Research & reports

Caitlin K. Kirby, Kathrin Specht, Runrid Fox-Kämper, Jason K. Hawes, Nevin Cohen, Silvio Caputo, Rositsa T. Ilieva, Agnès Lelièvre, Lidia Poniży, Victoria Schoen, Chris Blythe · Landscape and Urban Planning · Europe; United States

This study quantitatively assessed motivations and social impacts across different urban agriculture types using survey data from 74 sites in Europe and the US. It identified four scales: general wellbeing, nutritional health, economic interests, and socialization motivations. Multivariate analysis revealed significant differences in motivations and reported impacts across urban agriculture types. Participants with stronger economic interests, socialization motivations, or who were plot owners/operators reported greater general wellbeing impacts.

Åsa Ahrland · University of Vienna · Europe

A historical study by the University of Vienna focused on Södermalm, a central part of Stockholm, Sweden, that for a long time combined industrial production, trade, craft and cultivation. It shows that agricultural fields there did not disappear until after World War II, challenging the common assumption that nineteenth-century rectilinear town planning was the main factor that ended urban agriculture. The study argues that the view of agriculture as incompatible with modern city life, together with the "green city" concept built on parks and other green spaces, was tied to interpretations of modernity in the Swedish welfare state's emphasis on rationality and efficiency, which produced a dichotomy between urbanity and rurality.

Elisabeth Ziss, Wolfgang Friesl‐Hanl, Sophia Götzinger, Christoph Noller, Markus Puschenreiter, Andrea Watzinger, Rebecca Hood‐Nowotny · Sustainability · Europe

In the "Heavy Metal City-Zen" citizen science project, community members in urban gardens in Vienna, Austria collaborated on collecting soil and plant samples to assess heavy metal contamination risk. Trace metal concentrations were generally below guideline thresholds, but at a few garden sites soil concentrations of lead, cadmium and zinc exceeded Austrian recommended limits, and at two sites plant trace metal concentrations exceeded European food standard limits; the project proposes expanding the citizen-led sampling to all of Vienna so new gardens can assess local soil risk before planting.

Clare Jackson, Sara Ronzi · Health Education & Behavior · United Kingdom

A 2021 study used photovoice methods to explore residents' perceptions and experiences of "The Grange," a community-led, multifaceted intervention incorporating a community hub and garden in a small, high-deprivation, poor-health area of North-West England. Through photographs, semi-structured interviews, a focus group, and a photo exhibition, it engaged intensively with six residents, who identified positive and negative aspects of activities such as the community garden and community shop and communicated recommendations directly to policymakers at the exhibition event. Participants reported valuing the culture of inclusivity and friendship associated with The Grange more than the specific activities themselves.

Ronan Crézé · Lectures · Europe

This is a review of a book by geographer Flaminia Paddeu that presents an immersion into urban agriculture through observation of multiple field experiences, described as contributing to the institutionalization of urban agricultural commons. The book's central subject is the land, understood both as soil (urban and agricultural) and as the site hosting ecosystems. While this subject has already been explored by sociologists, agronomists, and anthropologists, the author develops her own reflection on it.

Perla Zambrano-Prado, Francesco Orsini, Joan Rieradevall, Alejandro Josa, Xavier Gabarrell · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Europe

A study developing a framework and overview of key factors, policies, and barriers associated with rooftop urban agriculture (RUA) integration, based on stakeholder perspectives in four European cities—Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, and Paris—via a two-phase workshop and stakeholder survey. While education, environmental, research, technological innovation, food production, and social factors were found to play an important role in implementing RUA, the cost of water and pollution emerged as major contextual factors constraining it. Policies related to food trade and urban planning were the most limiting to RUA development, and major architectural and technical barriers were identified around building height limits, historical buildings, lack of specific building codes, and roof accessibility, with high infrastructure costs and policies prohibiting RUA product sales acting as economic constraints. The cities differed significantly in the perceived effect of urban policy on RUA diffusion and the perceived relevance of economic and pollution factors, and the study concludes that wider dissemination of RUA information and new or revised regulations and building codes are needed.

Ágnes Gagyi, Csaba Jelinek, Zsuzsanna Pósfai, András Vígvári · · Europe

This chapter examines the 2000s housing financialization wave in Hungary, analysing financial over-inclusion and exclusion -- alternating dynamics of reaping gains and externalizing costs. It shows that "intermediate" rural-urban transitional zones are prime areas for high-risk mortgage lending while also containing spaces excluded from institutionalized housing finance, using as its case study an allotment garden where households combine formal jobs and mortgage repayment with informal dwelling to reduce housing costs, arguing that such informal reproductive solutions function as a resource for capital accumulation through inclusion and exclusion.

Hanna Weber, David D. Loschelder, Daniel J. Lang, Arnim Wiek · Journal of Marketing Management · Germany

An intervention study with 136 consumers, recruited at a fair for sustainable products and lifestyles in Germany, compared three experiential marketing interventions—a promotional video, an in-person presentation, and a mindful tasting experience—designed to connect consumers with the producers of Teikei Coffee, an international Community Supported Agriculture coffee partnership. All three interventions, to varying degrees, created connections between consumers and producers and thereby fostered sustainable consumption behaviour.

Bethan R. Mead, Jessica Davies, Natalia Falagán, Sofia Kourmpetli, Lingxuan Liu, Charlotte A. Hardman · Emerald Open Research · United Kingdom

A cross-sectional online survey conducted during the UK national lockdown in March–April 2020 measured home food growing, perceived food insecurity, well-being and opinions of urban agriculture (UA). Participants were 477 UK-based adults (369 female, mean age 39.57 ± 13.36 years), of whom 152 had been engaged in home food growing before the pandemic; responses were compared with a separate sample collected before the pandemic (N=583). Participants who engaged in home food growing had lower food insecurity (U=19894.50, z=−3.649, p<0.001, r=−0.167) and higher well-being (U=19566.50, z=−3.666, p<0.001, r=−0.168) than those who did not grow food at home. Perceived food insecurity partially mediated the relationship between home food growing and well-being. Opinions of UA showed no difference compared with the pre-pandemic sample. Home food growing may have had a protective effect on perceived food security and well-being in the early stages of the pandemic, and opinions of UA remained positive and unchanged relative to pre-pandemic levels.

Elia Apostolopoulou · · Europe (Greece)

Focusing on the two largest Greek cities, Athens and Thessaloniki, this study examines why urban community gardening surged after the 2008 financial crash, drawing on urban political ecology, radical social and urban geography, and qualitative social research. Greece is treated as a distinctive case: it saw this post-2008 increase in community gardening without having a prior long history of the practice, unlike parts of the Global South. The author concludes that the creation of community gardens is tied to rising inequality in European cities in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, functioning both as an act of disobedience against the grabbing of public land and as a demand for reclaiming the urban commons.

Justyna Mokras-Grabowska · Konwersatorium Wiedzy o Mieście · Poland

A structured interview survey of 210 plot holders across four allotment gardens in Warsaw, Poland ("Pratulińska", "Obrońców Pokoju", "Kolejarz" and "Zelmot") examined current usage trends. Plot holders were mainly older, retired people, though the number of younger holders has been increasing in recent years, and most lived on large housing estates near the gardens. The main motivations for holding a plot were relaxation, gardening as a hobby and connection with nature; food production itself was not cited as a primary motivation. Most respondents held positive views on opening allotment gardens to local communities, but showed little eagerness to participate in integrational events organized by the Polish Association of Allotment Gardens (PZD) or others.

Henriques, Carolina Neto, Costa Pinto, Teresa, Costa, Pedro, Marat-Mendes, Teresa · Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) · Europe

This paper analyzes local actors driving food-system transformation in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA), Portugal. It compares a 2014 questionnaire survey of planning officials with the discourses of 80 public- and civil-society-sector initiatives surveyed in 2019, characterizing the initiatives, examining how they are shaping new food planning agendas in the LMA, and drawing on a framework from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF) to identify lessons for future planning policy grounded in inter-municipal cooperation and continuous mutual learning.

Pascale Scheromm, Louis Cretin · Cahiers ESPI2R · Europe

Against the backdrop of the spread of shared gardens across European cities, this article focuses on their insertion into residential projects led by private property developers rather than municipalities, examining what issues this raises. It frames municipally driven shared gardens as well studied while noting that their development within private developers' residential programs has received less research attention.

Melanie Jans-Singh, Rebecca Ward, Ruchi Choudhary · Journal of Building Performance Simulation · United Kingdom

A study addressing the lack of quantification of combined building-integrated greenhouse performance developed a building energy simulation (BES) of an archetype school building in EnergyPlus, co-simulated with a validated greenhouse energy simulator (GES), for school buildings in London, UK. Different greenhouse-building coupling configurations were evaluated via sensitivity analysis and a parametric study to estimate potential crop growth, heat recovery, and reduction in ventilation demand. A 250 m2 greenhouse on the top floor of the school could produce 6 t of lettuce with half the energy demand of an equivalent standalone greenhouse. Trade-offs among increased humidity, yields, and energy efficiency show that modeling is needed to ensure optimal designs.

Paola Branduini, Elena Colli · Landscape Research · Italy

A qualitative sociological analysis examined a policy tool used by public landowners in peri-urban Milan, Italy, who introduced new lease agreements transferring the maintenance costs of built rural heritage to tenants, aiming to avoid degradation and add value to unused buildings. Analyzing the tool through the lens of social justice and its impact on quality of life, the study found that the same policy tool produces very different outcomes for landscape preservation and quality of life depending on the implementation strategy used, and on the elements of social justice considered along with contextual and individual characteristics.

Peter Bengtsen · Street Art & Urban Creativity · Europe

This editorial for the journal Street Art and Urban Creativity reports that since 2015 the journal has published six issues comprising 84 research articles along with essays, working papers, and book reviews. It cites the journal, the annual Urban Creativity conference in Lisbon, and the Urban Creativity Lund research network as signs that the field of urban creativity studies is becoming increasingly established. The field is described as covering a broad range of interests including, but not limited to, street art, graffiti, urban foraging, parkour, skateboarding, and guerrilla gardening, with the editorial noting that as a field settles, a dominant paradigm tends to emerge. As part of the issue's call for submissions, it invites contributions reflecting on the current status and future of this transdisciplinary academic field, which has developed over the past two decades.

Tatiane de Jesus Marques Souza, Mamen Cuéllar Padilla · RACO (Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert) (Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya) · Spain

Food crises directly influence children's development across different social contexts, and school gardens are proposed as one response to this issue. This study presents an analysis tool for the innovative contributions a school garden can make by combining educational processes with social inclusion in impoverished contexts. Developed through a thorough review of the scientific literature, the tool was applied to a case study to demonstrate its usefulness. The main conclusion is that while school gardens per se have high innovative potential as an educational tool, whether that potential is realized depends on the garden's origin, its design, and the development process that accompanies it.

Aleksandra Płonka, Ewa Heczko-Hylowa, Wojciech Sroka · EUROPEAN RESEARCH STUDIES JOURNAL · Europe

This paper examines French solutions to identify the role spatial planning plays in the restitution and development of urban agriculture and in shaping the sustainable development of metropolitan areas. Its methodology is a descriptive case study using qualitative research, with an empirical basis consisting mainly of the urban plans of two French cities, Paris and Lyon, together with related literature and legislative acts.

Nora Gavare · Landscape architecture and art · Europe

In Sigulda, Latvia, the community garden "AUDZ," open to everyone, was created as a local, small-scale response to 21st-century problems including the depletion of natural resources, air pollution, rising industrial production, waste and an aging society. Designer Nora Gavare took part in an ERASMUS+ international training mobility visit on "Development of urban environment" in Hong Kong, where she gained insight into overpopulation, rapid urban growth at the expense of natural habitat, and rising food product demand. Photo mapping of Sigulda's public environment across different periods led to the conclusion that, given the town's rapidly growing population, fostering a sense of community and education processes is needed because opportunities for interaction among different social groups are lacking.

András Halbritter · Évkönyv · Europe

Following its boom period in the 19th and 20th centuries, Hungary's school garden movement is described as undergoing a new phase tied to sustainability education, with the number of school and kindergarten gardens growing rapidly. Knowledge sharing takes place through the Hungarian School Garden Network across the Carpathian Basin, and in 2019 the Ministry of Agriculture launched a School Garden Development Programme; school-garden pedagogy has been added to teacher and vocational-teacher training curricula, with further support from international projects.

Kristine Valle, Eli Mari Øverdahl, Stephanie Degenhardt, Kim Weger, Wendy Fjellstad, Sebastian Eiter · Duo Research Archive (University of Oslo) · Europe

Participating in a neighbourhood and community garden produces positive social and emotional effects along with satisfaction from growing food. Adults and teenagers participating in gardening activities at Linderud farm in Oslo, Norway, most commonly reported positive experiences related to social networks, growing food, feelings/emotions, and aesthetics.

Lovisa Ekvall · · Europe

A study examines how social capital is generated within community gardens through semi-structured qualitative interviews with members holding board positions, drawing on the theoretical framework of prior studies by Firth et al. (2011) and Kingsley and Townsend (2006). The findings indicate that the professional roles and education of those in administrative positions are important for building social capital, and that good relations with municipal and public authority representatives strengthen it further. The study identifies the creation of a "third place" for unconstrained interaction among participants, and working in smaller groups, as factors that open opportunities for inclusion and new relationships.

Ines Peper · University of Vienna · Europe

A paper on Eisenheim, a company housing settlement founded in 1844 near Oberhausen in Germany's Ruhr region by the mining company Gutehoffnungshütte, historically situates today's discourse on urban agriculture. It examines urban gardening and agricultural facilities at Eisenheim, then places the case within the broader development of urban agriculture from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, comparing it to four other "model villages" — including those of Krupp, BASF, and Farbwerke Höchst — with differing ideological and socio-economic backgrounds. The analysis centers on how access to land was organized and what property regimes affected long-term preservation of agricultural land use, how subsistence agriculture affected residents' food resilience, diet quality, and household income formation, and how subsistence gardening and settlements' green-space layout contributed to residents' community life.

Hüseyin Berk TÜRKER · Opus uluslararası toplum araştırmaları dergisi · Turkey

This study surveyed the opinions and attitudes toward urban agriculture of 40 third-year undergraduate students from various departments at Uşak University, Turkey—which had recently launched the country's first undergraduate-level urban agriculture course—using an online questionnaire with 19 multiple-choice, yes/no, and fill-in-the-blank questions, analyzed with descriptive statistics and chi-square tests. The results showed students' opinions of the course were positive, its content and materials were considered sufficient, the course was judged suitable for e-learning, and awareness of urban agriculture increased by the end of the course.

Yuliia V. Medvedeva, Анатолій Кучер, Joanna Lipsa, Maria Hełdak · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · Europe

A study assessed the safety of apples sampled across different functional zones of Kharkiv, Ukraine — from industrial areas to school gardens — for consumption. Heavy metal levels exceeded maximum allowable limits in apple samples from all sampling sites, with lead 11.47 to 38.86 times and cadmium 1.76 to 5.68 times the FAO/EU norms; the most contaminated samples came from residential areas, partly due to significant land pollution from various waste types. Hazard index (HI) values varied by age group: 24.37-70.11 for children aged 1-6, 10.28-29.59 for children aged 7-16, and 0.88-2.53 for adults aged 18-65. Non-carcinogenic risks were linked to disorders of the immune, blood, urinary, and nervous systems and to liver and kidney function, and the total carcinogenic risk from eating the apples exceeded the permissible level.