Research & reports

Louiza M. Boukharaeva, Marcel Marloie · Revue d’ethnoécologie · Europe

The Brundtland Report, in its chapter on "The Urban Challenge," recommended developing urban agriculture. Subsequent research has emphasized urban agriculture's contribution to food production, poverty reduction, and improved soil, air and water quality, but it appears as a marginal activity involving only a small fraction of middle- or low-income populations. The experiences of Russia and other European countries reveal a larger-scale phenomenon that can involve most city dwellers. Individual plots of 300 to 1,000 square meters within garden and dacha collectives involve roughly a quarter of Russia's urban population, with smaller proportions in other countries; the right to build a small house for weekend and holiday stays extends their multifunctionality. This non-market, extra-professional activity was a social achievement under the Soviet regime and constitutes an alternative to the polluting, soil-destroying detached-housing model. It cushioned the systemic crisis of the 1990s by helping populations cope with stress and avoid famine. Contrary to the view, dominant since 1929, that individual gardening carries a "petit-bourgeois" spirit, it is described as enabling lifestyles more compatible with people's existential needs, with this family-based urban agriculture serving as a means of building a more autonomous, social and ecological urban society, necessary for the resilience of individuals, families and society.

National Audit Office · National Audit Office (NAO) · United Kingdom

An investigation published by the UK National Audit Office on 29 October 2015. The children's charity Kids Company received at least £46 million of public funding over fifteen years, £28 million of it from the Department for Education. In 2008 it took 20 per cent of the funding available under one programme, and in 2011 it received over twice the amount given to any other grant recipient. Officials raised sustainability concerns in six separate briefings between 2002 and 2015, yet funding continued outside competitive processes; the charity closed insolvent on 5 August 2015 and around 1,900 cases were passed to local authorities.

Georgia Graham · Channel 4 News · United Kingdom

A fact-check on Kids Company, the charity founded in 1996 that operated in London and Bristol. It claimed to reach 36,000 children by 2015 and had received £46 million of public money over fifteen years — £44 million from central government, £28 million of that from the Department for Education. Its 2013 annual income was £23 million, 20 per cent from government and 77 per cent from private donations. The piece notes that government oversight relied on the charity's own self-assessments, with no independent verification of outcomes or beneficiary numbers.

Christian M., Evans C., Cade J. · Public Health Research, Vol. 2, No. 4 (NIHR Journals Library) · United Kingdom

Two randomised controlled trials in London primary schools evaluating the RHS Campaign for School Gardening. They found gardening alone had very little impact on children's fruit and vegetable intake, suggesting it must be combined with nutrition education to change diet.

Tomita H., Ishii M. · Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering · Germany

Analyzes the influence of Bauhaus's second director Hannes Meyer and his Bauhaus Brigade on Soviet urban and architectural planning, examining Meyer's socially-oriented functionalism and planning features including mass demonstration spaces and broad greenery, using unpublished sources.

Bishop P. · Journal of European Studies (SAGE) · Germany

A scholarly review of Henderson's study of Ernst May and the New Frankfurt initiative, critically assessing Weimar modernist social housing, garden and green-space programs, and Existenzminimum dwelling within their historical significance and limitations.

Rina Ghose, Margaret Pettygrove · Antipode · USA (Milwaukee)

Case study of Milwaukee community gardens challenging the assumption that participation is empowering: under neoliberal restructuring, volunteer-dependent garden governance shifts state responsibility onto residents and produces uneven, tension-ridden citizenship outcomes.

Inmaculada Marques-Pérez, Baldomero Segura García del Río, Concepción Maroto · Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research · Spain (Valencia)

This paper presented a descriptive approach to the multifunctionality of agricultural systems and described a methodological approach to evaluate social preferences for multifunctional peri-urban agriculture. This approach is based on a review of scientific literature focused on multifunctionality and the goods and services of agricultural systems. The proposed methodology was applied to the "Huerta de Valencia," a rich peri-urban agricultural system with diverse resources, yielding results useful for enriching the political-institutional debate on defining its protection scheme.

Raúl Puente Asuero · · Spain

This record is a summary of a conference on urban gardens in Andalusia, Spain, delivered by D. Raul Puente Asuero at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Malaga on April 7, 2014. No specific findings or details about urban gardens are provided in the abstract.

Massimiliano Agovino, Antonio Garofalo, Angela Mariani · RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA · Italy

This paper assessed and compared the urban environmental quality performance of Italian provinces using the Legambiente Index and the Local Moran Transition Probability Matrix. The results revealed a persistent dualism between Northern and Southern Italy and a lack of positive environmental spillover among neighboring provinces. The study suggests that Southern Italy should prioritize improving sustainable food sourcing for urban development.

Roberta Pucci · · Italy (Settimo Torinese)

A project for urban transformation in the HT6 Bordina area of Settimo Torinese, Italy, was proposed. This project critiques a previous plan for 15-story buildings as invasive for the surrounding low-rise residential area and presents a more sustainable alternative, including social and production spaces like an urban garden, playground, and commercial square. The proposal aims to connect existing green areas, residential areas, and a historic farmhouse.

Nerea Morán Alonso, José Luis Fernández de Casadevante · Hábitat y Sociedad · Spain

In Spain, urban agriculture is gaining importance, but faces difficulties in municipal regulation, particularly for community gardens. This regulatory challenge perpetuates the insecurity and precariousness of urban agriculture projects.

Yvon Le · · France

This lecture focuses on five geographical questions concerning the rural-urban interface. It was shown that major food industries are not necessarily located in main cities, leading to a frequent disconnection between agricultural and regional centralities, and that the disconnection between cities and agricultural surroundings is challenged by farmers through short food supply chains. Access to the countryside by city dwellers is a major issue for social interaction, and urban agriculture opens new opportunities for urban planning.

Mikey Tomkins · Repository hosted by TU Delft Library (TU Delft) · United Kingdom (London)

This research explored reactions to the idea of potential urban agriculture landscapes through 32 participatory walks with 150 local residents around a 25-hectare site in east London. The walks used an "edible map" that suggested food growing in vacant urban areas. The study showed initial engagement with urban agriculture and local food systems, but also produced a strong critique of urban spatial design and a desire for place-making.

Marcin Graban · Pressto (Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza) · Poland (Poznań)

The Polish National General Exhibition in Poznań in 1929 attracted many laborers, who later contributed to the unemployed population during the 1930s economic crisis, exacerbating the housing crisis in Poznań. City authorities initially housed the homeless in former exhibition grounds as an interim measure. For a more permanent solution, the city redeveloped allotments or community gardens by building purpose-built residential garden huts or sheds.

S. Mecca B. Özel · · Italy (Pisa)

Rapid urbanization has led to negative consequences such as urban poor, primarily formed in suburbs. The physical expansion of cities occurs more in suburbs, causing "urban sprawl" into rural areas beyond their boundaries, resulting in the loss of agricultural lands and stress on the surrounding natural environment.

Géraldine Farges · Sociologia Ruralis · France

This one-year ethnographic study analyzed the integration of pro-environmental practices among amateur gardeners in a French urban allotment. Through observations and repeat interviews, it found that while gardeners adopted new techniques, the meanings of their practices and their environmental relationships differed. The diffusion of pro-environmental practices was not systematically linked to shared concerns, and practices were interpreted differently by policymakers and individuals.

Giuseppe Cinà · PORTO Publications Open Repository TOrino (Politecnico di Torino) · Italy

This paper examines Italian planning, highlighting an unresolved discrepancy between urban and agricultural policies due to a long-standing separation of urban and rural worlds. It outlines how this historical gap results in two inconsistent and low-effective policies. The paper discusses agricultural parks as an attempt to overcome this planning backwardness by integrating spatial planning and agricultural activity, documenting three Italian examples.

Hillary J. Shaw · · United Kingdom (Birmingham)

This chapter describes four stages by which people have become divorced from the origins of human food: industrialization, globalization, supermarketization, and dromology. Ashram Acres, established in 1981 in Birmingham, England, exemplifies many merits of urban agriculture, aiming to utilize the agricultural expertise of local migrants from South Asia, the Caribbean, and Ireland.

Attila Tóth, Ľubica Feriancová · Acta horticulturae et regiotecturae · Spain (Barcelona)

This study investigated squat farming as a typology of urban agriculture, focusing on the case study of Can Masdeu, a squatted and cultivated land at the northern city border of Barcelona, Spain. It aimed to understand how landscape and urban structures are influenced by land cultivation and how the social dimension of squat farming is structured. Spatial and perceptual analyses were applied, and users were interviewed through discussions and questionnaires, with results describing the spatial and social characteristics of squat farming at Can Masdeu.

Mike Nichols · Practical Hydroponics and Greenhouses · United Kingdom

The International Conference on Vertical Farming and Urban Agriculture was held at the University of Nottingham, England, on September 9-10, 2014. This event gathered scientists, engineers, industrialists, and policymakers to discuss current ideas, technologies, commercial applications, and research opportunities in vertical farming and urban agriculture. It served as a forum to evaluate benefits, opportunities, risks, and challenges, and to foster collaboration between academic and commercial sectors.

Anna Gaviglio, Alberto Pirani, Mattia Bertocchi · Advanced engineering forum · Italy (Milan)

This study assessed the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of farms within the South Milan Agricultural Park (PASM), based on interactions between the Milan metropolitan area and surrounding agricultural activities. The survey was conducted using an indicator-based tool to compare farms, with data collected from various sources. Results indicated that PASM's efforts provided valid economic tools for large multifunctional farms, deeply tied to the local context through services like direct sales, short chains, and agritourism, contributing to improved environmental conditions and landscape. However, large and small specialized farms lacking these income sources did not receive equal contribution.

Alexander Follmann, Valérie Viehoff · Local Environment · Germany

This paper investigates NeuLand, a community garden created in March 2012 on a brownfield site in Cologne, Germany. It assesses NeuLand as typical of a new form of political engagement 2.0, focusing on local problems and direct actions, and its potential to offer a blueprint for alternative urban futures and new ways for citizens to claim their "right to the city." The study links the NeuLand experiment to broader discussions on alternative socio-ecological futures, extending beyond analyses of urban gardening solely for sustainable food production or community cohesion.

H. Renting · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Europe

This contribution highlights a growing research interest in urban and peri-urban agriculture and related public policies, particularly within Europe and internationally. It presents major European research projects and relevant recent international conferences focusing on urban and peri-urban agriculture. The paper outlines proposed debate topics and analytical approaches used in these initiatives.

Pascale Scheromm, Coline Perrin, Christophe‐Toussaint Soulard · Espaces et sociétés · France (Montpellier)

A study of urban agriculture in Montpellier, France, utilized policy analysis, spatial analysis, and an analysis of urban agricultural actors' practices and representations. The research revealed a great diversity in urban agriculture and a gap between its perception in urban policy and its spatial realities. Traditional agriculture is declining despite occupying more land, while new forms like gardens and agriparks are emerging, fostering interactions between public actors and citizens.