Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
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Critical findings
7626 results(282 / 306)
Urban Food Systems and African Indigenous Vegetables: Defining the Spaces and Places for African Indigenous Vegetables in Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture Urban food systems and trends in vegetable production in urban
2009Bianca Ambrose‐Oji · · Sub-Saharan Africa
This book chapter reviews the role of urban and peri-urban agriculture in food security across sub-Saharan African cities and peri-urban areas, focusing on how the production and collection of indigenous vegetables along the rural-urban continuum contributes to it. Drawing on literature from geography, agriculture, ethnobotany and rural sociology, it defines urban agriculture and the spaces where indigenous vegetables are produced and collected, and closes with a typology for understanding the range of spaces involved in indigenous vegetable production and harvest, without presenting new empirical data.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceFood miles & supply chainHealthEvaluate on Innovation Capability of PRD Urban Agriculture Enterprise based on F-AHP Method
2009Jing Liu · · China
A study of urban agriculture enterprises in China's Pearl River Delta (PRD) region built an evaluation index system for innovation capability across three dimensions: management innovation, technology innovation, and institutional innovation. A fuzzy AHP model was applied to assess enterprise innovation capability against the development conditions of urban agriculture.
CommunityEconomicsPolicyPatterns of Urban Food Consumption and Expenditure in Zambia: An Overview Report Based on the CSO/MACO/FSRP Food Consumption Survey in Urban Areas of Lusaka, Kitwe, Mansa and Kasama, 2007-2008
2009Munguzwe Hichaambwa, Margaret Beaver, Antony Chapoto, Michael T. Weber, Hichaambwa, Munguzwe, Beaver, Margaret, Chapoto, Antony, Weber, Michael T. · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Sub-Saharan Africa
An overview report based on the 2007-2008 CSO/MACO/FSRP food consumption survey in urban Lusaka, Kitwe, Mansa and Kasama, Zambia. It states that policies promoting demand-driven smallholder agriculture and improved urban food marketing system performance in Sub-Saharan Africa need to be grounded in careful food demand analysis, and that governments, donors and policymakers require an up-to-date understanding of urban consumption patterns, including the extent of and constraints on urban agriculture for household consumption and cash income. This excerpt does not present specific survey results.
EconomicsCommunityGreening the Ghetto
2009Majora Carter · Anglican Theological Review · United States
This piece, published in the Anglican Theological Review, is a first-person essay by an author raised in the South Bronx, New York, discussing environmental injustice and hopes for greening in the neighborhood. It states that the South Bronx is the poorest congressional district in the United States, with over 20% unemployment and more than one-third of residents living in poverty, hosts four power plants and most of New York City's solid waste and sewage processing, and has a childhood asthma hospitalization rate seven times the national average, alongside fewer trees and parks per person than other parts of the city. It cites a 2006 Columbia University report finding learning disabilities in children living nearest to fossil fuel emissions sources. The piece is a personal essay drawing on the author's experience and advocacy rather than an empirical study, and presents no methodology or sample.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceFrequently Asked Questions on Food Regulations for Small Market Food Producers
2009Rich Pirog, Ross Baxter, Kate Lyon · Iowa State University Digital Repository (Iowa State University) · United States
This Iowa State University document is a practical guidance resource, not an empirical study. In response to growing interest in and demand for local food in Iowa and nationally, it answers frequently asked questions about food regulations from small market producers who sell through farmers markets, community-supported agriculture (CSA) enterprises, farm stands, and institutions such as restaurants, hospitals, schools, and conference centers. Responses were prepared by state agency and university specialists in food safety and food regulations.
Food educationPolicyCommunityDeveloping Urban Agriculture,Improving Urban Ecology——Yaking Qinghai Province as an Example
2009XU Guang-zhong · Journal of University of Science and Technology Beijing(Social Sciences Edition) · China
This article, using Qinghai Province as a case, argues that as urbanization accelerates and cities' ecological crises intensify, developing urban agriculture can help address this crisis. It describes urban agriculture as based on modern technology and reliant on agricultural industrialization, combining features of production, service and consumption, and states that promoting urban agriculture can expand green space, improve urban ecology, and strengthen urban functions.
Climate changeBiodiversityPolicyCommunityPlanning of the modern agro-ecological park in Gaoming District, Foshan city
2009Yun Li · Guangdong nongye kexue · China
This report describes the planning of a Modern Agro-ecological Park in Gaoming District, Foshan city, Guangdong province, China. The park is designed as a modern standardization zone for eco-agricultural production and demonstration, a resort zone for eco-agricultural tourism and leisure, a base for green food production, modern urban agriculture and export-oriented agriculture, a base for modern agricultural logistics and information, and a base for eco-agricultural popular science education and agricultural exhibitions (a two-zones, four-bases scheme). Based on the current state and future needs of agricultural development in Gaoming, the plan adopts a development model of a garden section, four subdivisions and one ecological protection belt, with a layout concept center comprising three counterpart units, aiming to build a comprehensive modern agriculture development area combining production and living, ecological protection, scientific research and development, tourism and recreation, culture and education, and information and logistics services. The park's stated goal is to drive the development of modern agriculture in Gaoming District and the wider Pearl River Delta region.
PolicyCommunityFood educationUrban agriculture and urban land use planning: Need for a synthesis in metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria
2009Adedeji Adedeji, H Oludare, Ademiluyi · Journal of Geography and Regional Planning · Nigeria
This discussion of urban agriculture and urban land use planning in metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria, frames urban agriculture as a crisis response and survival strategy for the urban poor that contributes to food security, while stating that urban agriculture production systems can pose risks to public health and the environment through inappropriate or excessive use of agricultural inputs — including pesticides, nitrogen, and raw organic matter containing heavy metal residues. It recommends that urban land use planners promote multifunctional land use and greater community participation in managing urban open spaces.
Contamination & food safetyCommunityPolicyWelfareAttack of the Butterfly Spirits: The Impact of Movement Framing by Community Garden Preservation Activists
2009Miranda Martinez · Social movement studies · United States (New York City)
This study of the community garden preservation movement on the Lower East Side of New York examines the role of activist movement framing in the struggle to save hundreds of gardens from destruction. Through repeated confrontations with the Giuliani administration, gardeners de-routinized the process of urban redevelopment by portraying the loss of a garden as an unimaginable violation against themselves and the city. This reframing helped activists compensate for their disempowered political status and was instrumental in forcing the Giuliani administration to negotiate to save the gardens.
CommunityPolicyThe Claremont Foodshed: A Historical Analysis
2009Allie Comet · Scholarship @ Claremont (The Claremont Colleges) · United States (California)
This historical analysis of Claremont, California, uses "The Farm" — a two-acre food forest on the Pomona College campus — as a starting point to trace the role food and agriculture have played in the development of the Claremont area, and discusses current local food system alternatives emerging in the area.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceThe role of urban agriculture in building resilient cities: examples of building resilient neighbourhoods in London.
2009E. Peduto, D. Satdinova · · United Kingdom
The available abstract is fragmentary and cuts off mid-sentence, but it states that some areas of London have already advanced considerably under the "Capital Growth" initiative launched in November 2008. That initiative is described as aiming to turn 2,012 pieces of land into green spaces for growing food, though the abstract breaks off before providing further study details or findings.
PolicyCommunityClimate changeA Photovoice Participatory Evaluation of a School Gardening Program through the Eyes of Fifth Graders
2009Catherine Sands, Lee Reed, Krista Harper, Maggie Shar · Practicing Anthropology · United States
In spring 2008, a grassroots organization called Fertile Ground conducted a participatory Photovoice evaluation of its school garden program with fifth-grade students at Williamsburg Elementary School in rural western Massachusetts, United States. Photovoice places cameras in participants' hands so they document and discuss their own concerns and perspectives. The project aimed to capture what students, after six years of hands-on garden programming, understood about food, nutrition, and community food systems, and their impressions of leadership, fellowship, and care for land and community. The article outlines the evaluation's context and design but does not report specific quantitative findings.
Food educationCommunityHealthOral History Interview: Timothy Kolosick (1155)
2009Emma Schroeder, Timothy Kolosick · · United States
This is an oral history interview record concerning the Eagle Heights Community Garden in the United States. In a 2009 interview with Emma Schroeder, Timothy Kolosick recounted his time as garden chairman, growing horseradish, cultivation techniques brought by foreign students, using tires to deter pests, organic gardening, and weed management, and referenced earlier gardening experience he and his wife gained in Europe. The interview was recorded for inclusion in a master's thesis on the Eagle Heights Community Gardens.
CommunityThe dynamics of alternative food consumption: contexts, opportunities and transformations
2009Laura Terragni, Hanne Torjusen, Gunnar Vittersø · Anthropology of food · Europe
Drawing on studies conducted over the past 15 years at the Norwegian National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO), this article analyzes alternative food consumption in Norway centered on organic food. Tracing the organic movement from its origins, it shows organic products have gained a notable position within the conventional market even as they face conventionalization, while other alternative initiatives are emerging, including fair trade, farmers' markets, farm food outlets, box schemes, and community supported agriculture (CSA). It argues the consumer's role must be understood contextually, and that products consumers identify as "alternative" are those that, in a given time and place, are socially constructed to best reflect alternative values.
CSA & TeikeiCommunityFood sovereignty & justiceDelineation of Potential Groundwater Recharge and Productive Aquifer Zones in Delhi Area Based on 18 O Signatures and GPS
2009P. S. Datta, Shipra Tyagi · · India
Peri-urban agriculture in the Delhi-NCR area is highly dependent on groundwater availability amid rapid urbanization. This study integrates dynamic δ18O isotopic composition data on groundwater with static data such as elevation of recharge sites to delineate potential recharge zones and hydrodynamic aquifer zones. Significant δ18O-elevation relationships were found (r² = 0.808 to 0.982), with recharge-site elevation resolutions of about 20m in the northwest and 75m in the southwest, identifying potential recharge zones at elevations of 210-230m in the northwest and above 260m in the south. However, variation in groundwater isotopic composition over time indicates that the corresponding aquifers are relatively small and of low productivity, and points to the likely presence of many low-permeability zones in the northwestern recharge areas — a constraint on the groundwater resources that sustain peri-urban agriculture there.
Environmental trade-offsPolicyCommunityGender dimensions of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Hyderabad, India
2009Gayathri Devi, Stephanie Buechler · Practical Action Publishing eBooks · India
A book chapter (in Hovorka, de Zeeuw and Njenga, eds., "Women feeding cities: mainstreaming gender in urban agriculture and food security," Practical Action Publishing, 2009) addresses gender dimensions of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Hyderabad, India. The abstract provided is only the editorial citation, with no method or findings stated.
CommunityUse of Urban Waste Water in Peri-Urban Farming
2009Abha Singh, Salahuddin Mohd. · National Geographical Journal of India · India
In-depth field research around the Iglas sewage pumping station on the Aligarh-Mathura road in Aligarh, India, surveyed 41 farming households and some consumers across five peri-urban villages — Bhojpura, Hari Narayan ki Sarai, Hajipur Chohata, Kheri Khwaja Buddha and Daurala Nirpal — that had used urban wastewater for irrigation for many years. Farmers and vegetable sellers reported suffering from ailments including diarrhoeal disease, typhoid fever, hookworm, amoebiasis and skin infections, yet their primary concern was securing enough water to sustain crop productivity and income, while consumers were more focused on getting a fresh, steady supply of vegetables than on the health risk.
Contamination & food safetyHealthCommunityThe Creative Agriculture and the New Rural Development in Japan
2009Ping Liu · Xiandai riben jingji · Japan
A discussion piece traces the development of "creative agriculture" among Japanese farmers since the early 1970s, citing Oita Prefecture's One Village, One Product movement as an early representative example. It describes recent Japanese government measures — promoting green tourism, developing urban agriculture, establishing urban gardens, building attractive rural environments and homes, and encouraging urban residents to move to villages for farm work or experiences in an urban-rural "amphibian" lifestyle — that it says have brought Japan's creative agriculture into a new stage of development.
Urban–rural linkageCommunityPolicyLocalisation through Alternative farming: Embeddings for a better future
2009G. Palaniappan, Christine King · Queensland's institutional digital repository (The University of Queensland) · Australia
A conceptual paper framing local food production systems—termed "alternative farming"—against a backdrop of global environmental changes (retreating sea ice, landscape drying, shifts in seasonal timing and animal migration) and climate-driven increases in energy prices and dependence on fossil fuels, which the authors say have raised interest in localization and sustainability among communities worldwide. It examines systems including organics, natural farming, biodynamics, permaculture, community gardens, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) in terms of how they might contribute to localizing food production and consumption, and discusses the transition from globalized to localized farming and re-localization's ecological and social dimensions. The paper argues that sustainability can be grounded in local ecological, social, economic, and political systems, but the discussion is conceptual rather than based on presented empirical data.
Food sovereignty & justiceCommunityEconomicsOrganic cycleCountermeasures of Improving the Quality of Sci-tech Coordinators in the Building Process of Urban Agriculture
2009Xiangyang Qin · Journal of Library and Information Sciences in Agriculture · China
Examines the science-and-technology-coordinator system first established in Beijing, China, to address a shortage of rural science and technology services. Based on an analysis of questionnaire responses, the authors describe the current situation and problems of the coordinator system and put forward suggestions for improving coordinators' quality. The abstract gives no sample size, response rate or quantified results.
PolicyCommunityDigital agricultureThe Urban Agriculture of Havana
2009Sinan Koont · Monthly Review · Cuba
An article describes the development, over roughly fifteen years since the 1990s, of urban agriculture in Havana, Cuba, a capital city of more than two million people. It notes that the term "urban agriculture" in Cuba is used more inclusively than typical usage, encompassing urban fringe and suburban lands — the entire cultivated area of the Province of the City of Havana is classified as urban agriculture. The article provides no specific yield or participation figures.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justicePolicyEconomicsAgricultura de base ecológica em sistemas urbanos: potencialidades, limitações e experiências.
2009C. T. de T. Machado, A. T. Machado · · Global
This review compiles ecological principles for urban agriculture—crop diversity, organic and mineral-based fertilizers, and non-toxic pest and disease management—and describes international examples such as diversified plots in Austria and the "organoponico" system in Cuba. It surveys Brazilian experiences from pioneering ecological urban agriculture in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, to later programs in Campinas (São Paulo) and Natal (Rio Grande do Norte), as well as initiatives in Rio de Janeiro, the São Paulo municipal urban agriculture program, and Brasília, presenting the rationale, alternatives, and constraints of ecologically based crop management in urban agriculture.
Organic cycleCommunityFood educationUtilising the ward committee system to promote urban food security in the City of Johannesburg
2009Enslin Van Rooyen · Medical record news · South Africa
Focusing on the City of Johannesburg, South Africa, this policy discussion paper examines the potential of using the ward committee system—part of the South African local government structure—as a vehicle for urban farming programs. It argues it may be more efficient to direct limited resources toward helping urban residents become self-sufficient urban farmers rather than merely acquiring and distributing food, which sustains dependency on government, while noting that knowledge about effective administration for food security among developing-country municipalities is limited, with few Southern African municipalities having explicit policies and even fewer having successfully incorporated such programs; it recommends municipal decision-makers adopt an issue-driven, pro-poor growth approach, and states that urban farming is not inherently equivalent to Local Economic Development but may serve as a catalyst toward it.
PolicyCommunityWelfareThe Influence of Garden Size and Floral Cover on Pollen Deposition in Urban Community Gardens
2009Peter A. Werrell, Gail Langellotto, Shannon U. Morath, Kevin C. Matteson · Cities and the Environment · United States (New York City)
A study in New York City community gardens examined how the spatial area dedicated to cucumbers (Cucumis sativus), relative to other flowering plants, influenced the deposition of conspecific and heterospecific pollen on cucumber plants, and also examined the effect of overall garden size on that pollen deposition. Female flowers were collected from potted cucumber plants placed experimentally in the gardens for the study, as well as from cucumbers established in raised beds by community garden members; pollen grains were isolated in the laboratory by acetolysis and the numbers of heterospecific and conspecific pollen grains were quantified. The abstract does not report quantitative results or conclusions.
PollinatorsBiodiversityCommunityFruit and Vegetable Intake among Urban Community Gardeners
2008Alaimo K., Packnett E., Miles R. A., Kruger D. J. · Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 40(2):94-101 · United States
Cross-sectional phone survey of 766 adults in Flint, Michigan. Households participating in community gardens were far more likely (32% vs 18%) to consume fruits and vegetables at least five times daily.
HealthCommunity