Research & reports

· Wikipedia (Deutsch) · Germany

The article on the VKSK, East Germany's national allotment organisation. Founded in Leipzig on 29 November 1959, it held the exclusive right to establish allotment sites. Membership stood at about 850,000 in 1962 and reached roughly 1.5 million by 1988. An extraordinary congress on 27 October 1990 resolved to dissolve the body with effect from 31 December 1990, and its gardeners and clubs passed into the all-German federation that followed.

· Wikipedia (Deutsch) · Germany

The article on Germany's intercultural gardens. The pilot project grew out of the initiative of immigrant families in Göttingen-Geismar in 1996, and as of 2025 more than 400 intercultural garden projects exist across the country. Support centres on the Stiftung Interkultur in Munich, described as a creation of the foundation partnership anstiftung & ertomis. The association at the movement's origin, Internationale Gärten e. V. Göttingen, was set up in 1998 and runs three gardens covering 11,000 square metres with around 70 families from 25 countries.

Landesverband Berlin der Gartenfreunde e. V. · Landesverband Berlin der Gartenfreunde e. V. · Germany

The Berlin state federation of garden friends tracing its own history. It counts roughly 40,000 'Pflanzer' in Berlin between 1890 and 1910 and places the origin of today's federation in the April 1901 union of all planter associations of Berlin and its surroundings. After a series of First World War emergency decrees capped rent increases and obliged municipalities to provide land for cultivation, the Allotment and Small-Lease Ordinance of 31 July 1919 imposed rent control, banned leasing for profit and allowed land to be secured compulsorily. On 20 October 1919 the board of Berlin's colonists voted to rename their body the central federation of German allotment associations; by 1929 the Berlin provincial federation had 66,570 members, and that year Rehberge in Wedding opened as what the page calls Germany's first permanent allotment colony.

Singh C., Koduganti M., Patil S. · Urban Studies · India

A study measuring the self-reported wellbeing outcomes of urban agriculture in India at individual and community level, drawing on a household survey (n=361), key informant interviews (n=50) and in-depth interviews with home gardeners (n=7). Its novelty is a dataset covering both formal and informal settlements, going beyond existing Indian data. Wellbeing is operationalised through physical and mental health, intra-family, community and beyond-human connectedness, and contribution to pro-environmental values. The authors find significant perceived benefits at individual, household and community levels, and that urban agriculture lets citizens participate, innovate and collectivise in deeply meaningful ways — concluding that it needs to be recognised and mainstreamed within ongoing urban sustainability and climate initiatives.

Bundesverband der Kleingartenvereine Deutschlands (BKD) · Bundesverband der Kleingartenvereine Deutschlands (BKD) · Germany

The national allotment federation's own history page. It sorts the nineteenth-century origins into six lines — poor gardens, factory gardens, Red Cross workers' gardens, the Berlin arbour colonists, gardens of the natural-healing movement and the Schreber gardens — and states that these lacked state legitimation and legal rules, with the absence of termination protection and the head-tenant system (Generalpächtersystem) in particular obstructing lasting protection. It records the passage of the Kleingarten- und Kleinpachtlandordnung by the National Assembly in Weimar on 31 July 1919, which banned commercial head-leasing and required rents to be fixed; the 1909 founding of the central federation; the Reich government's 1916 establishment of a central office for vegetable growing in allotments; the founding of the Reich federation of German allotment associations on 14 August 1921 at the second Reich allotment congress in Bremen; the Nazi-era Gleichschaltung; the post-war split into the VDK (Bochum, 1949) in the West and the VKSK (Leipzig, 1959) in the East; the 1973 renaming to BDG; and the renaming to BKD on 9 September 2023.

Bezirksamt Pankow von Berlin · Bezirksamt Pankow von Berlin (berlin.de) · Germany

An exhibition text in which Berlin's Pankow district office traces the history of allotment sites in the district. It describes the spread of Red Cross workers' gardens in the early twentieth century and their consolidation in 1906 into the Verband deutscher Arbeitergärten vom Roten Kreuz under Alwin Bielefeldt (1857–1942); the head-tenant (Generalpächter) system common around the turn of the century, in which land was leased and sublet with contracts often running for a single year; and the Kleingarten- und Kleinpachtlandordnung of 31 July 1919, which gave legal protection and prohibited head-leasing. On the arbour colonists it records the first permanent municipal lease in Blankenburg on former sewage fields in 1910 and the 1911 formation of a unified federation of arbour colonists of Berlin and surroundings, and cites a 1912 survey finding that 70 per cent of Berlin schoolchildren had never seen a sunrise and 54 per cent no sunset. For the GDR period it notes the founding of the VKSK in 1959, more than a million members by 1988 and its dissolution on 27 October 1990; more recently, that of Berlin's 900 allotment sites roughly 600 were given permanent protection and about 160 only time-limited protection.

Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission · Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission · Germany

The German UNESCO Commission's page on the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates, inscribed as World Heritage in 2008. It lists the component estates: Gartenstadt Falkenberg (built 1913–1916), Siedlung Schillerpark (1924–1930), the Großsiedlung Britz or Horseshoe Estate (1925–1930), Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf (1926–1932), Wohnstadt Carl Legien (1928–1930), Weiße Stadt (1929–1931) and Großsiedlung Siemensstadt (1929–1934). Alongside the 2008 inscription it records that the Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf was added in July 2026; that estate has more than 1,900 dwelling units on 70 hectares. The architects named are Bruno Taut, Martin Wagner, Walter Gropius, Hans Scharoun, Hugo Häring and Otto Rudolf Salvisberg.

Landesdenkmalamt Berlin · Landesdenkmalamt Berlin (berlin.de) · Germany

A short notice issued by the Berlin State Heritage Office on 27 July 2026. It reports that on 26 July 2026 the 48th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, meeting in Busan, South Korea, inscribed the Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf as the seventh component of the World Heritage site 'Berlin Modernism Housing Estates'. The estate was built between 1926 and 1932 by the housing cooperative GEHAG and comprises 1,917 dwellings — 1,108 in multi-storey blocks and 809 single-family houses. The architects were Bruno Taut, Hugo Häring and Otto Rudolph Salvisberg, with the open spaces designed by Leberecht Migge and Martha Willings-Göhre. It lies around the U-Bahn station Onkel Toms Hütte on line U3 and along Argentinische Allee in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district. The nomination process began in 2021.

Berliner Forum für Geschichte und Gegenwart e.V. · Welterbe Siedlungen der Berliner Moderne (Berliner Forum für Geschichte und Gegenwart e.V.) · Germany

The page on the Britz Horseshoe Estate from the official site for the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates World Heritage property. Construction ran from 1925 to 1931, with Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner responsible for the overall plan and urban design and Leberecht Migge and Ottokar Wagler for the garden design. The estate comprises 1,963 dwellings — 679 single-family rowhouses and 1,284 flats — ranging from 1.5 to 5 rooms. The World Heritage property covers 37.1 hectares with a 73.1-hectare buffer zone, and the emblematic horseshoe-shaped main block is 350 metres long. It was inscribed as World Heritage in 2008 and designated a garden monument in 2010.

Chifunda Emmanuel Felix, Kifunda Christina Felix · Cogent Food & Agriculture · タンザニア

A paper on urban and peri-urban agriculture in Dar es Salaam examined through the gender dynamics of the people working in it. The bibliographic record (authors, journal, DOI) was verified at the source, but the abstract could not be retrieved, so only the scope of the topic is described here.

Rduch Paulina, Hodor Katarzyna, Wilkosz-Mamcarczyk Magdalena · Cities · ポーランド・チェコ

A study of Katowice (Poland) and Brno (Czech Republic) examining how family allotment gardens function as greenery in city centres, together with the legal regulations that govern them. Drawing on statistical and cartographic data, it shows a downward trend in the area of allotment gardens within cities.

Bhaskaran Varsha, Nilon Charles H. · Urban Forestry & Urban Greening · インド

A paper framing home gardens in Bengaluru as everyday environmental stewardship by residents. The bibliographic record was verified at the source, but the abstract could not be retrieved, so only the scope of the topic is described here. The same authors have published related work on home gardens and urban wildlife in the city.

FOVIDA - Fomento de la Vida · FOVIDA (Fomento de la Vida) · Peru

Peruvian NGO FOVIDA (Fomento de la Vida) reported on 11 May 2026 on an award ceremony held 30 April 2026 in Lima Sur (Villa María del Triunfo, Villa El Salvador and San Juan de Miraflores), where more than 30 urban agriculture experiences were recognized through a photo and video contest highlighting home, school and community gardens' contributions to food security and climate resilience. Winner Victoria Arce Arguedas stated that "90% of those of us who participate in the gardens are women," while fellow winner Odilia Delgado said gardening has been a major boost to the mental health of older adults like herself.

Ricardo Robins · Fundación Rosa Luxemburgo (Oficina Buenos Aires) · Argentina

A reported feature tracing the origins of Rosario's Urban Agriculture Programme (PAU) through interviews with founder Antonio Lattuca: the first community garden in the Saladillo Sur neighborhood in 1987, the 1990 municipal ordinance creating the Community Gardens Programme, and the PAU's formal launch in 2002. It reports the programme today spans 12 parks and community gardens across roughly 40 hectares, with over 150 families harvesting about 650,000 kg of agroecological vegetables a year, and profiles the Tablada Park Garden (opened 2008, 3 ha, 20 workers).

Municipalidad de Rosario · Municipalidad de Rosario · Argentina

A Rosario municipal procedural page describing a free training-visit programme for institutions and civic organizations to tour the city's gardens and Park Gardens and learn about agroecological practices, run by the Productive Spaces Coordination unit under the Social Economy Sub-secretariat. Appointments are booked at six district municipal centers on Wednesdays 9:00-13:30, with the programme's legal basis cited as Decree 2561/2004 and Ordinance 9044/13.

Municipalidad de Providencia · Municipalidad de Providencia · Chile

A municipal announcement for the 2026 Harvest Festival (Festival de la Cosecha), organized by the Municipalidad de Providencia in Santiago, Chile. The free family event runs from 10:00 to 18:00 on June 20, 2026, at the Espacio Verde Urbano on Padre Mariano 140, featuring a producer market of seasonal vegetables, seeds, and artisanal products, live cooking demonstrations, a home garden workshop, puppet shows, a giant squash competition, and musical performances.

Aguiari I. · Agriculture and Human Values · イタリア

Debates on food and agriculture have long noted the depoliticising pull of neoliberal governance, technocratic regulation and consumer-oriented solutions. Collective action in grassroots agrifood initiatives is well studied, but how politicisation actually emerges is not. Treating the political as an ever-present dimension of social relations, the author uses political semiotics to trace how politicisation and depoliticisation unfold in everyday communication, drawing on participatory mind-mapping workshops co-created with three community agriculture initiatives in Italy. Politicisation is encouraged where relational interaction, contextual interpretation, symbolic expression and an orientation toward collective action reinforce one another.

Nkrumah B. · Urban Science · アフリカ（都市部・系統的レビュー）

A systematic review of the irony between abundant arable land and persistent hunger in African cities. It asks why a disproportionate share of urban residents do not produce their own food, even as food insecurity rises with heavy reliance on market-bought food, high poverty and rapid urbanisation, screening peer-reviewed literature via PRISMA and five inclusion benchmarks to clarify the debate on low uptake of urban agriculture.

Hadi A.A., Pratiwi P.I., Budiarti T., Arifin H.S., Pratiwi N.K., Alhakim M.A. · Tájökológiai Lapok · インドネシア・ボゴール（都市部・近郊）

Set against urbanisation that has cut farmland and limited access to fresh vegetables, this study evaluates garden towers as a vertical landscape element for community-based vegetable production. Using a descriptive-evaluative approach, it assesses 105 garden-tower units distributed to 21 women farmers groups in and around Bogor, Indonesia, and discusses their contribution to food availability and social-ecological resilience in dense settings.

Rao X., Zahid A., Ye X., Jain D., Duffield N. · Urban Informatics · 国際（論考）

A Perspective arguing that controlled environment agriculture (CEA), driven by venture capital and profit-maximising imperatives, has delivered limited scalability, narrow crop diversity and minimal engagement with spatial equity — the fair distribution of food infrastructure across urban geographies. It calls for repositioning CEA not as a standalone technological fix but as a component of urban infrastructure delivering co-benefits for food justice, public health and environmental resilience.

Hinch J. · Southeastern Geographer · 米国フロリダ州タンパベイ

This study builds an equity-focused, GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis model integrating socioeconomic, logistical and environmental variables to assess community garden suitability across census tracts in Tampa Bay. High-suitability tracts cluster somewhat in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, existing gardens align moderately with modelled suitability, and the paper shows both the utility and the limits of spatial models in equitable urban agriculture planning.

Olabode K., Lewińska K., Komorowicz I. · Environmental Geochemistry and Health · ポーランド南部・ズウォティストク（旧鉱山地域）

Quantifies total arsenic, gastric-phase in vitro bioaccessible arsenic (IVBA) and direct-soil-exposure risks for children and adults in mining-affected allotment gardens in Złoty Stok, southern Poland, applying deterministic calculations and Monte Carlo simulation to incidental soil ingestion, dermal contact and inhalation of resuspended particles. Total As ranged 433–1148 mg/kg and IVBA 4.5–23.5%. Under the total-As multi-pathway scenario median hazard indices were 5.50 for children and 0.62 for adults (P05/P95: 2.26/15.18 and 0.29/1.89). Median total cancer risk was 1.78×10⁻⁴ for children and 1.06×10⁻⁴ for adults, with 80.0% of simulated child profiles and 54.0% of adult profiles at or above 10⁻⁴. Ingestion and dermal contact accounted for nearly all modeled risk while inhalation was negligible; applying IVBA to the ingestion pathway alone cut the median ingestion-related hazard quotient and cancer risk by 89.3%. Total soil As and soil ingestion rate were the principal positive risk drivers, body weight inversely associated.

Huq F.F., Deacon L. · Discover Sustainability (Springer), 6:696 · Global

A systematic review of 37 studies examining how community gardens affect food access, urban resilience, and community well-being, with research interest peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies inequitable access and weak policy integration as key barriers and calls for inclusive, interdisciplinary, long-term planning.

· 日本建築学会計画系論文集 90巻832号 pp.1219-1230 · Japan

A paper clarifying the value of community gardens created on vacant land and the factors that generate that value; focusing on intergenerational exchange and collaborative activity, it analyzes the effects of reusing vacant spaces in complexes and neighborhoods on local community.

· Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Spain (Barcelona)

A study analysing both the agronomic and the organisational dimensions of Barcelona's community gardens, examining empirically how citizen-led urban gardens are managed and run.