.

K. C. Sahu · Open MIND · India

This study surveyed urban farmers in Bhubaneswar, a planned smart city in India, using direct-contact interviews and questionnaires. It covers forms of urban agriculture practiced according to building position, including rooftop gardens, balcony gardens, terrace gardens, vertical farming, Z-farming, aquaponics, hydroponics, and aeroponics. Data were collected from respondents through semi-structured interviews and tabulated for analysis. Regarding the distribution of family members involved in urban agriculture, the study found that female participation was greater than male participation.

Justine Lindemann, Natalia Alvial, Theodore R. Alter · Agriculture and Human Values · United States

Framed within studies of racial capitalism and neoliberal corporate food regimes, this article examines how residents of Pennsylvania's Monongahela (Mon) Valley experience and articulate food apartheid — a racialized system of food access — and how it intersects with deindustrialization, capital abandonment, and structural racism. Drawing on engagements across three Mon Valley municipalities, the findings reveal complex geographies of food apartheid intersecting with other markers of racial capitalism: inequitable transportation infrastructure, rising cost of living alongside declining quality of life, and ineffective political representation. Residents interpret these inequities as part of a broader racialized economic injustice favoring neighboring, predominantly white municipalities, compounded by distrust of local government perceived as perpetuating exclusionary policies rather than responding to community demands. In this context, participants envision community-driven solutions that extend beyond food system and urban agriculture initiatives.

Rakindra Putri Ardhini, Jasmine Tifani Claudia Arisayu, Ida Syamsu Roida, Adi Candra · Jurnal Abdi Masyarakat Indonesia · Indonesia (Surabaya)

This community outreach report describes a four-month support program for KWT Kedurus Asri, a women's farmer group operating an urban-agriculture-based production business in the Kedurus neighborhood of Surabaya, Indonesia, aimed at developing a visual identity (logo, color palette, typography), improving product packaging, and building digital marketing capacity through social media and online marketplaces. Methods included observation, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, participatory design workshops, and ongoing mentoring. The program reports that the group achieved a more cohesive brand identity, packaging meeting food labeling standards, and active social media accounts with planned promotional content, with sales volume increasing by 35% during the support period.

Fernando Adrihel Sarubbi-Baltazar, Iván López-García, Guillermo López-López, Marbella Sánchez-Soriano · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Global

A conceptual paper on territorial food governance argues that territorial food networks function as governance structures rather than mere exchange channels, sustained day to day by women's labor, knowledge transmission and coordination — work typically classified as informal or subsistence-based and denied political recognition. It contends these networks are structurally low-carbon because of their socio-productive organization rather than any explicit climate strategy, and frames women's role as collective, local governance leadership rather than individual participation.

María José Mayorga Ases, Iveth Carolina Abril Ruiz, Byron Stalin Zamora Flores, Evelyn Gissela Bedón Durán · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Global

A mixed-methods study of Ecuadorian secondary education students found moderate entrepreneurial competencies overall, with strengths in collaborative work and responsibility but limitations in initiative and autonomy, and identified regional variation: Quito concentrates 25% of ventures in technology and social enterprise, Guayaquil 22% in commerce and logistics, and Ambato 18% in family and artisanal business. It identified five effective educational innovations — community projects, school gardens, innovation fairs, educational technologies and interdisciplinary projects — while noting a persistent gap between idea generation and execution, and 8% of rural localities developing enterprises with less infrastructure.

Mohammed El-Hajj · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Global

This conceptual paper proposes the Urban Agriculture Digital Twin (UA-DT), a four-layer cyber-physical framework combining IoT sensing, cloud infrastructure and hybrid mechanistic/AI models for real-time monitoring and city-scale food-system simulation, with logical feasibility demonstrated through an illustrative software simulation (Eclipse Ditto, Azure IoT, Python) for a community rooftop garden. The paper cites benchmark ranges — 20–40% water savings, 15–25% fertilizer reduction, up to 30% post-harvest loss reduction, and 3–7 day early-warning lead time — as literature-derived projections that a fully validated UA-DT deployment would be expected to approach, explicitly noting these are not empirical findings of this study.

Guanxin Du, Yu Sun, Hongyan WangShenggao Lu, Baiquan Yan, Huimin Dai, Kai Liu, Keke Xu · PLoS ONE · China

In the urban-agricultural transition zone of Arongqi in China's black soil region, researchers analyzed 32 topsoil samples (0-20 cm) from three subzones — urbanizing zone, peri-urban arable land, and urban zone — for 16 trace metals including Cd, Pb, Zn, As, Hg and Cr, plus soil organic matter. Urbanization did not worsen soil acidification but significantly reduced organic matter, and Cd, Pb, Zn, Ba, Co, Mo, Sr, V and Ag were significantly enriched above background levels, with peri-urban arable land contaminated by Cd, Mo, Sr, V and Ag and the urban zone by Cd, Pb, Ba and Sr. Carcinogenic risk was higher for adults in peri-urban arable land and for children in the urban zone, with oral ingestion and dermal contact as the dominant exposure pathways and Cr and As as the main carcinogenic factors for children; source apportionment attributed the contamination to traffic emissions (27.46%), soil parent material (24.77%), contemporary agriculture (24.54%), urban combustion (11.22%) and historical agriculture (11.22%).