Research & reports

Katia Hernández Moreno · Milenaria Ciencia y arte · Mexico (Morelia)

This study analyzes the contributions of agricultural practice in the city of Morelia, Mexico, to the mental health of participants. The results presented are part of a broader investigation addressing the various components of urban agriculture on health and the urban environment, with this paper focusing solely on the mental health aspect.

Robson Andrade de Jesus, Maria José Nascimento Soares, Jailton de Jesus Costa, André Vinícius Bezerra de Andrade Silva · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Brazil

A study analysing the interdisciplinary educational practice of the "Organic Garden" project at the Colégio de Aplicação of the Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Brazil, implemented between 2015 and 2019. Using a qualitative approach based on Bardin's (2011) method, the study drew on testimonials from basic-education students, higher-education students, teachers, and administrative technicians. The results showed that while the project achieved integration across disciplines, more attention is needed to fostering appreciation of nature and encouraging biodiversity conservation within its limits.

Catherine Hughes · · Canada

This article reports on integrating outdoor education, including school gardens, into the Ontario kindergarten program in Canada. Written by a practicing kindergarten teacher based on a year of taking students outside daily, it describes the process of establishing nine gardens and activities such as composting and tree planting. The initiative is reported to have led to attainment of platinum eco-school certification, and the article advocates a return to Friedrich Froebel's concept of the "children's garden."

Natalie Call, Elizabeth Silber, E. Binney Girdler · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

This GIS-based study of Kalamazoo, Michigan, analyzed how accessibility to different types of food access points — full-service grocery stores, farmers markets, community gardens, food pantries, and convenience stores — differed between low-income and higher-income census tracts. All full-service grocery stores were accessible via bus routes, but 11% of residents in low-income areas lacked adequate access, living beyond the 0.25-mile walkable distance to bus routes. "Positive" access points such as community gardens, food pantries, and farmers markets were found to be concentrated in areas that already had grocery store access, whereas "negative" access points — convenience and dollar stores, which provide lower-quality, highly processed food — filled the access gap in lower-income areas instead. More than twice as many low-income residents had walkable access to convenience stores as higher-income residents, with 81% of those convenience stores located within low-income tracts.

Stella Schroeder · ASME Journal of Engineering for Sustainable Buildings and Cities · Peru

A mixed-methods case study in Piura, Peru, combined a questionnaire, participant observation, plot mapping and photography to examine informal community gardens occupying appropriated urban space. The study documents residents' motivations for cultivating these spaces, their use patterns, and maintenance needs, and discusses how such informal gardening could inform urban planning aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Tina McIntyre, Hamutahl Cohen, Rachel Gutner, Tiare Saracino, Esen Momol · EDIS · United States (Florida)

This is a five-page extension publication from the UF/IFAS Environmental Horticulture Department that provides a decision tree to help edible-landscape gardeners decide how to respond to wildlife in their growing areas. It states that while wild animals can damage crops, this need not require conflict, and aims to help gardeners become more accepting of wildlife species present in their managed area and coexist with them.

William Miyakava, Margarete Cristiane de Costa Trindade Amorim · Revista Geonorte · Brazil

This study examined the effects of urban agroforestry on climate elements in Presidente Prudente, Brazil, hypothesising that vegetation cover combined with urban agriculture positively influences urban climate dynamics. Automatic sensors recorded temperature and relative humidity at three points with distinct land cover -- a densely built urban area, an urban area with vegetation/agroforestry, and a rural point -- during representative wet (February) and dry (July) months of 2021, with space-time panels and rhythmic analysis graphs used to identify urban heat island (UHI) occurrence day and night. It found that low rainfall combined with high wind-direction variability and speed in February produced greater UHI intensity and magnitude both day and night, while July's low wind speed, low directional variation, near-zero rainfall and stable atmospheric conditions produced more homogeneous daytime UHI but heterogeneous, high-intensity nighttime UHI.

Vitória Oliveira Pereira de Souza Leão, Roberta Moraes Curan, Paulo Eduardo Moruzzi Marques · Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional · Brazil (São Paulo)

Since early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has had major impacts on the world's population, and concerns about food supply — particularly for the most vulnerable populations — gained prominence among international bodies, Brazilian public institutions, researchers and civil society (2023). Difficulty responding to the crisis, especially misalignment of buffering measures across levels of Brazilian government and compounded by threats to democracy, produced a picture of absent effective public planning for food and nutrition security. In this context, urban and peri-urban agriculture (AUP), combined with food solidarity initiatives, emerged as a strategic means of food access in the most vulnerable urbanized regions, while allowing farmers to maintain their income. This article examines different food supply actions in the municipality of São Paulo, Brazil, at the peak of the pandemic, focusing especially on new dynamics among seven urban and peri-urban farmers representative of the situation in São Paulo's main production regions. Beyond social coordination among different solidarity groups in the municipality, the article highlights the role of short, proximity-based distribution circuits in sustaining local production and ensuring food consumption for food-insecure populations, amid a marked shortage of emergency food and nutrition security policies.

Emmanuel Roux, David Himmelgreen · Futurum Careers · United States (Florida)

Well-being is closely tied to the food we eat and the places where it is grown; healthy soils produce nutrient-dense food that supports physical and mental health. For city residents, finding fresh, good-quality local food can be difficult. At 15th Street Farm in Florida, United States, Emmanuel Roux and Professor David Himmelgreen run an education project helping local families learn about their local food systems and make healthier food choices (2023).

Heather Kirk-Ballard, Kristine M. Lang, Esther McGinnis, Kerry Smith, Lucy Bradley · HortTechnology · United States

The 2021 Extension Master Gardener (EMG) National Summary reported an estimated 84,700 volunteers across the United States, who helped communities grow food, supported physical and mental health activities, worked on environmental projects, and together contributed 3.1 million hours of education worth $88 million to the public. The COVID-19 pandemic created challenges for the program, prompting many states to reduce requirements and increase flexibility for volunteers; a 2022 ASHS conference workshop shared strategies from three Extension educators and EMG coordinators on engaging volunteers in local food systems and community gardens despite limited in-person contact.

Daniel R. George, Amy E. Ethridge · American Journal of Public Health · United States

A US article on nonprofit hospitals' community health needs assessments notes they are identifying a high prevalence of chronic diseases linked to poor diets, and have responded with nutrition-related initiatives such as farmers' markets and community gardens. It describes diverse strategies undertaken by the hospital-based community garden at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, and offers implications and implementation guidance for other US hospitals.

Sabine O’Hara · · United States

A book chapter introduces the people behind new urban agriculture and food systems innovations emerging in cities across the United States. These innovators come from all walks of life, and the ways they envision and implement more decentralized urban and peri-urban food systems are as varied as the people themselves. Their stories raise questions about which food systems innovations are most likely to create win-win outcomes of improved food security and improved sustainability. A transformation of the conventional food system is already under way, even in cities with less than optimal growing conditions, but much more remains to be done.

Mary Leou, Tania Goicoechea, Bethany Kogut · Catholic education/Catholic education (Dayton, Ohio. Online) · United States (New York City)

A report on "Bees Alive!", a civic ecology program run over three years by the NYU Wallerstein Collaborative for Urban Environmental Education & Sustainability in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. A university, public schools, non-profit organizations and the Lentol Garden community garden collaborated to establish a native-plant pollinator garden, funded by EPA Region 2, using place-based education and experiential learning theory to create an outdoor classroom that supports wildlife and teaches the public about pollinators.

Najma Abdullahi, Erika F. Werner, Patrick M. Vivier, Blythe Berger, Lauren Schlichting · PubMed · United States

A study using Rhode Island birth certificate data from 2015–2016 to evaluate whether proximity to food sources, rather than density, is associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) risk. Proximity analysis measured the distance from each pregnant person's home address to the nearest fast food restaurant, supermarket, and farmers market/community garden, and multivariable logistic regression tested the association between distance and GDM risk. Of 20,129 births meeting inclusion criteria, 7.2% (1,447) involved GDM. Distance to food sources varied by insurance type, education and race/ethnicity, but in the adjusted model there was no statistically significant association between distance to any food source and GDM.

Maureen Hartwell · Environmental Claims Journal · United States

This commentary examines Climate Action Plans (CAPs) that US municipalities have produced for more than thirty years, from a land-use law perspective. It notes that early CAPs often contained detailed but unaccountable, metric-free aspirations, whereas more recent CAPs have grounded themselves in land use law by integrating into comprehensive plans, amending zoning codes to meet urban agriculture goals, and offering expedited zoning procedures for CAP-compliant developers.

Tithi Sanyal, Geoffrey Thün, Fabian Neuhaus, Natalie Robertson · Architecture_MPS · United States

An essay arguing that American urban dwellers cohabited with livestock in ecologically diverse cities until the nineteenth century, until late-nineteenth-century urban livestock policies and industrial agricultural transformation displaced livestock to urban fringes and rural areas, shaping present-day food access and food justice issues. Detroit passed its Urban Agriculture Ordinance in 2013, formalizing decades of community-driven urban agricultural practice. Using Detroit as a case, the piece presents a speculative urban design proposal - the Riverbend Farming Cooperative, a courtyard-based cooperative farm incorporating permaculture and animal husbandry within a former residential superblock - to examine the possibilities and challenges of urban development models built around cohabiting with livestock.

Gabriela Rigote, Alessandra Xavier Bueno, Marco Akerman · Saúde e Sociedade · Brazil (São Paulo)

A qualitative study of seven women urban farmers in the eastern zone of São Paulo, Brazil, describing and analyzing everyday cooking practices and their relationship to the food system. Using narrated body maps - a creative visual research method in which participants drew their own body outlines - the study generated visual and oral data on the meanings of cooking, analyzed thematically. It found that cooking functions as a connector from field to table, mutually reinforcing urban and peri-urban agriculture practices, and serves as a tool promoting biopsychosocial wellbeing tied to social, economic and environmental sustainability.

Frank Seo, Darren Hudson · Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics · United States

To identify attributes that influenced consumers' choice of locally grown food sources during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, this US study estimated willingness to pay (WTP) across sources. Respondents valued Freshness, Accessibility, Variety, and Risk Shift attributes, in that order. Community-supported agriculture (CSA) had the lowest WTP among the sources examined, and respondents weighted CSAs' general weaknesses more heavily than their advantages when choosing where to buy. However, increasing levels of community outreach positively affected the probability of choosing CSAs over other sources.

Susana Moreira Padrão · Interagir pensando a extensão · Brazil

An essay reflecting on the potential of agroecological agriculture in Brazil within the context of the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its likely economic and social consequences. It presents economic and social indicators of rising unemployment and poverty, arguing that social inequality is likely to worsen in this scenario, with an immediate impact on rising food insecurity and hunger. Examples such as the Agroecological Fair at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), collective and community gardens in favelas, and productive backyards are cited as showing that actions reaching the most vulnerable population are possible to implement. The essay argues that agroecology and urban agriculture contribute effectively to promoting food and nutritional security and health, aiming at the human right to adequate food and population involvement in agroecology-based food cultivation, in pursuit of food autonomy.

Nathalie Nahas, Ugo Lachapelle · Findings · Canada

Through 16 qualitative interviews with community-supported agriculture (CSA) users in Montreal, Canada, researchers examined whether CSA use was accompanied by more ecological, non-motorized travel behavior. Urban users typically subscribed to a nearby drop-off point and many used non-motorized modes to collect their weekly baskets, but because of the baskets' weight and fixed collection windows, pickups by users who joined during the Covid-19 era were often folded into car-based trip chains.

Xiaoya Yuan · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

This is a book review, not original research, covering Justin Sean Myers' Growing Gardens, Building Power: Food Justice and Urban Agriculture in Brooklyn. The reviewed book documents the emergence and development of urban agriculture in East New York, presenting a detailed account of a community's collective effort to confront its racialized history of segregation and disinvestment while fighting for food sovereignty and social justice.

Mahbubur Meenar · Journal of the American Planning Association · United States (New York City)

A review of Justin Sean Myers's Growing Gardens, Building Power: Food Justice and Urban Agriculture in Brooklyn (2022, Rutgers University Press, 250 pages, $32.95). The review introduces food justice as a concept that emerged in the late 20th century in response to systemic inequalities in the food system and has since gained significant traction in both scholarly and professional circles.

Stacy M. Philpott, Azucena Lucatero, Sofie Andrade, Cameron R. Hernandez, Peter Bichier · Insects · United States (California)

This study examined how native plant species richness, garden management, and landscape composition affect the abundance and richness of native and non-native bees, ladybeetles, ants, and ground-foraging spiders in urban community gardens (urban agroecosystems) in California, United States. Native plants — about 10% of species but only about 2.5% of plant cover — had little influence on arthropods overall, with the only significant effect being a negative one on non-native spider richness, likely reflecting native plants' low cover. Garden size increased native and non-native bee abundance and richness and non-native spider richness; floral abundance increased non-native spider abundance and native and non-native spider richness; mulch cover and tree/shrub abundance increased non-native spider richness; and natural habitat cover increased non-native bee and native ant abundance but was associated with fewer native ladybeetle species. The study concludes that native plant richness does not strongly influence the abundance and richness of beneficial arthropods.

Tailana Fraga Lima, Ana Maria Girotti Sperandio · Revista Brasileira de Tecnologias Sociais · Brazil

Using a bibliographic and documentary survey with secondary data analysis in a descriptive qualitative approach, this article systematically examines the challenges in the Brazilian population's diet posed by excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods. It discusses the relationship between agriculture in urban space and dietary readjustment and food insecurity, observing that urban agriculture can produce effects that contribute both to addressing the public health problem of hunger and to the use of urban space. It argues that occupying underused and idle sites in the city for garden development promotes integrated urban spaces accompanied by changes in eating habits and behaviors, aligned with urban planning aimed at a healthy city.

Nataliya Apanovich, Seth Asare Okyere, Stephen Leonard Mensah, Louis Kusi Frimpong · Societal Impacts · United States

This study examined societal benefits gained by university students participating in community-based learning through the University of Arizona Community Garden (UACG) in Tucson, Arizona, using interviews, participant observation and student activities. Findings showed the community garden provided psychosocial benefits, including social interaction and connection with nature, for the participating students.