Research & reports

Reni Nurjasmi, Maria Aditia Wahyuningrum · Jurnal Ilmiah Respati · Indonesia

A 2022 experiment at the Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Respati Indonesia, conducted from September 2021 to February 2022, examines which organic growing medium produces the best chlorophyll and carotene content in broccoli microgreens. Using a completely randomized design with four treatments — soil, onion skin, rabbit manure, and quail manure — each with five replications, organic growing media significantly affected germination rate, height, wet weight, and chlorophyll content; quail manure waste produced the highest chlorophyll content (1.47 mg/g), not significantly different from rabbit manure (1.33 mg/g), but significantly different from onion skin waste (0.63 mg/g) and the untreated control (0.21 mg/g).

Darwati Susilastuti · BERDIKARI · Indonesia (Jakarta)

A community-service report on integrated urban farming on about 1,600 square meters under the Becakayu toll road in Cipinang Melayu RW01, East Jakarta, run by local farmers, a youth group (Karang Taruna), and PKK (Family Welfare Movement) women, covering hydroponics, catfish and tilapia farming, chicken and dove raising, and horticulture. The operation had previously been partial, conventional and unproductive on infertile fill land without using local resources as farm inputs; after introducing methods to turn turi (Sesbania) leaves and other local materials into liquid organic fertilizer (POC), botanical pesticide, and feed supplements, the activity measurably increased yields, cut costs, and shortened harvest time.

Mamdouh M. Arafa Arafa, Sabry M. Shaheen, A.M.K Mansour, M. F. A. Ahmed · International journal of Environmental Studies and Researches · Egypt

Over the 2020 and 2021 growing seasons at Sadat City farms (Cairo–Alexandria Desert Road, Menoufia Governorate, Egypt), this study tested the effect of compost application on root-rot disease management and tomato productivity. Rhizoctonia solani and Sclerotium rolfsii were isolated from rotted tomato plants as the main pathogens causing root rot and damping-off, which reduced yield. Adding plant residue, cow manure, or compost (plant residue plus cow manure) to soil before transplanting, at a rate of 1.2 kg/m², significantly reduced disease incidence and raised plant survival compared with untreated controls in both seasons. Compost — a tomato-rich organic fertilizer — applied at 1.2 kg/m² produced the largest reduction in disease incidence and the largest increases in vegetative growth (plant height, branches per plant, leaves per branch), yield parameters, flavonoid content, and total phenol content across both seasons; no clear significant differences were found between the plant-residue and cow-manure treatments in plant growth characteristics.

Program Studi Agroekoteknologi, Universitas Jember, Iqbal Maulana · JURNAL BIOINDUSTRI · Indonesia

A study tested the effectiveness of "bio-trays" — an organic tray innovation intended to reduce root system damage during vegetable seedling transplanting in urban farming. Using a randomized block design with four tray materials (coconut coir, sugarcane stem, banana stem, and a plastic control), tested on mustard greens (Brassica juncea) and cayenne pepper (Capsicum frutescens), the bio-trays performed as well as the plastic control trays, indicating no negative impact on plant growth from the seedling to harvest/production stage.

Concepción Santiago Cubas, Concepción Paredes Gil · Modern Environmental Science and Engineering · Spain

A study on Gran Canaria, Spain co-composted municipal and agricultural plant residues with three manure types — chicken, goat and cow — in an open dynamic windrow system of three trapezoidal piles (1.5 m high, 2.5 m wide, 16 m long), mixed at 37.6% straw, 32.7% manure and 29.7% pruning residue by fresh weight. Temperature, humidity and physico-chemical parameters were tracked through the process. All three piles reached the sanitation threshold required by regulation (≥60°C for at least 7 days) and produced compost suitable for agricultural use.

Darwati Susilastuti, Aditiameri, Vivi Lusia · Jurnal Bakti Masyarakat Indonesia · Indonesia (Jakarta)

This community-outreach report addresses RW 01 in Cipinang Melayu, East Jakarta, Indonesia, where residents were running separate, unintegrated, low-productivity activities on land under the Becakayu Toll Road — hydroponic vegetables, catfish and tilapia farming, chicken and pigeon raising, horticulture, and seasonal crops including turi (Sesbania grandiflora) grown as a fence plant. Through outreach that taught participants the integrated farming system (IFS) concept and helped them build an IFS map, and by introducing turi as a liquid organic fertilizer, feed supplement, and compost, the yield of mustard plants increased by 100%.

Eric J. Chapman, Gaston E. Small, Paliza Shrestha · Urban Ecosystems · Global

A study quantifying leachate and soil moisture from experimental urban garden plots receiving various soil amendments — high and low levels of manure and municipal compost, synthetic fertilizer, and no inputs — over three years. A simple mass-balance hydrologic model was parameterized for high-input municipal-compost and no-compost garden plots plus reference turfgrass plots, and run over three growing seasons under ambient precipitation and three elevated-precipitation scenarios. Soil moisture varied across treatments, with the highest mean levels in manure-compost plots and the lowest in synthetic-fertilizer plots. Soil amendment treatments explained little of the variation in weekly leachate volume, but high municipal compost and synthetic fertilizer had the lowest leachate volumes, while high and low manure compost had slightly higher volumes. Garden plots received 12-16% greater total water inputs than turfgrass plots due to irrigation, but total leachate was 20-30% lower for garden plots across climate scenarios because evapotranspiration was 50-60% higher in garden plots. Differences between high-municipal-compost and no-compost garden plots were small relative to the difference between garden plots and turfgrass overall. The study concludes that garden soil amendments influence water retention, and that the higher water retention, infiltration, and evapotranspiration potential of garden soils relative to turfgrass indicate hydrologic ecosystem services may be an underappreciated benefit of urban gardens.

Cleidiane Moraes Novais, Tadeu Miranda de Queiróz · Engenharia Sanitaria e Ambiental · Brazil

In Tangará da Serra, Mato Grosso, Brazil, a city facing a recent water crisis, researchers analyzed samples collected from October 2019 to April 2020 with an initial-rainfall sampler, measuring pH, bicarbonates, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, calcium, magnesium, total hardness, chlorides, sodium, and potassium in the first five millimeters of rainfall to assess its suitability for irrigating urban agriculture. Chemical compound concentrations were highest in the very first millimeter of rain and improved as precipitation continued; under FAO guideline classification there was no restriction on using the municipality's rainwater for urban agriculture irrigation, though both natural and anthropogenic sources may have influenced the measured concentrations, and discarding the initial millimeters before use is presented as a viable option for irrigating backyard crops.

Nadia Nadia, Agus Juono, Dio Ramadan Nugroho, Mifta Nurjanah, Adine Christiningtyas, Marthinus Masriat, E.Y Gitari, Andy Nugroho, Abdurojak Abdurojak, K.J Dahu, Bayu Suseno · Jompa Abdi Jurnal Pengabdian Masyarakat · Indonesia

This community outreach program in Padukuhan Singosaren I, Indonesia — a country ranked second worldwide for plastic waste entering the ocean — used socialization sessions to address low public awareness and inconsistent waste management, teaching a "stacked bucket" (ember tumpuk) decomposition method that processes organic waste into solid and liquid organic fertilizer usable as growing media for urban farming ("hydroganik"). The outreach concluded that well-managed waste can become useful and that community participants were enthusiastic, and it recommends that Singosaren I households adopt the stacked-bucket method at home so household waste can be converted into fertilizer for hydroganik growing media.

Kyle Richardville, Dan Egel, Andrew Flachs, Amit K. Jaiswal, D.J. Perkins, A. W. Thompson, Lori Hoagland · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · Global

A two-year field trial tested whether amending degraded urban soils with locally made leaf-mold compost could improve soil chemical and biological properties and support the survival of a plant-growth-promoting, disease-suppressive microbial inoculant (Trichoderma harzianum T-22) in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) production. Compost-amended plots showed markedly higher active soil organic matter and marketable fruit yield in both years, lower foliar disease severity in year two, and reduced transplant-stress deaths from T-22 inoculation in one cultivar, but the authors caution that all composts must be tested for heavy metals or pathogens and that overapplication can reduce crop health.

Osmar Manoel Nunes, Shirley Grazieli da Silva Nascimento, Mariana Rockenbach de Ávila, Luciellen de Lourdes Silveira Vieira, Criziane Flores Pamplona · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Brazil

This case study analyzes the socioeconomic conditions of two peri-urban family farms producing organic lettuce in Dom Pedrito, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil — regarded as among the region's leading farmers — with gardens in the Rincão da Figura and São Gregório areas. Using case-study methods, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with the farmers and on-site visits, analyzing the data through Textual Discourse Analysis. Production relied exclusively on family labor with minimal use of chemical inputs, characterized as a transitional stage toward organic production; output was sold at the weekly Friday municipal market and supplied to three additional small stores in the city. The study concludes that, despite strong competition from large distribution networks, lettuce production and sale remained profitable, constituting an alternative source of income and job creation in family farming.

Hae Jong Yang, Tae‐Woo Kang, Byungwoong Choi, Soon Hong Hwang, Dongseok Shin, Won-Pyo Park · Sustainability · South Korea

This study verified heavy-metal pollution levels in sediments of an urban-agricultural watershed in the Yeongsan River basin, South Korea, through evaluation of Sediment Quality Guidelines (SQGs), a pollution load index (PLI), and a potential ecological risk index (PERI), and analyzed statistical relationships between pollution levels, land use, and potential pollution sources. Pb, Zn, Cu, Cd, and Hg concentrations were highest at mid-upstream sites, while As, Cr, and Ni concentrations were similar across most sites. Sites showing potential toxicity to benthic organisms relative to SQGs were most frequently observed at mid-upstream, and PLI and PERI evaluations likewise confirmed high anthropogenic pollution and ecological risk there. Mid-upstream sites with high heavy-metal pollution correlated strongly with urban land use — the largest land-use category — indicating links to population density and industrial complexes; statistical analysis confirmed this relationship. The findings indicate that urban areas are highly likely to cause anthropogenic heavy-metal pollution of sediments via point and non-point sources such as domestic sewage and industrial wastewater.

Jennifer Paola Borja Llivigañay, Karla Maribel Rocano Bustamante · Universidad Politécnica Salesiana Repositorio Digital (Universidad Politécnica Salesiana) · Global

A student thesis project (Universidad Politécnica Salesiana repository, Ecuador, 2022) by students of the Unidad Educativa Agronómico Salesiano in Paute canton, Azuay province, evaluated the capture, reproduction, and application of the antagonist fungus Trichoderma spp. as a biological control agent against soil fungal pathogens (Phytophthora, Rhizoctonia, Sclerotium, Pythium, Fusarium). Using cooked-rice traps placed in soil holes to capture the fungus, and preparing a liquid formulation from it, the project analyzed the protective benefit against parasitic fungi in lettuce crops between November 2021 and May 2022.

Brunno da Silva Cerozi, Caitlin G. Arlotta, Matthew L. Richardson · Agriculture · Global

A study (2022, Agriculture) examined integrating urban agriculture with aquaculture to reduce water use and cost, competition for water, chemical fertilizer use, and the environmental impact of discharging nutrient-rich agricultural water into fresh and saltwater bodies, noting that urban aquaculture could also directly benefit human health as a local source of lean protein, while few studies had demonstrated the practical feasibility and production advantages of using aquaculture wastewater to fertigate specialty crops in cities. Four spring crops (bok choy, tatsoi, radish, turnip) and two fall crops (pole beans, sugar snap peas) were grown using nutrient-rich fish aquaculture effluent versus well or municipal water to evaluate effects on soil fertility and crop production. The fish effluent raised soil pH and potassium and increased pole bean count by 9.1% (bean mass trended toward significance but was not conclusive); the soils used were relatively nutrient-rich even before the effluent was applied, which may explain the limited impact, and the study suggests differences could be more pronounced in acidic, nutrient-poor soils or with longer-duration fertigation.

M.C.G. Haitsma Mulier, F.H.M. Van de Ven, Paul Kirshen · Energy Nexus · Global

Drawing on case-study water-energy-food (WEF) nexus research at urban farms, which found that two distinct types of "food" are relevant to urban agriculture, this study (2022, no specific region) splits the "food" component of the WEF framework to build a water-energy-nutrients-food (WENF) nexus framework for urban farming. The systematic WENF monitoring, analysis, and evaluation framework aims to support quality data acquisition during case-study research at farm sites, addressing a quantitative data gap on urban agriculture and closed circularity loops; it differentiates stocks of water, energy, nutrients, and food, describes flows within each, and identifies multi-sectoral flows and interdependencies among the four resource stocks to formulate options for circularity in urban farming. The analysis indicates urban systems offer many opportunities for realizing sustainable agriculture in cities because waste management and farming can mutually reinforce each other: local reuse of resources found in urban "waste" could reduce stormwater problems and energy needs for water, nutrient, and food transport, irrigation, and wastewater pumping, while eliminating the need for synthetic soil amendments and unsustainable mineral mining, and reusing resources from urban (waste)water in urban farming could reduce food production's overall negative environmental impact.

Ye. V. Klimov, B. O. Assilov · Problems of AgriMarket · Global

This study identifies and analyzes common sales channels for organic products and the potential for alternative marketing strategies among small-scale organic fruit and vegetable producers in the Almaty region, Kazakhstan, who have transitioned to organic horticulture, drawing on international and Kazakhstani experience. Methods included desk research, industry information from open sources, and a survey of business entities. In Kazakhstan, where organic production has existed for about 20 years and has been dominated by large export-oriented grain producers using indirect trade channels, an emerging domestic eco-products market means small-producer entry requires effective marketing programs and expanded direct-delivery channels. Distribution options examined include an order-based "organic box" scheme, Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), a centralized U-pick sales platform, organic farmers' markets and sales fairs, shops attached to organic farms, organic restaurants, public procurement, agritourism, and e-commerce. The study concludes that the choice of sales points is an important management decision affecting the economic efficiency of an agricultural enterprise, and that small-scale producers should develop multiple distribution channels that connect them directly with consumers.

Herman Hamdani, Ibnu Bangkit Bioshina Suryadi, Zahidah Zahidah, Yuli Andriani, Lantun Paradhita Dewanti, Rioaldi Sugandhy · Jurnal Berdaya · Indonesia

This is a community service report on a water-saving "tidal aquaponics" system — combining fish farming with hydroponics, using rising and falling water levels in a gravel planting bed to recirculate water back to the fish pond as an oxygen source — implemented in Tanjungsari Village, Sumedang Regency, Indonesia. The village, an example of an urban fringe community, had already adopted this system for its advantages: it can be used on limited land, saves water, requires no fertilizer, and can add aesthetic value to marginal land if arranged well. The activity was conducted through demonstrations, technical meetings and field meetings, with the objective of meeting household-scale protein needs using limited resources; given the limited availability of clean water in densely populated areas, the report frames this as an example of water-efficient, environmentally conscious urban farming.

Diego Alejandro Salinas Velandia, Felipe A. Perdomo, Stephanie Numa-Vergel, Edwin Villagrán, Pilar Donado-Godoy, Julio Ricardo Galindo Pacheco · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · Global

This study used bibliometric and text-mining analysis of the literature to assess how horticulture is transitioning to the circular economy. It found that circular horticulture is a recent, growing research field whose approach has been fragmented rather than systemic or integrative. Bioeconomy, urban agriculture, recycled nutrients, biochar, fertigation, and desalination emerged as research hotspots, with vegetables and fruits the most-studied crops; resource circulation has focused mainly on biowaste recovery for biofertilizers and substrate substitutes, and on water reuse for hydroponic systems. The One Health approach was found to be scarcely explored and weakly articulated, with the absence of assessment methodologies covering ecosystem, animal, and human health noted as a notable limitation, and science-policy interfaces linking One Health and food systems identified as needing improvement.

Bambang Gunawan, Husin Rayesh Mallaleng, Mahrus Ali, Sri Purwanti, Nurlina Nurlina, Fauziatun Nisak, Yeni Ika Pratiwi, Sri Hidayati · Indonesian Journal of Engagement Community Services Empowerment and Development · Indonesia

This report describes a community activity in RW 02, Kalirungkut Village, Rungkut District, Surabaya City, Indonesia, that implemented mass composting technology for urban organic waste as part of empowering urban agricultural land. It was carried out through two approaches: assistance to build expertise and skills in managing mass composting of urban organic waste, and efforts to mobilize community participation. The results showed increased community awareness and participation in waste management through practicing the 3R approach (reduce, reuse, recycle) -- sorting household waste into organic and inorganic at the source -- with the urban agriculture movement identified as an alternative for maintaining family food security and as a contributor to green open space.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 水管理・国土保全局 上下水道企画課 · Japan

A Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism page on expanding fertilizer use of sewage sludge resources. Of the roughly 2.3 million tonnes of sewage sludge generated annually, about 50,000 tonnes of phosphorus content is present; roughly 1,000 treatment plants put sludge to fertilizer use, but this covers only about 15% of total sludge generated. The 'Food Security Enhancement Policy Package,' decided December 27, 2022, set a 2030 target of doubling fertilizer use of sewage sludge resources/compost and raising the share of domestic resources in phosphorus-based fertilizer use to 40%.

Cheng C., Aviso K.B., Tan R.R., Aviso K. · Sustainability (MDPI), 13(16):9042 · Asia

A study developing a system-dynamics model of a rooftop farm in Taipei City to analyze the socio-environmental benefits of rooftop agriculture (improved food access, community ties, energy savings, reduced flood risk). It frames rooftop farming as a practical solution for strengthening water-energy-food nexus synergies in greener cities.

Shimpo N. · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems (Wiley), 6:e20015 · Japan

A case study of a suburban-Tokyo community garden that collects neighborhood kitchen waste and returns it to the soil as compost, forming a local food cycle. It documents how the bottom-up founder sustained the garden, provided work opportunities for people with disabilities and food-education for children, and built links with welfare facilities, kindergartens, and schools.

Begum M.S., Bala S.K., Islam A.K.M.S., Roy D. · Sustainability (MDPI), 13(16):9053 · Asia

Compares an experimental agricultural rooftop with bare roofs, measuring microclimate parameters including air, surface, and indoor temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide. It shows that rooftop agriculture can mitigate urban microclimate change and supply fresh vegetables while delivering environmental and socioeconomic benefits to city dwellers.

Greathouse J., Henning S., Soendergaard M. · Plants 10(5):965 · United States

Grafted heirloom tomatoes (Black Krim, Green Zebra) and standard Big Beef onto rootstocks in hydroponics, measuring antioxidant capacity, phenolics, and lycopene. Specific rootstocks raised antioxidant capacity and altered phenolic content of heirlooms.

· PeerJ · China (Beijing)

Compares the carbon footprint of conventional smallholder operations versus innovative large-scale urban farming in Beijing, China.