Research & reports

Qin Shu-ying · Anhui nongye kexue · China

A bibliometric study of Chinese-language literature on urban agriculture indexed in CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) from 1991 to 2012 (2013, China) analyzed publication-year distribution, author distribution, institutional distribution, academic influence, and subject distribution. It found that leading sources of research were concentrated in Beijing and developed eastern coastal provinces and municipalities, that contributing institutions were mainly higher-education institutions, and that the most-studied topics clustered around agricultural economics research. The study recommends increasing resource allocation and research in western China to promote urban agriculture research there.

Jacqueline M. Swank, David E. Swank · Journal of school counseling · United States

Addressing the challenge school counselors face in delivering a comprehensive, developmental school counseling program to large numbers of students, this paper (2013, United States) presents a creative use of a garden program to foster student development through integration with the natural environment. It describes activities and metaphors tied to five garden stages within the program — planning, preparing, planting, maintaining, and harvesting — identifies which American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 2004) student standards each garden activity addresses, and discusses the implications and practical considerations for school counselors.

Sandy Campbell · The Deakin Review of Children s Literature · Canada

This is a review of Hadley Dyer's "Potatoes on Rooftops: Farming in the City" (Annick Press, Toronto, 2012). Although marketed by the publisher for grades 4–7, the reviewer finds the actual reading level higher — Tenth Grade on the Coleman-Liau Index and 9.2 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test. Despite a children's-book design, the content is dense and textbook-like, moving from an introduction on food and the need for urban agriculture through small- and larger-scale urban agriculture examples to related social and political movements, with a glossary, resource list, and index. The Toronto-based author received Ontario Arts Council funding, but the review notes little Canadian content, with the book's apparent market being the United States; it cites international examples including Africa, Japan, and Scotland but says little about the practicalities of urban gardening in Canada, where growing conditions differ sharply by region (e.g., Florida vs. Edmonton). The review rates the book 3 out of 4 stars, recommending it for high school and public libraries and noting it is most useful for teen and adult readers.

Xuejun Chen · Ziran zaihai xuebao · Global

Introducing disaster-chain theory for mine ecological environments, this paper classifies the secondary ecological-environment destruction chains originating from ground collapse — affecting land, climate, water and artificial ecological environments — into five types, and further divides their interaction mechanisms into seven kinds across four classes. At the Siding lead-zinc mine, 280 collapse pits were brought under control based on ecological restoration and reorganized into landscape ecological function areas comprising urban agriculture and economic forest zones, restoring farmland and 8.47 hectares of forest land. The results indicate the proposed disaster-chain analysis is feasible and could offer a new approach for controlling ground collapse in mining areas.

Ruth Stewart, Marcel Korth, Laurenz Langer, Shannon Rafferty, Natalie Rebelo Da Silva, Carina van Rooyen · Environmental Evidence · Global

This is a systematic review protocol — not a completed review — that sets out methods for identifying, appraising and synthesizing evidence on how urban agriculture programs affect food security and nutrition in low- and middle-income countries. It notes urban agriculture is widely promoted as providing the urban poor with food and income while improving the urban environment, but also carries potential disadvantages: use of wastewater can contaminate produce, intensive irrigation can spread malaria and water-borne disease and strain limited water supplies, and soil erosion and intensive fertilizer/pesticide use can pose health risks and environmental damage. Despite the current policy drive to promote urban agriculture, the paper states that the evidence base for its benefits and harms is not well understood. As a protocol, it reports planned search, screening, bias-appraisal and synthesis methods rather than results.

DU Shan-sha · Journal of Beijing Union University · China

Starting from the long-standing connection between culture and agriculture, this paper analyzes the basic characteristics of Chinese culture across four dimensions — material culture, behavioral culture, institutional culture and spiritual culture — and examines how this multi-dimensional culture shapes the specific characteristics of urban agriculture during the transition from traditional to modern urban agriculture. The analysis finds that these multi-dimensional cultural influences make China's urban agriculture development characteristics substantially different from those in Western countries.

Seanna Berry · SMARTech Repository (Georgia Institute of Technology) · United States

A report on Atlanta, Georgia's local food system reviews the rationale for food systems planning, surveys mechanisms other cities and regions use to enhance the supply and consumption of locally grown food, and describes Atlanta's current efforts in this area. Building on goals that city officials and food advocates have set over the preceding five years toward a more localized and vibrant food system, it recommends strategic directions to help the city improve its efforts and overcome identified barriers.

김윤수, 이연숙 · 한국생태환경건축학회 학술발표대회 논문집 · South Korea

This study examines a case in South Korea where, after removing derelict houses in a deteriorated urban residential area, a community garden growing flowers, diverse plants and vegetables was built and managed together with local residents. It was carried out to contribute to the "physical regeneration" of the residential environment, the "social regeneration" of the community through residents' active participation toward a harmonious community, and "economic regeneration" through productive cooperation with community enterprises.

Shelly Errington · Gastronomica The Journal of Food and Culture · Global

The available text for this article consists only of an author biography, not article content. It states that author Shelly Errington is in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, studies visible and audible aspects of culture, also produces photographs, video documentary, and line drawings, and describes her own kitchen garden and edible landscape as connecting her to the farm-to-table community. The article is available only as a PDF behind access restrictions, and no further content about its actual subject matter is available from the abstract.

Dominique Rossi Breetzke, Christina Breed · UpSpace Institutional Repository (University of Pretoria) · South Africa

A landscape architecture study centered on Sunnyside, Pretoria, South Africa, using an abandoned stretch of land along the Walker Spruit as a case study to test the hypothesis that allotment-style community gardening designed around urban ecology can increase food security and social capital. It examines Guerrilla Gardening and allotment cultures in Britain, Canada, and Switzerland, and applies the green infrastructure concept of a "Continuous Productive Urban Landscape," concluding that allotment culture and permaculture can be ways of reconnecting people with urban nature. It proposes a "three natures" design concept intended to unite the neighboring Clydesdale and Sunnyside East areas. The work is a design proposal and case study rather than a study with measured outcome data.

Michael Dubnewick, Karen M. Fox, D. Jean Clandinin · Leisure/Loisir · Canada

This autobiographical narrative inquiry follows one author's (Michael's) lived experience of gardening with his family's gardens and two community gardens, Heritage and Eco, in Edmonton, Canada. Using narrative inquiry methodology, the authors present institutional, community and personal narratives from Michael's gardening experience to illustrate gardening as a leisure practice shaped by multiple, sometimes paradoxical, contexts of people, cultures and communities.

Giovanni Allegretti, Stefania Barca, Lúcia Fernandes · Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) · Global

This article reviews contemporary experiences in small-scale sustainable agriculture worldwide, framing urban and peri-urban farming as a form of "popular art/craft" practiced in response to the modern agricultural dilemma's alienation of most people, particularly urban residents, from the natural world. It surveys the variety of forms, spaces and social actors involved, focusing on the rise of agricultural gardens in urban areas and the neo-rural transition movement, and discusses the frequent involvement of artists and designers in urban gardening initiatives before closing with critical observations on the state of research on urban agricultural practices.

Lawrence B. de Graaf · Journal of American History · United States (California)

A book review of Post-ghetto, edited by Josh Sides and comprising ten essays by fourteen authors, examines South Los Angeles's (formerly South Central) long history of poverty, gangs, and violence, and changes since the 1992 riots, including a proliferation of nonprofit service providers and a declining crime rate. Three of the essays focus on "food justice" — the idea that everyone deserves healthy food — arguing this goal could be reached through more supermarkets, improved local stores, community gardens, and campaigns against liquor and junk food stores. Other chapters cover the absence of large retail and malls, art, black politics, the rising status of blacks in unions, and policy for keeping youth out of gangs.

Vesna Popović, Jelena Živanović Miljković · Institute of Agricultural Economics eBooks · Europe

A study analyzing trends in community gardening in Europe, with particular focus on Belgrade, Serbia, in relation to permaculture design principles. It notes that while intensive urban agriculture carries ecological risks related to soil, water, air, climate, biodiversity, and landscape, citizens seeking healthy food and closer contact with nature are turning toward extensive, often organic, forms of urban agriculture such as community gardening based on permaculture design, and it discusses the role of such gardening in smart-city development and its establishment potential in Belgrade.

Simon Jorgenson · Australian Journal of Environmental Education · Australia

A phenomenological study interviewed three Australian primary school teachers — Laura, Meredith, and Clare — to investigate the internal processes behind teachers' rationales for incorporating school gardens into their teaching. Analysis showed that teachers form a strong rationale by reading their own, often idealized, childhood memories against their observations of children today, a rationale reinforced by opportunities the garden itself affords for enacting deep beliefs about teaching and learning and resisting external control. The study also provides evidence that school gardens readily evoke nostalgia, and re-theorizes this nostalgia as part of the "cultural logic" of school gardens.

Marc Christiansen, Natalie Marie Marquardt, Katie Picchione, Thomas Sullivan · Digital WPI · United States

In Worcester, Massachusetts, an urban farmers' group called "The Shop" built a greenhouse for year-round produce, but it became too cold to sustain plant growth during winter. Drawing on the group's composting experience, a project examined using biogas -- methane from anaerobic digestion of organic waste -- to heat the greenhouse, calculating the energy needed to heat the space and the expected energy yield from different available substrates using data from case studies and other sources. The results verified biogas as a viable way to heat the greenhouse at The Shop.

Vanessa Aparecida Camargo, Maria Christina de Mello Amorozo, Marcos Aparecido Pizano · Cadernos de Agroecologia · Brazil (São Paulo)

A study of urban agriculture in Charqueada, São Paulo state, Brazil, georeferenced all 97 cultivated vacant lots in the urban area; 77 were selected for farmer questionnaires characterizing the population and the lots, and a subsample of 30 lots was surveyed in detail for all crops via a guided walkthrough. Results showed 80% of farmers were men over age 50 with low income, though the activity was not essential to their subsistence. Among 75 types of food plants cultivated, cassava (mandioca) was present in over 90% of lots, with a preference for crops requiring little investment. The activity was practiced informally, motivated by a desire to grow plants, without any public or private support.

Block K., Gibbs L., Staiger P., Gold L., Johnson B., Macfarlane S., Long C., Townsend M. · Health Education & Behavior, 39(4):419-432 · Australia

A mixed-methods evaluation of Australia's Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. It reported social and learning benefits including increased student engagement, confidence and willingness to try new foods, plus experiential, integrated learning and stronger school-community connections.

Guitart D., Pickering C., Byrne J. · Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 11(4):364-373 · Global

Review of English-language community gardens research, summarizing who studies them, locations, methods, plants grown, participants, and the motivations, benefits and limitations, while outlining future research directions.

Forrest M. · Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes · Ireland

This historical study documents the government-sponsored urban food production schemes introduced in Ireland between 1917 and 1923 in response to World War I food shortages, tracing how allotment promotion policies were administered by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction and the Local Government Board.

Aleenah Mehta · Undergraduate Journal of Service Learning & Community-Based Research · United States

Framed around the argument that obesity and food insecurity in the United States are increasingly understood as conjoined rather than mutually exclusive problems, this paper introduces the Fruit of Folks Project as an urban farming response to local hunger. The abstract notes that the industrial food model's emphasis on producing ever greater quantities of food can itself threaten food security, defined as a person's or community's access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.

Marit Rosol · Antipode · Germany (Berlin)

Documents how Berlin's municipal policy of promoting community gardening was an attempt to outsource public green-space maintenance to unpaid volunteers under 'roll-back'/'roll-out' neoliberalism. Based on empirical research, it shows the outsourcing strategy largely FAILED (volunteers could not sustain provision) while opening space for other private interests.

Winifred Curran, Trina Hamilton · Local Environment · USA (Brooklyn, NYC)

Coins 'just green enough' by showing how conventional green-amenity planning triggers environmental gentrification and displacement of working-class residents; argues greening policy must be deliberately constrained to avoid the speculative development it otherwise unleashes.

Efrat Eizenberg · International Journal of Urban and Regional Research · USA (New York City)

After the Giuliani-era threat to NYC gardens, land-trust/NGO 'rescue' models became the governance solution; the paper shows how this institutionalization altered community space—trading grassroots autonomy for managerial control and revealing the trade-offs of the policy fix.

Annie Crane, Leela Viswanathan, Graham Whitelaw · Local Environment · Canada (Kingston, Ontario)

This paper examines guerrilla gardening as an example of sustainability in action, using participatory action research methods. Two case studies were developed in Kingston, Ontario: Dig Kingston, a guerrilla gardening project, and the Oak Street Community Garden. The research found that interventions like guerrilla gardening open up unexpected possibilities for conceptualizing sustainability and contribute to producing engaging and sustainable communities.