Research & reports

P. V. ERMINI, M. R. DELPRINO, B. GIOBELLINA · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Argentina (Santa Rosa-Toay)

In the Santa Rosa-Toay metropolitan area of Argentina, urban and peri-urban agriculture is noted for its scarce recognition in urban development policies and food security policies. Despite the region's urbanization, the absence of political recognition as a metropolitan area has hindered planning and management of land use and occupation according to its potential and limitations. This study developed and applied a methodological proposal to generate information on urban and peri-urban agricultural activities, integrating a spatial perspective with participatory procedures.

Pedro Vitor Pereira Guimarães, Maria Fernanda Berlingieri Durigan, Hyanameyka Evangelista de Lima-Primo · Cadernos de Agroecologia · Brazil

Cupuaçu is important for family and peri-urban agriculture and indigenous communities in the Amazon, contributing to local food security. This study aimed to characterize pulps from cupuaçu plants with varying susceptibility to witch's broom disease. Differences were observed mainly in chemical and physical-chemical characteristics among pulps, with emphasis on susceptible and highly susceptible plants. All evaluated pulps complied with established quality standards, but significant differences were found between physicochemical characteristics, proportional to the plants' susceptibility to witch's broom disease, particularly for soluble solids (SS) and titratable acidity (AT).

Luca Salvati, Lorenza Gasparella, Michele Munafò, Raoul Romano, Anna Barbati · Annals of Silvicultural Research · Italy (Rome)

This paper quantified the impact of urban expansion on the Roman Campagna's landscape characteristics between 1974 and 2008. Using spatial pattern analysis and multi-factor analysis to assess changes in landscape composition and structure, the study found that the distinctive features of the Roman Campagna landscape are now blurred. A generalized landscape mixité was generated by the juxtaposition of different fragmented land uses.

Daniel Balcero Benitez · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This study proposes a rururban landscape (urban-agricultural) for the Usme district in southern Bogotá. It is based on a model for ordering rururban fringes and sustainable occupation typologies for these territories, responding to expansive pressures from high environmental impact uses (mining, landfill) and urban growth on peasant territories. The proposal starts from the preservation and strengthening of the environment and current peasant ways of life.

Nicolas Brulard, Van‐Dat Cung, Nicolas Catusse · IFAC-PapersOnLine · Global

This paper addresses the problem of selecting the most profitable client combination for a vegetable farm's perishable production. Farmers pre-qualify potential clients with varying product mixes, prices, contract durations, and labor requirements. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming model is presented to maximize farm sales profit, considering production and workforce capacities, and submodels describe demand characteristics for four client categories: farmers’ market, community supported agriculture, contract demand, and wholesalers.

Gayle Mallinger, Molly Kerby · Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping (Click on Current or Archives; Registration Optional) · United States (Kentucky)

This narrative describes a three-year community garden project at the Boys & Girls Club in a semi-rural Kentucky city, addressing disparities in access to fresh produce, education, and food programs in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Participants engaged in preparing garden sites, planting seeds, and harvesting vegetables through a Junior Master Gardener program.

Zohreh Hamrang · · Italy

This study indicates that peri-urban territory provides a wide range of functions and services for surrounding urban areas, contributing to the quality of life in urban regions. These include food production, recreational services, and other services related to cultural landscape management, which in turn contribute to the ecological capacity of the landscape. Peri-urban agriculture (PUA) is characterized by two elements: intensified production with high productive value, and an extensive lifestyle with environmentally guided land use.

Upite Joseph Tshala, Misonga Alain Kitabala, Mwamba Jean-Pierre Tunda, Kayakez Michel Mufind, Miji Arsene Kalenda, Kanyimbu Georges Kapele, Kimuni Luciens Nyembo · Journal of Applied Biosciences · Africa

This study, conducted from May 2015 to April 2016 in Kolwezi, assessed the agronomic characteristics of compost from household waste and determined its biodegradable fraction for agricultural use. Waste was collected from 100 households, revealing biodegradable and non-biodegradable fractions, with quantities varying by season and commune. The biodegradable fraction represented 53% of the average monthly waste of 1001.5 kg per household. Major element concentrations were relatively high compared to Cameroon, while heavy metal concentrations were well below international standards.

Aloysius Clemence Mosha · Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance · Global

The book 'Cities and Agriculture' presents experience and evidence on key dimensions of urban food challenges and types of intra- and peri-urban agriculture across 15 chapters. This book illuminated the urban challenge of food provisioning, which has long been overlooked in urban studies, policies, and planning. Neglecting the dynamics and sustainability of food provisioning in scientific research on sustainable urban development is identified as a serious omission, given its significant social and physical impact.

Eka Rastiyanto Amrullah, Ani Pullaila, Akira Ishida, Haruka Yamashita · Asian Social Science · Indonesia (Banten)

In Banten, Indonesia, the effects of the Sustainable Home-Yard Food Garden (KRPL) program on participants' household income were evaluated. The program was shown to contribute to dietary diversification through the harvest of various fresh vegetables and resulted in reduced expenditure on fresh vegetables and/or increased household income. OLS regression results indicated that participants with more pots and/or more vegetable varieties tended to enjoy gardening, were not passively motivated, grew vegetables for sale, and resided in the more developed northern part of Banten.

Nerea Morán Alonso, Ícaro Obeso Muñiz, Agustín Hernández Aja, Felipe Fernández García · Moravian Geographical Reports · Spain

This paper analyzed the evolution of peri-urban agriculture in Spain's Madrid and Oviedo metropolitan areas to identify revitalization opportunities. Using aerial images and cartographic bases, the study found that peri-urban agriculture has suffered from urban occupation and internal changes in crops and agricultural uses, experiencing a process of decline. Innovative initiatives are explored as potential revitalization opportunities.

Esther Sanz Sanz, Claude Napoléone, Bernard Hubert, Aruna Popuri · · Global

Existing urban planning documents inadequately consider the specificities of peri-urban agriculture as an economic activity requiring arrangements not always adapted to an urban vision of agricultural spaces. This paper proposes a systemic methodology to characterize peri-urban agricultural spatial units, aiming to provide an inventory of peri-urban agricultural areas tailored to urban planning practitioners' constraints. The approach seeks to focus public action on areas where it is most likely to be efficient within a territorial project.

Rocío Pérez-Campaña, Luis Miguel Valenzuela Montes · Journal of Environmental Planning and Management · Spain

This paper presents a method for assessing and visualizing existing nodes in the field pattern of a peri-urban agricultural landscape. The method was applied in the Vega del Guadalfeo in southern Spain, and the results showed an innovative map of the Vega, which can be interpreted as its eco-structure, a node-based model representing the ecological value of the peri-urban agricultural landscape.

Hayford Mensah Ayerakwa · Geographical Research · Ghana

This paper descriptively analyzed the contribution of household engagement in agriculture to urban food security in Techiman and Tamale, Ghana, using household data. The study found that nearly half (43%) of urban residents participate in food production, primarily for consumption and surplus sale. For households engaged in both urban and rural agriculture, agricultural income was the highest, contributing 43% of total cash income in Techiman and 33% in Tamale.

Catherine Villar · Scholarship@Western (Western University) · Canada

This ethnographic study, conducted from August 2013 to August 2014, examined Orchard Hill Farm, an organic, draft-horse powered Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in Sparta, Ontario, Canada. It found that the farm's management approach resulted in a financially viable small-scale farm. The study highlighted that CSA members experience a "re-enchantment" through closeness to food and the farm, while farmers and apprentices demonstrate a commitment to sustainable practices.

Faidza Rika Chandika, Subejo Subejo, Harsoyo Harsoyo · · Indonesia

This study investigated the effectiveness of television as a source of agricultural information and its influencing factors in the peri-urban agricultural area of Sleman Regency, using descriptive, proportion, and multiple linear tests. Results showed that over 50% of farmers assessed television's effectiveness as low. Television effectiveness indicators were 50.43% for cognitive effect, 44.83% for affective effect, and 49.34% for behavioral effect. The motive for watching television most affected effectiveness, with most farmers relying on group meetings and field extension rather than television for agricultural information.

María Hernández Hernández · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Spain

A book chapter on Spain examines the historical shift in city-countryside relations, analyzing the factors behind the paradigm change since the late 20th century and the strategies (agri-food policy, local development, governance, land stewardship) and tools (agrarian parks, social agriculture, urban gardens) used to sustain farming in peri-urban areas, based on a literature review of scientific publications, regulatory frameworks, and initiatives. It concludes that quality, authentic local farm production represents an opportunity for peri-urban territories and historic agricultural landscapes.

Salvatore Pinna · Kobra (Universitätsbibliothek Kassel) · Spain

This study examines a municipal rural park in the Madrid region, Spain, established to promote local and seasonal produce, and analyzes its role in agricultural landscape enhancement using in-depth interviews and website analysis. Drawing on the European Landscape Convention's definition of landscape, it shows how spatial, ecological, and social outputs of farmer-led multifunctional and peri-urban agriculture interact with the park's management framework. The results are discussed in relation to Spanish environmental and landscape law, particularly regarding the connection between food, territory, and traditional landscape.

Prem José Vazhacharickal · International Journal of Social Sciences · India

Street vending and urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) production systems, and their contribution to local services, are examined in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), India — a region with a population of 21 million where a high proportion of urban poor and rising in-migration make it vulnerable to food crisis. Based on primary and secondary data, street vending in UPA production is argued to complement rural supply chains and reduce ecological footprints, with a recommendation that these marketing systems be better planned and incorporated into city architecture to secure local food supply and employment.

Giuseppe Cinà, Fahimeh Khatami · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Iran

A study addressing the role of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in Mashhad, Iran, from a sustainable development perspective, aimed at identifying conditions hindering and factors favoring its development. After framing the UPA phenomenon with reference to significant planning experiences in Western and Islamic countries, the study outlines Mashhad as a "city in transition," describes the institutional framework of its present urban planning, and shows the weak enforcement mechanisms of planning policy for UPA. It then presents a conceptual and material network of un-built areas potentially suitable for agriculture, organized into three classes from the compact city center to its periphery, summarizing physical characteristics, ownership, and resources for each, and concludes that policy, education, and social commitment are the three domains that can favor effective UPA policies and practices.

Jacques Godfroid · Archives of Public Health · Global

This opinion paper discusses a One Health approach to brucellosis at the wildlife-livestock-human interface in both industrialized and low- and middle-income countries. It points to pitfalls in serological studies and states that urban and peri-urban farming contributes to the re-emergence of brucellosis in the developing world, identifies wildlife as a potential reservoir, and discusses the ethics of culling wildlife to control disease spread.

M. Bare, Raymond M. Danner · Ecological Restoration · Global

A 2017 study surveyed bird communities in three forest sites with different restoration and natural revegetation histories, 20–40 years since clearing, within a tropical urban-agricultural landscape in the Ecuadorian Amazon, comparing manually restored and naturally revegetating forest. A diverse assemblage of birds was found visiting and occupying the forest fragments, including two IUCN-listed near-threatened species. Bird species richness was similar across sites with different management histories and species composition varied only slightly, but differences existed in the presence and occupancy of forest-dependent groups such as large frugivores and forest insectivores. In the manually restored site, bird diversity may have been limited by under-developed forest structure, though the effects of patch size and landscape matrix could not be isolated. The study suggests future restoration efforts consider forest structure alongside plant species diversity, and that future studies account for landscape and matrix parameters when evaluating restoration projects.

Audit Yulardi, Andar Bagus Sriwarno, Dwinita Larasati · Jurnal Sosioteknologi · Indonesia (Bandung)

In Bandung, Indonesia's "Kampung Berkebun" program, residents whose main occupation was not farming faced difficulty maintaining productive plants such as vegetables, particularly through daily watering. This study developed a time-efficient irrigation system and trialed it with residents in RT 2, RW 2, Kacapiring, Bandung. A single-point connected irrigation system reduced the time consumed by watering activities, and trial observation showed a behavior change: residents who previously watered irregularly began watering more regularly.

Brian J. Shaw · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Europe

An entry on ØsterGRO, a rooftop farm located in the center of Copenhagen that operates as a form of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).

Andrea Colantoni, Silvia Pili, Enrico Maria Mosconi, Stefano Poponi, Massimo Cecchini, Doria Paola, Luca Salvati · IRIS Research product catalog (Sapienza University of Rome) · Europe

A study describing relevant experiences of peri-urban farming in six Southern European metropolitan regions — Lisbon, Barcelona, Marseille, Rome, Athens and Istanbul — representative of different socioeconomic contexts. It frames the recent development of peri-urban agriculture as reflecting a crisis-driven process of "coming back to land," in which new land has been extensively cultivated and new relations formed between farmers, communities and territories, and outlines strengths and weaknesses in using fringe land for cropping along with implications for urban sustainability.