Research & reports

P. Qasimah Boston, Ivette A López, Krista Harper · Practicing Anthropology · United States (Tallahassee)

This study used Photovoice to evaluate an urban agricultural food movement event in Tallahassee, Florida. Youth were trained to collect and interpret data, describing the event's value and highlighting cultural influences on the food environment, including diversity and inclusion. The evaluation method, termed Evaluation for Community Action (EFCA), linked improving the food environment with innovative assessment.

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.

Patricia Keane, Alejandro Ortega Hortelano, Jeanette Linville · Journal of Public Health Management and Practice · United States

As an evaluation of the "Healthy Kids, Healthy Cuba (HKHCuba)" program in a triethnic rural community in New Mexico, 12 partners participated in a group model building (GMB) session to introduce systems thinking. The session identified 27 influences as feedback loops from behavior over time graphs and 5 subsystems from a causal loop diagram. Results showed that in addition to strategy-related influences like access to healthy food and community garden participation, a sense of cultural pride, community, and social engagement, especially among youth, were highly salient.

Selina Dorking, Paige Eisen, Joseph J. Godfrey, Regina López, Steven A. Smith · ScholarWorks - GVSU (Grand Valley State University) · United States

In the Heartside neighborhood of Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, the non-profit Heartside Gleaning Initiative (HGI) has been addressing food insecurity since 2014. During the winter semester of 2015, the "Food Fighters," a team of Grand Valley State University students, collaborated with HGI to tackle the challenges of food waste, food insecurity, and community sustainability. Their efforts resulted in the Heartside Glean Ride mobile food cart plan and a brochure for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes, designed to increase food distribution.

Connie Everson · Studies in the Education of Adults · United States

This study examined informal learning among members and farmers in community-supported agriculture (CSA) in the United States. CSA began as a loosely formalized, vaguely socialistic agreement between consumers and farmers, but as it became more institutionalized, education came to hold a near-equal footing alongside the nutritional offerings. The author's research found that goodwill generated by the farmers translated into a shared sense of community, in which information and knowledge were freely shared between CSA members and their farmer. Informal learning was found to be an intricate part of participation in the CSA experience: while individuals joining a CSA did not anticipate or expect a learning experience, the season-long process was strongly conducive to many forms of informal learning.

Martín Leonardo Battaglia · CSA News · United States

An article describing the Graduate Extension Scholars (GES) program at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), Virginia Tech, United States. Citing the National Academy of Sciences (2009), it notes that future agronomists will increasingly come from cities and suburbs rather than rural areas, making youth outreach to build interest in agriculture a recruitment concern. The GES program has graduate students develop educational modules for youth based on their own research, working with 4-H youth development agents; lesson plans are posted online, and networking through professional conferences of the Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education extends impact beyond individual classrooms or clubs. Per the National Academy of Sciences (2009), several urban agricultural education programs are already established, but higher education institutions are not well represented in most K-12 curricular programs. The article also references the 2013 Next Generation Science Standards.

Natoshia M. Askelson, Disa Lubker Cornish, Elizabeth H. Golembiewski · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

A mixed-methods study of rural U.S. school food service directors in a midsized Midwestern state examined perceptions of voluntary school meal programs such as farm-to-school and school garden programs, using semi-structured telephone interviews (n=67) and an online survey (n=57). Directors reported little experience with these programs and perceived them as very challenging to implement, citing very small staff, lack of concrete knowledge about how the programs work, and lack of access to local producers and chefs as the main barriers.

Tainã Coelho Quevedo, Anilton Squena de Oliveira, Lauren Machado Gayeski, Marcelo Pereira de Barros · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Brazil

Through Universidade Feevale's participation in Brazil's Projeto Rondon, workshops presented concepts and methodologies for developing community gardens and reusing organic waste and rainwater in two locations in Maranhao state. Three lectures were given and four community gardens, four composters, and two cisterns were built across four municipal schools, training 97 people. Environmental multipliers were trained through active community participation, and alternative cost-reduction techniques were made available for economically disadvantaged regions.

Saul Hernandez, Anthony Boynton, Interns · Community Literacy Journal · United States

An editor's note for the book review section of Community Literacy Journal. It recounts an ecological metaphor shared by a community garden leader at a Georgia community center, mentions raised beds built with a Knight Foundation grant and a seedling-distribution outreach effort, and surveys several book reviews in the same issue covering literacy and community-building, DIY culture, and race and education.

Matthew Northrop, Brooks C. Wingo, Jamy D. Ard · The Qualitative Report · United States

A qualitative study assessing why community gardeners participate at Jones Valley Urban Farm in Birmingham, Alabama, and the potential impacts of participation on members' health, community and diet. Twenty active gardeners across four focus groups reported prior experience, cost savings, taste, sustainability concerns and access to fresh, organic food as reasons for participating, and reported sharing, community development, mental health, personal pride, perceived health benefits and newfound food variety as impacts of their involvement.

Christiane Gasparini Araújo Costa, Mariana Tarricone Garcia, Silvana Maria Ribeiro, Marcia Fernanda de Sousa Salandini, Cláudia Maria Bógus · Ciência & Saúde Coletiva · Brazil

A qualitative cross-sectional study in Embu das Artes, State of São Paulo, Brazil, examined community gardening activity within Primary Healthcare Units (PHUs) as a health promotion (HP) practice and assessed how far its therapeutic dimension aligns it with complementary and integrative practices (CIP). Analysis identified core themes of health concept, health outcomes, return to traditional habits, and reorientation of health services, and found the garden activities closely linked to HP action fields such as creating healthier environments, strengthening community action, developing personal skills, and building autonomy and empowerment.

Steven J. Zuiker, Kyle Wright · Interactive Learning Environments · United States

A design-based research study following one enactment of the Connected Gardening project, in which a fourth-grade class in the United States organized and refined a school garden plot using observations of the physical environment alongside data from a networked digital probe. Through qualitative analysis, it characterizes the interplay among individuals, materials and activities, and among an ecosystem, a garden and graphical representations of environmental indicators, framing these cyber-physical systems as supporting participatory culture inside and beyond the classroom.

Sherine Brown-Fraser, I.T. Forrester, Randolph Rowel, A. D. Richardson, Ashley Nicole Spence · Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition · United States

Morgan State University's Nutritional Sciences Program describes the principles and practices used to develop a student-led, community-engaged Community Organic Vegetable Garden in Baltimore, Maryland. Garden participation increased four-fold, a variety of crops were grown, and agricultural knowledge increased, alongside improved landscaping and social interaction; a survey found the garden positively influenced participants' fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity, and environmental awareness.

Simona C. Kwon, Catlin Rideout, Shilpa Patel, Pedro Arista, Edward Tepporn, Jesse Lipman, Sarah Kunkel, Daniel Q. Le, Kathy Ko Chin, Chau Trinh‐Shevrin · Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved · United States

Against a backdrop of high chronic-disease risk factor burden among Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs) in the United States, the STRIVE Program funded four AANHPI community-based organizations (CBOs) to implement culturally adapted community gardens and farmers' markets aimed at increasing access to healthy foods. Key informant interviews were conducted with CBO staff to understand implementation processes and lessons learned; this abstract does not report specific outcome measures.

Nancy Victorin-Vangerud · Digital Commons - Hamline (Hamline University) · United States

This is a course description for a first-year seminar at Hamline University, United States. Drawing on the vision of Will Allen, founder of the Milwaukee urban agriculture organization Growing Power, the course has students explore collaborations across diverse communities, religions and cultures in the Twin Cities, participate in the fall harvest at neighborhood community gardens, and reflect on how food production intersects with social, economic and environmental issues.

Josefa Ivanara de sá Araújo, Daniel Pereira dos Santos, Ednaldo Barbosa Pereira, Aline Carla de Medeiros, Patrício Borges Maracajá · Informativo Técnico do Semiárido · Brazil

This is an internship report from the IFPB Sousa campus's farm school (Unit II) in São Gonçalo, Sousa municipality, Paraíba, Brazil, a region classified as BSh (hot semi-arid) under the Köppen system where evaporation exceeds precipitation, mean annual rainfall is 654 mm (concentrated January-June), mean temperature is 28°C and mean humidity is 64%. In beds measuring 1 m by 5 m, lettuce (spaced 0.25 x 0.20 m), chives (0.25 x 0.15 m), coriander (0.15 x 0.05 m) and bell pepper (0.8 x 0.50 m) were grown, with productivity measured by harvest weight for chives and coriander and by count for pepper and lettuce. Coriander proved the most important crop over the trial period, followed by pepper; chives and lettuce were less prominent but were noted as important in food preparation.

Alberto Henrique Ricordi · ScholarSpace (University of Hawaii at Manoa) · United States

This doctorate research project developed a site-specific participatory design method and site plan for Ka Mala Lani, the school garden of Blanche Pope Elementary School in Waimanalo, Oahu, Hawaii, treating the landscape rather than building retrofits as the framework for addressing on-site environmental issues. The design proposals incorporate shelter (hale), stormwater management and a trellis garden by the cafeteria, rainwater harvesting for self-sufficiency, and stormwater management framed as healing.

Andrea D. Isogai, Erin Alexiuk, Holly Gardner, Daniel D. McCarthy, Vicky Edwards, Leonard J. S. Tsuji, Nicole Spiegelaar · The International Journal of Social Sustainability in Economic Social and Cultural Context · Canada

This article by authors Andrea D. Isogai, Erin Alexiuk, Holly Gardner, Daniel McCarthy, Vicky Edwards, Leonard J. S. Tsuji and Nicole Spiegelaar was published in The International Journal of Social Sustainability in Economic, Social, and Cultural Context. No further details of the study's content are given in the available abstract.

Susan Wyche, Kirk Surry · University of Hawaii Press eBooks · United States

A chapter recounts the work of Alice Waters, founder and chef of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, who established the Edible Schoolyard Project in 1995, helping to launch a national movement of school gardens amid growing interest in organic food, personal health, and sustainable living. Her roughly one-acre garden and kitchen classroom became a model for thousands of subsequent gardens, including those across Hawaiʻi and other Pacific islands. These gardens included medicinal herbs alongside food crops, once serving as the era's pharmacies. The chapter also notes that school gardens became a sign of patriotism during World Wars I and II, when growing food for local consumption allowed large farms to focus on crops for troops abroad.

Nancy M. Wells, Beth M. Myers, Charles Henderson · Archives of Public Health · United States (New York State)

This study is a protocol for a randomized controlled trial involving 12 schools in New York State. It aims to examine the effect of school gardens on children's overall physical activity, sedentary behavior, and physical activity during the school day. Data will be collected at baseline and at three post-intervention follow-up waves at 6, 12, and 18 months using surveys and accelerometry.

Hongxia Shan, Pierre Walter · Adult Education Quarterly · Canada

Based on a qualitative study of the learning experiences of six Chinese immigrants in community gardens on a university campus in Canada, this article identifies three ways of learning that foster knowing, connecting, and hybrid knowledge production across cultures. These include learning through communities of conviviality, learning mediated through nonhuman things like land, waste, and free-floating seeds, and learning through assemblages that integrate culture, place, and space.

금혜진 · · United States

This study examined the philosophical background and historical development of the school garden movement in the USA to derive implications for Korean school gardening programs. The movement emerged from late 19th-century educational ideas, showing a process of formation (1891-1914), decline (post-WWI, 1950s), and revival (from 1990s). The revival was driven by efforts to address childhood obesity, nature-deficit, and improve academic achievements.

Marie-Ève Voghel Robert · · Canada (Montréal)

This research internship, conducted in Montreal-Nord, Canada, during winter and spring 2013, aimed to understand the potential of urban agriculture from the perspective of both gardeners and non-gardeners. Through five group interviews, participants emphasized the essential role of human and social relationships in collective gardening projects, beyond just food production. They also proposed integrating collective gardening with other projects to create a comprehensive food system in Montreal-Nord, enhancing project longevity and food accessibility.

Annie Christian · eCommons (Cornell University) · United States

This project tested two fencing methods—heavy woven wire with chicken wire, and heavy black plastic with hex mesh—to exclude deer and woodchucks from gardens. Master Gardener volunteers and CCE staff recorded material costs, participated in installation, and monitored effectiveness weekly. The project also provided IPM education to the public and schools through tours, workshops, and an instructional video.

Brittany Buchanan, Toby Lam, Bonnie Lee, Aldhyan Randy, Natasha Tymo · cIRcle (University of British Columbia) · Canada

This student project, part of the UBC Food Systems Project, researched human resource management strategies for the new Student Union Building (SUB) Rooftop Garden at the University of British Columbia. Through literature review and interviews, four management models were discussed. The group identified a student club model with incentives, potentially led by a directed studies or paid position, as a fitting starting point for motivating students to contribute to food production for campus outlets.