Research & reports

A. J. Gilbert, Yael Raviv · Women & Performance a journal of feminist theory · Global

The abstract for this record is incomplete. It introduces "Sharecropper," a series of micro farming installations, as an artistic, practical, and philosophical exploration of growing, cooking, and eating food within a community.

Leonie J. Pearson, Linda Pearson, Craig J. Pearson · Urban agriculture · Global

This paper reviews research on urban agriculture in relation to its social, economic, and environmental sustainability dimensions. It proposes that urban agriculture comprises three elements: isolated practice, its interface with people and environment, and its contribution to built form design, considering micro, meso, and macro scales. The analysis highlights legal, social, and economic constraints and opportunities, suggesting future research priorities include identifying principles for resilient city design and trialing innovative institutional mechanisms.

Maura Neves Coutinho, Heloísa Soares de Moura Costa · Revista Geografias · Brazil (Belo Horizonte)

This article discusses urban agriculture (UA) concepts and practices, focusing on initiatives in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, by both residents and local government. It considers UA's potential for ecological, productive, and inclusive cities, but notes the difficulty of secure access to urban land. The discussion on UA is still fragile and faces challenges in becoming an effective social policy.

Hui Wang · Guizhou nongye kexue · China

A SWOT analysis was conducted for urban agriculture in the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration, China, to provide a reference for its sustainable development. The analysis led to specific proposed strategies, including strengthening government support, developing agricultural industrialization, promoting technological innovation, establishing new service systems for production, management, and marketing, and developing leisure agriculture.

Mihye Won, Bertram C. Bruce · Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) · Global

This discussion explores the integration of community action projects, such as urban agriculture, into science education from a Deweyan perspective. It raises questions about valuing students' experiences and identity development, integrating community needs into science classes, and the availability of appropriate curricular resources and teacher commitment. The paper emphasizes considering students' experiences from science activities for scientific literacy.

Marie-Christine Zélem, Zelem, Marie-Christine · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Senegal (Dakar)

This study identifies numerous constraints hindering the widespread adoption of organic waste utilization in agriculture in the peri-urban area of Dakar, Senegal. These constraints include the nature, availability, and accessibility of organic waste, poorly controlled urbanization, effects of seasonal variation, resistance to changes, and medical risks. The project, which combines agriculture with city waste management, faces these challenges.

Maura Neves Coutinho, Heloísa Soares de Moura Costa · Anais ENANPUR · Brazil (Belo Horizonte)

This paper discusses urban agriculture (AU) practices occurring in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, both through informal and spontaneous initiatives by residents in peripheral neighborhoods and as an object of public intervention by the local government for specific purposes. The study concludes that secure access to urban land for maintaining AU practices is difficult, and the discussion on AU remains fragile, facing challenges for its implementation as a social policy impacting urban policies.

Shane J. Ralston · Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) · Global

This paper compared John Dewey's work on school gardening with Community Studies scholar Mary Beth Pudup's scholarship on the politics of gardening movements. The comparison is argued to be fruitful in exposing the political reasons for gardening education, relating school gardening to contemporary movements, and giving greater normative force to the call for creating more school garden projects.

Daniel Roehr, Isabel Kunigk · Berkeley Planning Journal · Canada (Metro Vancouver)

This article focuses on the role landscape architects and planners can take in creating urban food production landscapes, within the context of Metro Vancouver. Significant constraints to expansion exist due to geographical limitations, a steadily growing population, and large low-density residential areas. It is suggested that successful future food production strategies can be achieved by integrating urban agriculture into a wider city planning context and transcending the creation of community gardens.

Pierrette Hondagneu‐Sotelo · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · United States (Los Angeles)

This sociological study explores the diverse gardens of Los Angeles, including public parks, private residential gardens, a botanical garden, and urban community gardens. It aims to understand the meaning of engaging with these gardens, laboring in them, and being associated with them in both imagination and practice. The study posits that gardens serve as windows revealing the changing social and cultural landscape of Los Angeles.

David Tracey · · Global

This text outlines various ideas and designs for urban agriculture, ranging from small-scale indoor cultivation like windowsill herbs and sprouts to container gardening in tight spaces. It also covers integrating food-growing into backyards, utilizing front lawns for food movements, engaging in public and community gardening, establishing community orchards, and exploring future farm concepts for higher yields.

Noelle Corrigan · Arrow - TU Dublin (Technological University Dublin) · Global

Community gardens are locally organized initiatives where land is used to produce food or flowers in urban environments, varying widely in size and offerings. In Britain, there are 59 city farms and nearly 1,000 community gardens, while an estimated 18,000 exist across the US and Canada. Dublin has seen relatively recent development, with initial projects appearing since 2007. Urban agriculture is stated to provide physical, mental, and emotional health benefits to individuals and communities.

José Luis Galdeano Tostado · Creatividad y sociedad: revista de la Asociación para la Creatividad · Global

This paper observes an increasing awareness of environmental issues and neighborhood action in city centers, with concepts like urban gardens and self-managed spaces becoming more familiar. It suggests that vacant lands and unused building sites in cities offer significant potential for citizens' creative initiatives. The abstract does not present any specific findings on governance challenges or critical interventions.

John James Okiror, Biryabaho Matsiko, Joseph Oonyu · Journal of Agricultural Education · Uganda

This study, conducted in eight primary schools in Uganda, compared the learning achievement of pupils taught using supervised home gardens and those taught using school gardens. Data were collected over four school terms using questionnaires, focus group discussions, interviews, observations, and a posttest examination, and analyzed with a t-test. Findings showed no significant difference in knowledge achievement between the two groups of pupils.

Nerea Morán Alonso, Agustín Hernández Aja · · Europe

This historical review traces the functions and characteristics of urban agriculture (UA) in Western cities. It notes that UA flourished during economic and energy crises for self-sufficiency, serving subsistence, hygiene, and social control in the 19th century and patriotic functions during 20th-century world wars. Since the 1970s, UA projects have focused on local development, social integration, and environmental education, led by community and ecological organizations.

Antonio Lattuca · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Argentina (Rosario)

This article describes the process of creating urban agriculture in Rosario, Argentina. It explains how urban agriculture originated from civil society and subsequently became established as a municipal public policy.

Allanda Williams, Gabriel Laverty, Christopher S. Krumm, Julie M. Fagan · Rutgers University Community Repository (Rutgers University) · Haiti

This study analyzes the problems associated with world hunger and a possible solution involving the construction of a series of community gardens in Haiti.

Heather A. Okvat, Alex Zautra · American Journal of Community Psychology · Global

This paper introduces community gardening as a method to enhance well-being and resilience at individual, social, and environmental levels. It examines empirical evidence for gardening's benefits and advocates for developing and testing social ecological models of community resilience by studying the impact of urban community gardens. The paper also discusses the potential of community garden networks to address the global climate change crisis.

Božidar Manić, Crnčević Tijana, Ana Niković · Arhitektura i urbanizam · Serbia (Bela Crkva)

This paper examines the possibilities of improving urban settlement structure by interpolating passive protection concepts against climate change, specifically applying green areas in urban fabric planning. The research applies analysis of existing legislation, planning documents, literature, foreign practice, and in situ scanning. A case study of block 23 in Bela Crkva emphasizes the role of green areas, noting its specific position with planned housing near existing industry, and analyzes the possibility of affirming existing, spontaneously developed agriculture through planning guidelines, based on comparative examples of urban agriculture in foreign countries.

Alice Hu, Ángela Acosta, Abigail McDaniel, Joel Gittelsohn · Health Promotion Practice · United States

This qualitative study identified strategies to promote locally grown produce from an urban agriculture project, Produce From the Park (PFP), among low-income neighborhood residents and community organization representatives (20 interviews, 2 focus groups, 3 participant observations) in a mid-Atlantic city in the United States. Informants identified structural and cultural barriers to purchasing healthy food, including price, location, food culture, and lack of interest, and proposed strategies such as distribution via mobile food carts and farm stands, marketing new foods through taste tests and cooking demonstrations, and youth mentorship. These strategies were inexpensive and incorporated cultural norms and local assets.

De Ren Fu, Yao Zhi Huang · Advanced materials research · China (Taihu Lake)

Urban agricultural landscape is a composite functional system combining modern agriculture, rural culture, tourism and leisure, environmental education, and farming experience, dependent on agricultural production. With urban and rural development, urbanization, and agricultural modernization, metropolitan agricultural landscapes face significant impacts and challenges. This paper analyzes the relationship between rural and urban development and metropolitan agricultural landscapes, then proposes a strategy for the metropolitan agricultural landscape in Taihu Lake.

Nola-Kate Seymoar, Elizabeth Ballantyne, Craig J. Pearson · Urban agriculture · Asia

This paper describes the objectives, process, and outcomes of three urban greening projects in low-income communities in Bangkok, Thailand, and Badulla, Matale, Moratuwa, and Matara, Sri Lanka. These projects developed and validated a "Four-Directional Framework" for sustainable community development using participatory action research. Urban greening, incorporating urban agriculture, was found to be an effective tool for improving relationships between local authorities and residents and for building a foundation for sustainable development initiatives.

Siny Tsang, AM Holt, Eduardo Bessa Azevedo · Chronic diseases and injuries in Canada · Canada (Cobourg, Ontario)

This needs assessment in Cobourg, Ontario, interviewed food program clients to identify barriers to food access. Clients reported lack of transportation, insufficient food quantities, and inconvenient operating hours as barriers to using food programs. They also cited lack of available vegetables and fruit at home and income as barriers to consuming more produce.

Alma Clavin · Local Environment · Europe

This paper reports on the multiple impacts that community garden design may have on the subjective well-being of site users, using the capability approach as a normative framework. Qualitative research conducted in five community garden sites in the UK and Ireland in early 2011 yielded new explanations for both sustainable design and well-being. Two key design aspects, agency and dynamic balance, were found to enhance both the sustainability of the community garden sites and the well-being of site users.

Juliya Litichevskaya · Rutgers computer & technology law journal · United States (Chicago)

This note discusses the renewed interest in rooftop gardens due to environmental and economic concerns about energy use in buildings and cities. It highlights Chicago's initiatives, which include over 600 public and private green roofs covering two million square feet by 2011, representing 19% of US projects. The public sector, through tax incentives, grants, and regulations, has been the main stimulant for green roof development in cities like Chicago, Washington D.C., and New York City. International cities such as Toronto, Berlin, and Tokyo have also implemented mandatory green roof laws.