Research & reports

Bryanna Sherman · · United States

This literature review comprehensively studied local food system efforts in Watauga County, United States, examining how local food is integrated into the landscape. The review analyzed benchmarks for success and failure, and the recognized impact of local food on community life. It determined the social, environmental, and economic reasons for continuing to produce quality food for community benefits, noting strong community readiness and support for local agriculture in Watauga County.

Sebastião Gabriel Chaves Maia · Revista Ouricuri · Brazil (São Paulo)

This case study focuses on understanding the representations of rural environments within urban spaces, emphasizing urban agriculture practices. It applies theoretical assumptions of pluriactivity and multifunctionality from traditional rural agriculture to urban agriculture in Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil. The organization of urban gardens exemplifies the application of rural representation in urban settings, with these activities contributing to local well-being, the local economy, and the conservation of agrobiodiversity.

Charlotte Prové · Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) · United States (Philadelphia)

This project aimed to understand the dynamics of urban agriculture in Philadelphia and formulate how governance processes can address its developments. A literature study and interviews with diverse stakeholders, including farmers, project founders, public officers, and researchers, were conducted. The City of Philadelphia's Greenworks plan sets a goal to establish twelve commercial agriculture projects over the next eight years, developing necessary infrastructure such as distribution facilities and water sources.

Georgeanne M. Artz, Linda Naeve, Artz, Georgeanne M., Naeve, Linda · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · United States (Iowa)

A study in Iowa indicated that small-scale farmers considering scaling up production face challenges balancing increased labor costs with the need for specialized machinery. The study collaborated with five groups of farmers who shared different pieces of machinery, developing sharing agreements. While the article provides an overview of the benefits and challenges of machinery sharing, the abstract does not state specific findings that machinery sharing resolved economic viability issues.

Gerda R. Wekerle, Michael Classens · Local Environment · Canada (Toronto)

This paper examines approaches to urban agriculture in Toronto that renegotiate land access for food production between private property owners and landless growers. It documents three methods challenging current property relations: temporary use of development sites, redesignating suburban backyards for farmer training and production, and garden sharing of private backyards. These initiatives promote collaboration and a sharing economy to expand urban agriculture's land base.

Luke Drake · · United States

This study examined the role of networks in producing community gardens. Focusing on community gardening in New Jersey, USA, the research involved a survey of 445 community gardening organizations in the U.S. and Canada, discourse analysis of archival documents from the 1890s to 2010s, 48 semi-structured interviews in 19 municipalities, and two years of participant-observation. These methods revealed a complex web of resource flows and the mechanisms through which they are configured.

Mayhah Suri, Paul Goeringer · University Libraries (University of Maryland) · United States (Maryland)

This report highlights the results of a survey conducted in summer 2014 by the Maryland Department of Agriculture on contract use and risk management tools by Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operators in Maryland. It also details workshops and materials developed by the Department of Agricultural and Resource and the Ag Law Education Initiative in winter 2015. Additionally, the report mentions state programs that verify CSA operators in California.

Stephen R. Miller · · United States (Newark, New Jersey)

This article proposes a new approach to financing local food, viewing it as a finance problem similar to urban manufacturing, to scale up local food production. It explores the necessity of large-scale urban agriculture, focusing on vertical farms, and examines creative financing examples like AeroFarms in Newark, New Jersey. The paper suggests deploying existing and potential financing types, modeled on economic development agreements, to advance local food initiatives.

Silene Maciel dos Santos, Samuel Ferreira da Fonseca, Luiz Andrei Gonçalves Pereira · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Brazil (Pirapora-MG)

This study analyzed the spatial distribution of urban agricultural activities in the Sagrada Família neighborhood, Pirapora-MG, Brazil, through a literature review. It examined urban agriculture practices, their socio-economic role, and the problems and challenges faced by urban agriculture actors in the neighborhood. The study concluded that the identified issues suggest urban agriculture as an emancipatory process.

Gabriel R. Valle · Aztlán A Journal of Chicano Studies · United States

This essay explores the self-valorization of work in community gardens to advance a grounded theory of time and value, which has been lacking in Chicana/o studies. Urban community gardens are pivotal to the environmental justice movement, with Chicana/os playing a central role. The essay proposes a revolutionary logic of labor through reframing time and value, aiming to reconnect community gardeners to the means of their own production and reproduction. By creating "gardens of sabotage," communities challenge capitalism by reclaiming the value of work and confronting orthodox notions of economy, work, citizenship, community, and time.

Haoluan Wang, Brent Swallow · 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California · Canada (Edmonton)

This research aims to assess the multiple values of agricultural land in the Alberta Capital Region, Canada, where significant agricultural land conversion has occurred. The study's objectives are to estimate residents' values for conserving land in different agricultural uses, explore links between these values and residents' affinity for ecosystem goods and services, and identify public interest areas for agricultural conservation. The methodology began with focus group discussions.

Sabine Lefkowitz · · United States (Portland)

This thesis examined the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and outdoor time in Portland, Oregon public elementary schools. The study found that higher SES elementary schools spend more time outdoors than low SES schools. This disparity amplifies existing disadvantages for children in high-poverty schools, suggesting an inequity in outdoor time provision.

Geneviève S. Metson, Elena M. Bennett · PLoS ONE · Canada (Montreal)

This study quantified the role of urban agriculture (UA) in phosphorus (P) cycling in Montreal, Canada, using existing data and surveys of local UA practitioners. In 2012, Montreal imported 3.5 Gg of P in food, with 2.63 Gg accumulating in landfills, 0.36 Gg discharged to local waters, and only 0.09 Gg recycled through composting. UA was found to be only a small sub-system in the city's overall P cycle, contributing just 0.44% of the P consumed as food. Although recycling rates within the UA system are high, the land area dedicated to UA is too small to accommodate all P waste produced on the island.

Pai Liu · TigerPrints (Clemson University) · United States (Atlanta)

This study explored how urban agriculture can be effective in cities by comparing and evaluating eight U.S. case studies against six criteria: locality, experience, economy, health, community engagement, and resources. The research aimed to develop a new model for sustainable urban agriculture to improve urban living environments. Results indicated how these six criteria interact to form an integrated framework for a "perma-urban farm," with a design application along Atlanta's Beltline as an example.

Rachel Grewell · · United States

The Urban Farm and Garden Alliance (UFGA) conducted a measurement project from summer to fall 2015, involving UFGA gardens and backyard gardeners weighing and measuring produce. The project also included a community survey on the social impacts of gardening. Based on these results, community-friendly guides were designed to help collect and disseminate data on both social and vegetative yields in urban gardens.

Dorceta E. Taylor, Kerry Ard · Environmental Practice · United States

A study of Detroit, Michigan, United States, combining environmental justice analysis with systems thinking to examine the city's food environment. Data were collected from ReferenceUSA, Orbis and the Michigan Department of Agriculture between 2011 and 2013 to build a database of food outlets, analyzed and mapped using SPSS 22 and ArcGIS 10.1. The study examined the locations of 3,499 food outlets across 34 categories, including 96 supermarkets or full-line grocery stores, 1,110 small groceries/convenience stores/mini marts/liquor stores, 279 specialty food stores, 306 pharmacies/dollar/variety stores, 1,245 full-service and fast-food restaurants and other food service outlets, 157 supply chain operations, 206 farms/community and school gardens/farmers markets/produce markets, and 100 food assistance programs. It found that although Detroit has areas lacking food outlets, characterizing the entire city as a "food desert" is misleading, and that the traditional food desert research approach — relying only or primarily on the presence or absence of supermarkets and full-line grocery stores — ignores many important venues people use to obtain food and the coping strategies people employ in response to limited food access.

Ricardo da Silva Claudio, Souto de Sousa J uacute nior Francisco, Ismael de Souza Francisco, da Silva Dias Nildo, Nogueira de Sousa Neto Osvaldo, Cruz Portela Jeane, Cl aacute udia Medeiros Souza Ana, Christina Nascimento Porto Vania · African Journal of Agricultural Research · Brazil

A participatory action-research project in a community garden in Bom Jesus, Campo Grande, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, tested irrigating organic vegetables (coriander, chive, tomato, rocket) with reject brine from a water desalination/treatment station. All species irrigated with the saline waste water showed yield losses of 25.30% to 26.7% compared with conventional fresh-water irrigation, though some biomass was still produced, and the project changed residents' views on disposing of and reusing the saline waste.

Paul Goeringer, Ashley Newhall, Sarah Everhart · University Libraries (University of Maryland) · United States

A sample Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) contract, developed by the University of Maryland's Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Agriculture Law Education Initiative, provides a template to help CSA operators draft their own written contracts; it is a practical legal document rather than a research paper.

Paul Goeringer, Ashley Newhall, Sarah Everhart, Wele Elangwe · University Libraries (University of Maryland) · United States

This guide from the University of Maryland describes what a typical Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) arrangement involves — members pledging to help cover a farm's anticipated production costs in exchange for a share of crops over a specified period, usually summer through early fall — and outlines what farm owners and members should include in a CSA membership agreement.

CBC News · CBC News · Canada

This 2 October 2015 CBC News article reports that Common Roots Urban Farm, in its fourth year on the site of the former Queen Elizabeth High School in Halifax (obtained through a land swap with the former Capital Health Authority), offers 175 community garden plots and a 'nibble garden' open to anyone, and grows food for the Parker Street Food Bank. Facing a funding shortfall as traditional revenue streams dried up, the farm launched a fundraising drive—including a contemplative guided walk and a 1 November harvest party—aiming to raise $8,000 CAD by the end of October.

Algert S. J., Baameur A., Renvall M. J. · Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics 114(7):1072-1076 · United States

Survey of 83 San Jose community gardeners measuring yields. Plots produced 0.75 lb vegetables per square foot and saved about $435 per season, demonstrating gardens' contribution to urban food affordability.

Wang H., Qiu F., Swallow B. · Applied Geography 55:127-137 · Canada

Analyzes whether community gardens and farmers' markets improve fresh food access in Edmonton. They relieve food desert problems somewhat, especially in mature inner-suburban neighborhoods, but several areas remain food deserts citywide.

Stephanie Rogus, Carolyn Dimitri · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · United States

Using US Census of Agriculture data, this study examines whether urban and peri-urban farming has grown as an actual practice rather than just a concept. It finds urban farms are smaller than typical farms, and although urban/peri-urban farmland declined between 2002 and 2007 the total number of farms increased, with farmland growth positively related to land values. Spatial analysis of the Northeast detected significant vegetable-farm clusters around Providence, Boston, and Hartford.

Lydia Oberholtzer, Carolyn Dimitri, Andrew Pressman · Journal of Extension · United States

Based on a national survey of and interviews with US urban farmers, this article explores their challenges and technical-assistance needs. It characterizes the sector as one of young, recently established farms and farmers, with profitability, financing, and production costs rated the highest challenges, and reports moderate-to-high technical assistance needs in areas that Extension staff can address.

Nicholas Leonard · Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law · United States (Detroit)

This article argues that Detroit could use the Michigan Brownfield Redevelopment Financing Act to incentivize community-based urban agriculture on abandoned properties. It contends that many cities where urban farming has flourished are riddled with brownfields, and that leveraging brownfield policy could promote urban agriculture as a cost-effective revitalization tool while protecting farmers and food from toxic contamination, giving Detroit a viable strategy to reverse blight.