Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
1540 results(3 / 62)
Crop-specialized pollinator drives bee and floral community response to urbanization on small squash farms
2025Roedel J., Szendrei Z. · Urban Ecosystems · North America (urban-suburban gradient)
2025 research showing that squash bees are most abundant on suburban and urban farms compared to rural farms. Demonstrates that small-scale urban farms benefit from urban environment advantages (lower pesticide use, diverse floral resources, landscape heterogeneity), enabling bee and floral community responses to urbanization.
PollinatorsBiodiversityCommunityHousehold food waste behaviors of participants in a municipal community compost program
2025Campbell C., Gusto C., Kelsey K.D., Haase H., Cohen N., Robertson K., Kiker G., Boz Z. · Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 14(2):9-26 · United States
A study in which 107 participants in a municipal community compost program in Gainesville, Florida, used a citizen-science approach to measure and record their household food waste for two weeks. Participants generated more than double the EPA's estimate (about 14 lb/week), yet 85.8% reported increased food-waste awareness and 71.5% reported reducing their waste, showing that community composting can nudge household food-loss reduction.
Food lossCompostCommunityFood educationSustainable transitions in food systems: a case study of an urban agriculture farming training program in Washington, United States
2025Soumya Keefe, Jean Lee · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · United States (Washington)
Using an urban agriculture farmer-training program in Washington, United States, this case study examines how such programs support sustainability transitions in the food system, applying the multi-level perspective and social practice theory. It finds the program creates a space for social learning and shifts graduates' collective practices and narratives, but their capacity to change the broader food regime is curtailed without intentional state and local policy support.
Food educationCommunityPolicyA drop in the bucket: examining practice and policy for water resilient urban agriculture and urban food system resilience
2025Kristida Chhour, Maya Carrasquillo · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · United States (San Francisco East Bay)
This mixed-methods case study of the water-scarce San Francisco East Bay maps 91 urban agriculture sites, interviews 34 stakeholders, and analyzes regional plans to examine water management and urban agriculture's resilience potential. It finds growers were the main water managers while municipalities and utilities were minimally involved, that land access shaped water access, and that institutional support to stabilize long-term land and water access is needed for greater water and food-system resilience.
PolicyCommunityEconomicsMeasuring community power: A scale to measure collective self-determination, Embodied Earth Care, and Ubuntu among urban farmers and gardeners
2025Ashley Gripper, Tori Cowger · Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development · United States
Using exploratory factor analysis on 363 respondents recruited from U.S.-based agricultural networks, this study developed a survey-based scale to capture what Black- and Brown-led food justice organizations value most about community farming and gardening. The analysis supported a five-factor structure—termed "Agricultural Community Power" (AgCPS), covering collective self-determination, community care, land-based spiritual wellbeing, embodied Earth care, and Ubuntu/interdependence—with adequate reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.93).
CommunityHealthPolicyStraw cover increases garden soil microbial biodiversity
2025Emory Walker, Mara Welty, Emma Creviston, Jacob J. Adler · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · United States (Lafayette)
This project examined how straw cover affects the soil microbiome of a community garden, using EcoPlate carbon-source utilization analysis and 16S rRNA sequencing on samples from the Erie Street GrowLocal community garden in Lafayette, Indiana. Straw cover increased soil moisture content and significantly increased bacterial alpha diversity, with a shift toward carbohydrate preference, though beta diversity showed no difference between conditions. The authors conclude that straw coverage can improve soil microbial biodiversity and moisture, potentially benefiting yields and food quality for communities.
BiodiversityOrganic cycleCommunityGarden as society: exploring the values embedded in community garden aesthetics
2025Azucena Lucatero, Madeleine Fairbairn · Agriculture and Human Values · United States (California)
Using a photovoice project and semi-structured interviews with community gardeners on California's central coast, this study investigates the values that drive community garden aesthetics. It finds that "tidiness" remains the hegemonic aesthetic, upheld by formal and informal governance and personal taste, while an alternative aesthetic the authors term "wildness" offers an ecologically valuable counterpoint—though tidiness and a sustainability orientation are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
CommunityBiodiversityCan Reuse of Stormwater Detention Pond Water Meet Community Urban Agriculture Needs?
2025Estenia Ortiz, Adriana Mayr Mejia, Emma Borely, Liam Schauer, Lena Young Green, Maya Trotz · Sustainability · United States (Tampa)
Motivated by a community's desire to co-locate community gardens with stormwater pond spaces, this study monitored water quality of a 23.4-hectare stormwater detention pond in East Tampa, Florida over one year and compared it to US EPA reuse recommendations and water quality criteria. pH and conductivity were acceptable for irrigating crops and heavy metals were below maximum reuse levels, but E. coli concentrations exceeded irrigation requirements and synthetic organic compounds exceeded human health criteria.
CommunityOrganic cycleHealthA culturally tailored community gardening approach to improving physical activity, fruit and vegetable consumption, and psychological health among African American women: A pre-post feasibility study
2025Imani Canton, Vanesu Jakachira, Dawn Blackman, Heather Rose, Susan Aguiñaga · Health Promotion Perspectives · United States (Champaign, Illinois)
This 8-week pre-post feasibility study tested a culturally tailored community gardening intervention—embedding Black History Knowledge—among 11 middle-aged African American women in Champaign, Illinois, in summer 2023. Participants significantly increased device-measured daily step count (median +880 steps/day) and fruit and vegetable consumption (median +82 units), with smaller effects on physical activity and perceived stress. The authors conclude the intervention may be a feasible way to improve physical activity, produce intake, and psychological health, though larger, adequately powered studies are needed.
CommunityHealthGrowing third places: A qualitative study of experiences and perceived benefits of a campus community garden as a nature-based health intervention
2025Brooks O., Thanganathan R., Gittings L. · PLOS One · London, Ontario, Canada
A qualitative study of a Canadian campus community garden found four themes among staff, students, and faculty: the garden as a 'third place', connection to nature, empowerment through growing food, and community building.
CommunityHealthGrowing roots: the role of collective community gardening in cultural food insecurity and social integration of African immigrants in Alberta, Canada
2025· BMC Public Health · Canada (Alberta)
Examines how collective community gardening addresses cultural food insecurity and supports the social integration of African immigrants in Alberta, Canada.
CommunityWelfareHealthNutrition and Aging Across the Plains: A Qualitative Study
2025Emily Frankel, Lindsay Wilkinson, Christopher Kelly · Innovation in Aging · North America
Qualitative study comparing nutrition and food security experiences of elderly in rural vs. urban Nebraska communities. Rural seniors face greater barriers to healthy food access and transportation.
ElderlyHealthCommunityFood diversity and environmental aspects of home and community gardens in highly urbanized areas of Sao Paulo megacity
2025· Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · Brazil (Sao Paulo)
Analyzes food diversity and environmental aspects of home and community gardens in highly urbanized areas of the Sao Paulo megacity.
BiodiversityCommunityHealthFood-based interventions to mitigate household food insecurity in Canada: a systematic review
2025Leanne Idzerda, Calin Lazarescu, Tricia Corrin, Eric Vallières, Alix Couture, Sara Khan, Lynn McIntyre, Valerie Tarasuk, Alejandra Jaramillo Garcia · Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada · Canada
A systematic review (PROSPERO CRD42021254450) searching four databases to 19 February 2025, with duplicate independent screening, risk-of-bias assessment and certainty grading, on food-based interventions that could reduce household food insecurity (HFI) in Canada. Exposure to food voucher programmes may reduce HFI, but exposure to food box, community gardening, school food, hunting and fishing, and food charity programmes may have little to no effect on HFI. The authors conclude that because HFI is primarily an economic problem, food-based responses are unlikely to have a major impact on overall HFI and a more comprehensive public policy approach is required. This is direct counter-evidence to framing community gardens as a food-insecurity intervention.
Limited or null effectHealthPolicyCommunityGrowing kalo (taro) to promote culture and health in the Continental US
2025Leialoha Ka'ula, Nicole Lee Kamakahiolani Ellison, Constance James, Ashley Oshiro, Kacyn Ideue, Kahoku Ka'ula, Alexandra Malia Jackson · Frontiers in Public Health · United States
An explanatory mixed-methods study using community-based participatory research and an Indigenous evaluation approach, examining a māla kalo (a community garden growing taro) run by Native Hawaiians living in the continental United States. At the end of the 2023 growing season, 12 volunteers and 5 programme leaders aged 18–75 completed a survey and interview. Satisfaction was high and participants wanted to take part more often; thematic analysis identified connection to self, community and land, learning and sharing knowledge, and connection to culture. With only 17 participants and no health outcome measures, the study cannot establish health effects — it documents how a community garden growing a traditional staple can serve as a site of cultural connection for a displaced Indigenous community.
Heirloom & landraceCommunityFood educationHealthAn Urban Farm-Anchored Produce Prescription Program's Impacts On Weight Reduction
2025Kaitlyn M. Fruin, Elizabeth L. Tung, Jean M. Franczyk, Ketaurah James, Andrew J. Koetz, Angela K. Mason, Wayne M. Detmer · Health Affairs · United States (Chicago)
An evaluation of VeggieRx, a produce prescription programme anchored to the Farm on Ogden — a 20,000-square-foot urban agriculture facility opened in 2016 in a historically disinvested food desert in Chicago, Illinois, by the Chicago Botanic Garden together with Lawndale Christian Health Center. Clinicians refer patients to the farm for free produce boxes, nutrition counselling and cooking classes. Using a retrospective, propensity-score-weighted cohort design covering January 2016 to December 2021, the study compared 680 VeggieRx participants with 978 weighted controls and found a mean body weight difference of −6.71 pounds (−4.7% of body weight) at eighteen months. Because the design is observational rather than randomised, residual confounding such as selection by motivation cannot be excluded.
HealthEconomicsPolicyCommunityReurbanização da favela Vila dos Heróis: uma abordagem com dignidade socioambiental
2025Leonardo Ferreira da Silva, Maria Laura Fogaça Zei, Juliana Alcantara Fernandes, João Moreirão, Fernando Camilher Almeida · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Brazil
This article presents the Vila dos Heróis reurbanization project in Brazil as an integrated urban intervention model for informal settlements, based on a qualitative case study. The project includes 84 housing units with sustainable infrastructure such as a floodable park, photovoltaic energy, water reuse, composting, and a community garden. The proposal demonstrates the viability of reurbanization models that integrate qualified technical planning, community leadership, and socio-environmental sustainability.
CommunityCompostFood educationSetting tables for community food sovereignty: Building a food sovereignty toolkit
2025William D. Schanbacher, Dhalia Bumbaca, Luciana Jones, Ana Vidal, Christiane Barros-Adwell, A. N. Olivieri, Jennifer Kue · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (Tampa, Florida)
This study reflects on the collaboration between a university and community partners in Tampa, Florida, to develop a community-based food sovereignty assessment and toolkit for two underserved, food-insecure communities. Using community-based research methods, the project explored how to develop and deploy the concept of food sovereignty in an urban environment, identified gaps in urban agriculture education, and ultimately led to the creation of a food sovereignty toolkit.
Food sovereignty & justiceCommunityFood educationWelfarePolicyFeeding the green gentrification machine: urban agriculture and the barriers to a just ecological transition in Montréal, Québec
2025Christina Frendo · Urban Geography · Canada (Montréal)
This study analyzed how urban agriculture contributes to green gentrification in Montréal. Based on interviews with planners, developers, and community actors, and discourse analysis of municipal policy documents, it showed that ecological initiatives are prioritized over housing, and sustainability fixes reconcile progressive rhetoric with growth imperatives, leading to policy trade-offs that undermine housing affordability. These findings reveal how progressive governments reproduce structural injustices through their ecological transition agendas within the context of a housing crisis.
Equity & displacementCommunityPolicyEconomicsFood sovereignty & justiceEfectividad del Huerto Urbano: Un Enfoque para el Bienestar de los Adultos Mayores Urban Garden Effectiveness: An Approach to the Well-being of Older Adults
2025Marisol Silva-Vera, María de Jesús Jiménez González, Laura Varela Almanza · JÓVENES EN LA CIENCIA · Mexico
A quasi-experimental study in Mexico with 21 adults over 65 evaluated a community urban garden intervention for nutritional status. Participants showed increased nutrition knowledge, a 47.7% rise in vegetable intake, and a 23.8% increase in physical activity. However, anthropometric variables did not show significant differences, indicating limited impact on physical measurements despite positive changes in knowledge and habits.
Limited or null effectElderlyHealthFood educationCommunityThe Fight to End Food Insecurity Through Community Gardens and the Spaces They Create
2025Stonebraker, Richard · Maryland Shared Open Access Repository (USMAI Consortium) · United States (Maryland)
This study in a Maryland county, United States, explored the role of community gardens in addressing food insecurity, fostering social interactions, and providing education. Through interviews, sentence completion, and a focus group with 16 participants from two gardens, findings showed gardens offer fresh produce, a sense of belonging, collaboration, and cultural exchange. Participants emphasized the need for more food preservation education and broader inclusion within these dynamic spaces.
Food sovereignty & justiceCommunityFood education“We Have Worked the Land for Centuries”: Diasporic Memory and Black Environmental Belonging in Urban Green Space
2025Kessie Alexandre · Transforming Anthropology · United States (Newark)
This article traces Black environmental relations in the stewardship of community gardens and green spaces in Newark, New Jersey. It examines how Black Newarkers, with roots in the American South and Caribbean, contend with the legacy of plantations while framing land cultivation as a mode of recovery and resistance. The study highlights how these growers acknowledge the association between cultivation and captivity, yet use it to address present-day labor extractions and enact self-determination.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceAtuação da nutricionista frente ao diabetes e hipertensão na Atenção Primária: práticas na residência multiprofissional
2025Polyana Rocha Oliveira, Dejeane de Oliveira Silva, Melissa Neves Tavares · Health Residencies Journal - HRJ · Brazil
This study described a nutritionist's experiences in preventing and controlling Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Arterial Hypertension within a Family Health Strategy in Brazil, from April 2023 to May 2024. Interventions included health education, various consultations, the implementation of a "Health in Motion" group, and the creation of a community garden. The community garden strengthened bonds and promoted direct food education among residents.
CommunityHealthFood educationThe spaces in between: an actor network analysis of alternative food systems in Latin America and the Caribbean
2025Gonzalo Lizarralde, Sara Latorre, Neidy Clavijo, Benjamín Herazo, Manuel Pérez, Kevin Gould, Myriam Paredes, Elsa Monsalve, Nicolás Ordoñez, Roberto Burdiles, Claudio Araneda, Lisa Bornstein, Ricardo Dueñez, Adriana Patricia López Valencia, Oswaldo López, Andrés Olivera, Pedro Tex Martinez, Gloria Artze · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Latin America and the Caribbean
This study investigated the emergence, legitimization, and survival of alternative food systems in low-income settlements across Latin America and the Caribbean. Researchers conducted 340 interviews and 312 questionnaires, following 18 bottom-up initiatives related to food production, distribution, transformation, and consumption in urban and peri-urban areas of Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Chile. Empirical results demonstrated the inadequacy of existing regulations and policies to comprehend the dynamic resistance occurring in the "in between" spaces of both identities and urban structure.
Governance failureFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityEconomicsPolicyEntre mãos e mutirões: o caso da Horta Comunitária Zeferina Beiru em Salvador - BA
2025Joeli Silva de Souza, Lucas Barbosa Lima · Humanas Sociais & Aplicadas · Brazil (Salvador)
This qualitative case study investigated collective work parties ("mutirões") as an intervention strategy at the Zeferina Beiru Community Garden in Salvador, Brazil, from 2016 to 2022. The study found that mutirões were a positive strategy for the garden's creation, maintenance (2015-2019), and reactivation (2022). These collective efforts involved children, youth, and neighbors from the community and surrounding areas.
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