Research & reports

Giuseppina Pennisi · AMS Acta (University of Bologna) · Global

This paper describes an international workshop held in Turku, Finland, and online from September 2-4, 2020, as part of the EU-H2020 project FoodE. The workshop gathered 15 contributions, including two plenary lectures and 13 short presentations from PhD candidates from nine countries, to discuss innovation and sustainability in City/Region Food Systems (CRFS). Topics covered innovative plant production systems, sustainability assessment, short food chains, food waste management, urban agriculture, business models, and the water-food-energy nexus within cities.

Pozo Palacios, María Gabriela · · Ecuador (Cuenca)

This paper describes the context of urban agriculture in the historic center of Cuenca, Ecuador, highlighting challenges posed by urbanization and gentrification. It mentions the increase in urbanization rates in Latin America since 1950 and its impact on the food production sector. The paper also touches upon the tradition of private patios devoted to family farming in Cuenca's republican architectural typologies and the diminution of farming areas due to rising land prices, but it does not present specific research methods, findings, or conclusions.

HD Vashi, PK Dubey · International Journal of Chemical Studies · Global

This paper discusses urban farming and vertical farming as solutions for future urban food security and sustainability, addressing environmental changes and resource shortages. It highlights how urban farming, including green rooftops, can contribute to environmental, social, and economic sustainability by improving urban greenery and food systems. Vertical farming is presented as a method to produce large quantities of fresh food in densely populated areas with limited land.

Adrián H. Hearn, Thaís Mauad, Chris Williams, Luís Fernando Amato‐Lourenço, Guilherme Reis Ranieri · Journal of Urbanism International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability · Australia (Melbourne)

This article analyzed the phenomenon of urban agriculture promotion by real estate developers and community associations in Melbourne and São Paulo. Developers of upmarket condominiums advertise urban agriculture as a purchasable commodity, but the gentrifying effects of these developments deepen rather than alleviate social and environmental ills. In contrast, community projects in four case studies emphasized urban agriculture's ability to confront the long-term neglect of land, employment, and environment.

[PDF] [DOWNLOAD] Growing a Sustainable City?: The Question of Urban Agriculture (UTP Insights) [Full] · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Global

This abstract provides information regarding the download and reading of the book "Growing a Sustainable City?: The Question of Urban Agriculture (UTP Insights)" by Christina D. Rosan.

Nazanin Nafisi, Osman Mohd Tahir, Sara Nafisi, Nazri Ishak · Journal of Architectural Environment & Structural Engineering Research · Malaysia

To investigate the effectiveness of urban farming programs in Malaysia, this study focused on small-scale agriculture projects like community gardens and community-level programs such as community supported agriculture and farmers markets. The study found that urban agriculture enhances community resilience and wellbeing. It highlighted the necessity for Malaysian urban authorities to provide appropriate identification and support to city dwellers and promote urban farming practices.

Amit Umesh Paschapur, Chaitra G. Bhat · · Global

This article focuses on the history, types, major cultivated crops, advantages, success stories, and future scope of urban agriculture. Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing, and marketing food in and around urban localities, also encompassing animal husbandry, aquaculture, beekeeping, and horticulture. It contributes to providing fresh food, generating employment, recycling urban wastes, creating greenbelts, and strengthening cities' resilience to climate change.

Christina Plank, Robert Häfner, Rike Stotten · Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie · Austria

This paper analyzes Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Austria, examining its values-based production and consumption within the "third food regime" using an interdisciplinary framework. The study found that CSA is currently a niche in Austria, where solidarity, community attachment, and respect for nature are central ideals for members. However, CSA initiatives face institutional, social, and material challenges in daily practices that require attention for their long-term viability.

Mr. Isaiah ACQUAH, Dr.Sc. Joseph Ato FORSON, Dr.Sc. Theresa Yaaba BAAH-ENNUMH · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Ghana

This qualitative exploratory study in Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Ghana, investigated the effect of urban growth and concretization on urban farming households' livelihoods and food security. The study, using interviews and spatial imagery, found that urban farms face challenges due to inadequate land use planning and support, leading to a loss of farmlands. Significant challenges identified include limited farming space, limited resources, continuous increase in buildings, and inadequate education for urban farmers.

Carolina Yacamán Ochoa, Daniel Ferrer Jiménez, Rafael Mata Olmo · Land · Global

This paper critically reviewed recent literature on Green Infrastructure (GI), highlighting a lack of references to peri-urban agriculture's role in GI planning. It emphasized peri-urban agriculture's positive contribution to local food supply and other services. Furthermore, the paper proposed a methodology to integrate practical GI planning in metropolitan regions to maximize the activation of traditional agricultural landscapes and improve landscape connectivity.

Samantha Noll · Open Philosophy · Global

This study explores how justice-oriented urban agriculture projects, guided by "food justice" and "food sovereignty" goals, transform city contexts by reducing regulatory barriers that could perpetuate systems of oppression. The study argues that by removing regulatory barriers, urban agriculture projects are transforming cityscapes in ways that cultivate justice at the system level.

C. Jorge Félix Massani Enríquez, Luisa Fernanda · · Colombia

This qualitative ethnographic study in the Noble y de Paz Marco Aurelio Buendia community, Charras, Guaviare, Colombia, analyzed the contributions of collectively constructed community gardens to the food autonomy of FARC ex-combatants. Using semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and participatory observation, the research found that participants perceive community gardens as a tool for their food process, contributing to food autonomy, strengthening nutritional status, and fostering community and family ties through collective work.

Nicolás Caicedo Sarralde · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This investigation used life cycle assessment to determine how urban agroecology in Chapinero, Bogotá, could reduce CO2 equivalent emissions from food production and consumption without affecting nutritional needs. Based on secondary data and a comparison of current and increased agroecology scenarios, the study found that potatoes have high potential in urban agroecology for emission reduction. It also concluded that farm and transport stages have the highest emissions in urban agriculture food cycles, and efficient urban agroecology in Chapinero could reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by 38.99% in nutritionally balanced diets.

Kristin Reynolds · Environmental Justice · Global

This chapter explores the intersection of food systems, agriculture, and environmental justice within social movements, activism, and scholarship. It reviews historical instances of these intersections, including indigenous peoples' movements, farmworker organizing, urban agriculture, and consumer solidarity campaigns. The chapter also discusses recent developments and future concerns connecting environmental justice, food, and agriculture with issues like climate change, gentrification, and Black Agrarianism.

Janaina Henrique dos Santos, Clara Fagundes, Beatriz Barbalho, Nicole Massa · Cadernos de Agroecologia · Global

This report details an experience in ecological, medicinal, and biodegradable cleaning using medicinal herbs, developed by two female urban farmers. The farmers, after training, produced cleaning products for personal use and then for commercialization, aligning with agroecological urban agriculture principles. This initiative promotes income generation and women's autonomy through the use of medicinal plants and agroecological cleaning products.

Miguel A. Altieri, Clara I. Nicholls · The Journal of Peasant Studies · Global

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the relevance of agroecology as a path to reconstruct a post-COVID-19 agriculture. Agroecology can prevent future food supply disruptions by localizing food production and consumption. Five key areas for a new post-COVID-19 agriculture include overcoming pesticide reliance, enriching natural environments, revitalizing small farms, creating alternative animal production systems, and enhancing urban agriculture.

Martin Mulligan, Yaso Nadarajah · · Sri Lanka

A broadly based committee formed in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, immediately after a disaster played a crucial role in ensuring survivors received aid and respectful treatment. This study emphasizes the importance of equitable relief aid delivery and long-term assistance needs assessment. It also notes that poor people and communities often create their own coping mechanisms, and that home gardens and community gardens can enhance food security for poor households, particularly during periods of rising food prices.

Marie-Soleil L’Allier · Revue Possibles · Global

In recent years, citizen-led agricultural and food innovations, such as urban agriculture, community gardens, collective greenhouses, and food cooperatives, have proliferated. These initiatives operate on a logic distinct from the globalized food system, forming the seeds of a post-growth society that does not depend on economic growth. This study raises the question of how to ensure these social innovations, while holding significant transformative potential, can effectively outline an ecological transition for our food system.

Andrew Coulter · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global

This article argues that the medical establishment should consider prescribing diets with a higher ratio of unprocessed plant-based foods to address urban healthcare crises, chronic diseases, and health inequalities. Research indicates that vegetarian diets are associated with decreased mortality, coronary artery disease, and hypertension. Additionally, plant-based diets offer more affordable protein sources compared to meat and seafood.

Hayford Mensah Ayerakwa, Fred Mawunyo Dzanku, Daniel Bruce Sarpong · Agricultural and Food Economics · Ghana

Using a sample of 2,004 households in a small and a medium-sized city in Ghana, this study examined urban households' participation in agriculture by disentangling it according to the geography of production — urban versus rural areas — and its implications for food security. The analysis found no evidence that participation in agriculture in general was related to the food security of urban households in this sample. However, urbanites who produced food in both urban and rural areas had better food security in the medium-sized city.

Hannah Whitley · · Global

A book chapter reviewing global research on gender and urban agriculture. It notes that limited statistics and inconsistent definitions of urban agriculture make an accurate profile of operators difficult, but regional studies show women make up the majority of urban agriculturalists. The chapter discusses women's motivations for engaging in urban agriculture and its links to neighborhood-level change, identifies seven challenges facing women urban growers drawn from the academic literature, and sets out a future research agenda on women urban agriculturalists.

Jessica Ann Diehl · Sustainability · Australia

Semi-structured interviews with 15 commercial urban farmers in Sydney, Australia, guided by questions based on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, examined how farmers access tangible and intangible resources through social networks within the urban food system. Three patterns emerged: urban-local, rural-local, and urban-global networks used in pursuit of sustainable livelihoods. The study concludes that land is only one driver, among many, of the sustainability of the local food system.

Mabu Masiala Bode, Apollinaire Biloso Moyene, Charles Kinkela Savy · International journal of innovation and applied studies · Democratic Republic of Congo

A study examined the nature of production in peri-urban agricultural concessions in the commune of Mont-Ngafula, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, based on the concept of production systems and questionnaire surveys. The surveyed concessions carry out several types of plant and animal production, and fruit arboriculture is the most important crop type in terms of area occupied and visibility. Its development is linked to the capacity to rapidly develop land and occupy it long-term, the necessary and sufficient conditions for obtaining and keeping the long-term occupation contract, the only land title the Congolese state legally recognizes for agricultural concession users. The paper proposes an innovative fruit agroforestry approach based on participatory domestication of fruit trees with high nutritional and commercial value mixed with food crops and animal production, aimed at increasing food supply in Kinshasa's markets and professionalizing fruit arboriculture.

Blesilda M. Calub, Leila S. Africa, Bessie M. Burgos · · Global

A chapter on the School-Plus-Home Gardens Project (S+HGP) in the Philippines, which promotes greater parent engagement in home and school gardening to sustain nutritional gains under the Department of Education's nationwide School Garden Program and School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP). At the end of a 3-month feeding period, 62% of severely wasted and 70% of wasted child beneficiaries reached normal nutritional status; however, 9 of 14 surveyed schools had repeat beneficiaries from the previous year's SBFP (36–38%), and 14% had been repeat beneficiaries for three consecutive years, due to lack of food at home during the rest of the year, severe illness, and parents' attitudes and values. Factors contributing to successful parent engagement included regular parent-teacher consultations, a participatory development approach, training, parent-child cooking contests using garden produce, and collaboration with local government units.

João Flávio Bomfim Gomes, Renata da Silva Brant Gomes, Alex Oliveira de Souza · Horticultura Brasileira · Global

A review-style introduction on the multifunctionality of urban horticulture. It cites United Nations (2015) projections that 66.36% of the world population will be urban by 2050, up from 53.60% in 2014, and an FAO 2015 report estimating about 795 million people worldwide facing food insecurity. It states that FAO (2015) puts global urban agriculture practice at 800 million people, and frames the practice as multifunctional - supplying food, supporting biodiversity, improving land and water use, and raising income and quality of life for urban farmers - without presenting original empirical data.