Research & reports

Kristen McIvor, Craig Cogger, Sally Brown · Compost Science & Utilization · United States (Tacoma)

A study in Tacoma, Washington, evaluated the effects of two biosolids-based soil products, Tagro and GroCo, on soil physical and chemical properties in three urban community gardens over two growing seasons. Amendments were applied at 200 Mg ha−1 dry weight in the first year, with half receiving an additional 200 Mg ha−1 in the second year. Biosolids did not significantly affect total soil metal concentrations, but increased water infiltration rates from 10.1 ± 0.95 ml min−1 to 51–212 ml min−1, decreased bulk density from 1.07 ± 0.01 g cm−3 to 0.51–0.77 g cm−3, and increased total carbon, nitrogen, and available phosphorus. Biosolids addition also decreased soil pH from 6.43 to 5.35–5.75.

Anna‐Katarina Schilling, Helmut Hotzel, Ulrich Methner, Lisa D. Sprague, Gernot Schmoock, Hosny El‐Adawy, Ralf Ehricht, Anna-Caroline Wöhr, Michael Erhard, Lutz Geue · Applied and Environmental Microbiology · Germany

This study investigated the presence of zoonotic agents in small ruminants kept on city farms in southern Germany, sampling feces and nasal liquid from 48 animals (28 goats, 20 sheep) across 7 city farms and one activity playground. Findings revealed that 100% of sampled sheep and 89.3% of goats carried Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). Staphylococcus spp. were detected in 75% of both sheep and goats, and Campylobacter spp. in 25% of sheep and 14.3% of goats. Neither Salmonella spp. nor Coxiella burnetii was found.

Huang Xue-qun · · China (Tianjin)

This paper analyzed the development status of Tianjin urban fishery, finding it to be in an early stage. Problems identified included a low level of industrial development, an unscientific development mode, and weak innovation capability. The study proposed development paths and measures for industrial transformation and upgrading.

Batanai L Sammie, Charles Nyamutowa, Munyaradzi Gwazane · International Journal of Scientific Research · Zimbabwe

This study used FGDs and case studies to identify perceived causes of failure of NGO urban agriculture initiatives in Zimbabwe. The study identified the principal-agent relationship between NNGOs and LNGOs as the epicenter of all initiative failures.

Mahbubur Meenar, Jeffrey P. Featherstone, Amy Laura, Julia McCabe · · United States

A paper examining urban agriculture in United States post-industrial cities, which since the mid-20th century have experienced dramatic loss of population, community resources, and economic growth even as their wider metropolitan areas continued to grow, and which are characterised by high levels of crime, substance abuse, unemployment, poverty, food insecurity, vacant land, and urban blight. Many such communities rely on urban agriculture as a means of food security and sustainability as well as community resilience, vacant-land remediation, and neighbourhood development, yet the paper argues that urban agriculture has been treated as a temporary, informal land use, with land tenure conflict causing the untimely demise of many projects. In terms of urban design, it further argues that urban agriculture projects in many cities have developed as a "patchwork," lacking physical connectivity to other gardens, open spaces, and community infrastructure.

Community Gardening Works! ACGA 2011 Conference, Mara Gittleman, Kelli Jordan, Eric Brelsford · Cities and the Environment · United States (New York City)

This paper is a case study of Farming Concrete, a community-based project in New York City, which has more than 500 community gardens, over 80% of which host food production according to a 2010 GrowNYC survey. Using citizen science methods in which gardeners and researchers jointly designed and conducted the research, the project measured how much food was grown in New York City community gardens in 2010 and 2011.

Sarah Schindler · Faculty publications · United States

This article addresses the conflict between local governments and "locavores" seeking to use private property to produce food — for personal use and for sale — and municipal zoning ordinances that separate agriculture from residential uses. It examines the police power rationales behind ordinances disallowing urban homesteading in urban and suburban communities, then argues that public health, civic virtue, and free market principles can justify ordinances expressly permitting these activities. It discusses problems associated with industrial agriculture — food insecurity, food deserts, obesity tied to processed foods, monoculture-induced environmental harm, harm to animals, and greenhouse gas emissions — that could be partly alleviated through urban agriculture, noting that some local governments have already begun passing ordinances expressly allowing gardens, chickens, and the sale of produce in residential areas.

Batanai L Sammie, Munyaradzi Gwazane, Charles Nyamutowa · International Journal of Scientific Research · Zimbabwe

A 2012 questionnaire survey of 40 cultivators in Gweru, Zimbabwe, collected baseline demographic information on urban open field cultivation. It found that 58% of field owners were men, 76% were between 25 and 65 years old, and children contributed 35% of the labor; education levels were 15% tertiary/university, 5% "A"-level, 48% "O"-level, and 27% primary. The study concludes that open field cultivation is a family practice engaged in across all social classes and recommends legitimizing urban agriculture as an integral part of Zimbabwean urban life.

배민기 · 충북 FOCUS · South Korea

A 2012 policy report reviews the state of neighborhood parks and green space in Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea, and argues for strategic planning to expand and improve them. Noting that since 2005 the quantity of park and green space has increased but its variety remains limited and its distribution regionally uneven, it recommends actively expanding park-type urban agriculture (housing-based, neighborhood-based, downtown, farm-and-park, and school-education urban agriculture parks), expanding roadside green strips and street greening, closing service gaps in park and green space provision, rooftop greening tied to building characteristics, soft measures such as box gardens, seedling distribution, and urban ecosystem education programs, and using green-space-use contracts, "green owner" systems, ordinance development, and budget allocation.

Keith Sterling Miller · University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy (University of Minnesota) · Global

This literature review was conducted to support the design of a Community Garden Social Impact Assessment Toolkit. Its first section reviews key literature defining social capital, including its forms, distinctions, and conceptual limits; its second section reviews the most relevant research literature on social capital and community gardens. The review played three roles in developing the toolkit: providing a conceptual foundation for social capital, informing an interview guide used with community garden stakeholders, and shaping reflection exercise questions within the toolkit. To make the toolkit accessible to a wide and diverse audience, it deliberately avoids the phrase "social capital," instead using language that captures its essence and meaning as defined in the literature.

Lucien Armel Awah Manga, D. Kovačević · · Cameroon

Using survey data collected by the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) among urban-farming households in the lowland area of Yaounde, Cameroon, a multinomial logit model analyzed the factors affecting choice of solid waste disposal method. Household size and accessibility of the residential area increased the probability of choosing municipal infrastructure (bins and garbage trucks) over recycling or illegal dumping, while longer years of residence, more agricultural experience, and greater distance to communal containers promoted illegal dumping or recycling instead. Given low waste-collection rates in the area, the study recommends building waste transfer stations in or near the lowland areas to support both household waste management and farming activities.

Sima Patel, Rod MacRae · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Canada

A land parcel analysis in Toronto, Canada identified 77 parcels totaling 1,270 acres (514 hectares) of potential land for community supported agriculture (CSA) farming — about 1 percent of the city's surface area — with much of it located in northeast Toronto. Five commercially viable scenario types were constructed with varying land use, zoning, institutional and residential characteristics, but considerable challenges remain for widespread implementation, leading to policy and program recommendations including pilot projects, institutional linkages, program supports, training and extension.

Andrea Calori · TERRITORIO · Global

The essay traces how agriculture has long been part of the urban planning policies of many cities and international institutions, while noting that agriculture and rural development only recently entered planning debates, delayed as part of the broader development of planning shaped by the 'overcoming of the rural' made explicit by 'modern' development. It connects several key turning points in how the role of the rural has been reconstructed globally in recent decades, offering new content for future action plans.

孟兴 · 中国乡镇企业 · China

A news report describes the Binhai Eco-Agriculture Science Park in the Tanggu new town of Tianjin's Binhai New Area, China, where a large glass roof had been completed and interior fitting and climate-control testing were underway ahead of its planned opening for the October 1, 2012 National Day holiday as a 100,000-square-meter urban agriculture park. The park is described as offering dining amid tropical plants, water play in what is called the world's largest indoor hot spring, and organic fruit and vegetable picking and agricultural learning in large greenhouses.

O. Yusuf, Idowu Innocent Abbas · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Nigeria

A study of resource use and productivity among 70 urban farmers drawn from the two main cultivator groups—Fadama and Okiti—in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria, using focus group discussion, non-participant observation, and a questionnaire survey. Multiple regression analysis identified pump-machine use, vegetable-plot harvest, use of modern inputs, and labor type as determinants of efficiency, together accounting for 89.6% of the contribution to land use, the main resource. Fadama cultivators operated at a larger scale with correspondingly higher profit than Okiti cultivators, and although both groups faced similar environmental and input-access constraints, the two systems differed fundamentally in scale and production efficiency.

Zai Xue-ming · Horticulture & Seed · Global

A Chinese report on building a practical teaching system for applied urban horticulture talent, using the College of Horticulture at Jinling Institute of Technology as a case example, addressing systematic skills training, improving the occupational skills of urban gardening talent, and enhancing students' innovation and entrepreneurial capability.

Dan Stafford · · United States

A library web page introducing the presenters for a school garden workshop at Kutztown University in the United States, describing it as a learning opportunity for educators and parents featuring speakers and demonstrations on building a sustainable community partnership.

Kristen B. Crossney, Emily Shellenberger · · United States

A study examining the relationship between neighborhood quality and the presence of community gardens in Philadelphia, United States. Neighborhoods were characterized by population and neighborhood factors including race, ethnicity, and income, and t-tests assessed the statistical significance of differences between areas with a community garden and other parts of the city. The statistical results showed that while areas with community gardens faced more socioeconomic challenges, they underwent more positive change and improvement between 2000 and 2010 than other parts of the city.

Sofie Engberg · · Global

This study takes a corporate perspective on urban farming to identify factors enabling value creation, using a qualitative approach combining a literature review with a case study -- document analysis and interviews -- of an urban farming corporation that uses greenhouses for production. Drawing on stakeholder theory, triple-bottom-line theory and hybrid organisation theory, it concludes that urban farming can generate economic, environmental and social value simultaneously, that enabling factors include favourable resource availability and active stakeholder dialogue, and that greenhouse cultivation allows for minimal use of pesticides and fertilizers.

FALLETTI, MADDALENA · TERRITORIO · Italy

This 2012 introductory piece for the Italian journal TERRITORIO reorganizes contributions on urban agriculture by subject matter to surface several contradictory aspects of the ongoing debate. It offers three interpretive keys: the first reproduces the debate within its own sealed compartments while attempting comparison through juxtaposition of contrasting attitudes; the second highlights a transverse conceptual dichotomy with strong implications for planning — urban agriculture as a remedy for city problems versus the urban countryside as a new form of urban plan; the third examines the debate in the specific context of Milan.

John Jacob, Samuel E. Kakulu · American Journal of Chemistry · Nigeria

Soil and vegetable samples (spinach, jute mallow, and tomato) were collected from farms and gardens across 20 zones within Kaduna, Nigeria, plus two rural control villages about 30 km from the city, and analyzed for heavy metals by Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. Pollution Load Index results showed soils in the city farms were moderately enriched with cadmium and chromium and strongly enriched with lead and nickel from anthropogenic sources. Mean soil concentrations of lead and cadmium exceeded WHO/FAO permissive limits for agricultural soil (nickel and chromium did not), while vegetable metal concentrations exceeded the permissive limits for every metal except nickel — a finding flagged as concerning given the toxicity of lead and cadmium in particular, which have no known biological use.

Amadou Diop, Seyni Ndiaye · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Senegal

A study replicating earlier field surveys on crop yields and nutritional benefits of urban farming in Dakar, Senegal, using standardized sampling across selected urban villages. Crop yields from the replicated plots showed an average increase of 15% over initial estimates, with significant variation between crop types such as vegetables versus grains. Nutritional analysis found that urban farming increased micronutrient content in staple foods by up to 20%, particularly in leafy greens and fruits.

Zilian LIN, K. Akiyama · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · Taiwan

A study examining the progress of Taiwan's rural planning policy, implemented by the government for more than five decades, from the perspective of community building. As a case study focused on seven points, the analysis finds that an industrial-prosperity policy supporting rural communities, carried out in cooperation with relevant authorities, resulted in rural community promotion. Residents were generally satisfied with the implementation of the plans, but the study also identifies remaining issues, including strengthening a direct-sales system, better grasping residents' needs, coordinating with broader-based plans, maintaining urban agricultural land, and government support services.

Zoey Rogers, Elizabeth Bragg · Ecopsychology · Australia

This study examined what motivates residents of Melbourne, Australia, to lead an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, focusing specifically on the role of "sense of place." Nineteen in-depth interviews were conducted with residents engaged in three types of sustainability activism: personal (e.g., energy and water saving, shopping at farmers' markets), group (e.g., community gardens, sharing neighborhood goods), and political (e.g., lobbying and organizing for structural change). Participants did report a sense of place in Melbourne, but what motivated their action was a broader sense of connection with nature and the planet, awareness of the human-made and cultural/political environment, and their personal health, relationships and community — not necessarily tied to a specific geographical location within the city. Motivating factors differed slightly across activist types, though connection with nature was consistent across all groups; the authors suggest that in urban settings, local sense of place may act as an enabler and reinforcer of action — providing a place to act and people to act with — rather than as a motivator in itself.

Maira Echeverry, Sebastián Gutiérrez, Julián Pineda, Nelson Ravelo · · Colombia

This account describes Barrio San Luis, an informal settlement on the eastern hills of Chapinero, Bogotá, Colombia, formed by rural-to-urban displacement and still undergoing legalization, where residents obtained services such as a community-run water system through collective organizing. It describes the Casa Taller Las Moyas, a project founded roughly seven years earlier to serve neighborhood children and youth left without care while parents work, offering workshops in baking, ceramics, crafts and urban agriculture in two daily shifts organized around school schedules; the text ends mid-sentence and provides no further data on the seed-conservation activities named in the title.