Research & reports

Xiaoxuan Ren, Tetiana Bulhakova · Art and Design · Global

This study developed a theoretical and practical framework integrating ecological aesthetics into urban agriculture design. Using a mixed-methods approach combining literature review and analysis of existing urban agricultural spaces, a structured ecodesign framework synthesizing aesthetics, ecological function, and resilience was established. It was found that sensory qualities like color, texture, and rhythm, along with cultural meaning, can enhance biodiversity support, food production, and climate regulation without compromising ecological integrity.

Jan Macháč, Lenka Dubová, Marek Hekrle, Sára Laníková · Cities · Czech Republic

A study investigated differences in perceptions of community garden (CG) benefits among non-users in two Czech cities (Ústí nad Labem and Prague) via on-site surveys and CG users across Czechia via online surveys. Non-users prioritized environmental benefits like air quality improvement and crop production, alongside recreational functions. In contrast, CG users placed the highest importance on cultural and social benefits, specifically recreation, social interaction, and aesthetic enhancement, while giving lower priority to provisioning functions.

Chris Blythe · OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · Global

This systematic review aims to explore the barriers to urban agriculture at a global scale. Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in systematic reviews concerning urban agriculture's health benefits, motivations for participation, and sustainability elements. This study will focus on the challenges and obstacles in implementing urban agriculture.

Adan Iddrisu · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Ghana

This policy brief explored the causes of farmland loss and its effects on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the Northern Region of Ghana due to rapid urbanization. Using data from focus group discussions, findings revealed that loss of farmland reduces productivity, increases household food security vulnerability, and threatens the livelihoods of farmers.

Luca Battisti, Adrienne Csizmady, Federico Cuomo, Luca Kristóf, Boldizsár Megyesi · Sustainability Science Practice and Policy · Hungary (Budapest)

This study examined how community gardens in Budapest and Turin function as locally embedded nature-based solutions (NbS) through the everyday practices of urban residents. Based on a qualitative analysis of 47 semi-structured interviews conducted in five gardens in Budapest and two in Turin, findings showed that gardeners practice NbS-aligned approaches. Socially, they foster well-being, inclusion, and community cohesion; technically, they adapt to resource constraints through low-tech experimentation and collaborative problem-solving; and ecologically, they support biodiversity, soil regeneration, and microclimate regulation through organic cultivation and composting.

Thulani Dube, Bright Chisadza, Nkululeko Mpofu, Abel Mungure, Nancy N Manase · Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition · Zimbabwe (Bulawayo)

A study in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, investigating urban food insecurity resilience strategies through 200 household surveys, found that 50.5% of households experienced food insecurity, primarily driven by hyperinflation and unemployment. Current interventions, including urban agriculture, showed mixed effectiveness due to fragmented coordination and rural-biased programming, indicating governance challenges.

ŞEVVAL KARATAŞ, Mustafa Artar · Scientific Works · Global

This study, based on a literature review, examines ecological landscape planning approaches for enhancing urban resilience in earthquake-prone regions. It proposes integrating agricultural areas, water systems, and green infrastructure as complementary ecological components within a holistic planning model. The findings indicate that this integrated approach enhances ecological integrity, supports biodiversity, regulates surface water, reduces the urban heat island effect, and strengthens communities' adaptive capacity in post-disaster phases.

Coşkun Şerefoğlu, Duhan Kalkan · İDEALKENT · Türkiye

This quantitative study in Türkiye used a structured survey and binary logistic regression to examine factors influencing urban agriculture participation intention. Findings showed prior agricultural experience was the strongest determinant, and COVID-19's impact on food perceptions positively influenced intention. Education level and policy awareness, however, did not significantly explain participation, revealing a gap between awareness and behavioral engagement.

Jabulani Nyengere, Frank Tchuwa, Harineck Mayamiko Tholo, Allena Laura Njala, Chawanangwa Mwakisalu, Lucius Malalu, Chikondi Chisenga, Patson Nalivata, Weston Mwase, Msaiwale Kathewera, Brenda Matewere, Lackson Jamu, Jones Kanjira, Macdonald Chabwera, D. J. Kachamba, Andrew Jamali, Takudzwa Musekiwa, Clement Nyirenda, Henry Kadzuwa, Precious Masuku, Agnes Mwangwela · Frontiers in Sustainable Cities · Malawi (Lilongwe)

In Mpingu and Malingunde Extension Planning Areas of Lilongwe District, Malawi, the drivers of peri-urban land transformation were investigated using land use and land cover maps for 2004, 2014, and 2024, alongside household survey data from 279 farming households. Spatial analysis revealed substantial landscape transformation over two decades, with natural woodland declining by approximately 66%, cropland expanding by approximately 459%, and built-up settlement areas increasing by approximately 127%. A multinomial logit model analysis found that land markets, spatial accessibility, and institutional conditions were the primary drivers of land transformation.

Nina Oher, Anna Bengtsson, Patrik Grahn · Land · Global

This study aimed to understand the evidence-based design process behind a rooftop garden at an urban Memory Clinic. Through focus group interviews with healthcare professionals and an interview with the landscape architect, findings showed that while the garden exceeded expectations regarding aesthetics, restorative qualities, and staff use, it was not used for patient-oriented therapeutic activities as intended. This divergence was linked to governance issues such as organizational change, loss of key actors, insufficient documentation of design intentions, procurement disruptions, shifting clinical priorities, and maintenance arrangements.

Exequiel Campomanes, Ma. Rossdie Etis, Job Leroi Santiago, Reigne Tumbado, Mark Joseph Villamil, Jake Bitulia, Divina Gracia Cabaddu · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Philippines

This qualitative study in the Philippines examined the profiles and business strategies of small urban farmers for financial sustainability and growth. It found that urban farming can be profitable, with all informants generating positive returns despite variations in techniques and capitalization. However, urban farmers faced challenges including personal, organizational, financial, operational, commercial, and fundamental issues, which they resolved through strategic analysis and implementation.

James Vandenberg, Kerstin Krellenberg · Sustainable Cities and Society · Global

This study investigated how differentiated configurations of outdoor, indoor, and greenhouse urban agriculture (UA) impact Urban Resilience Capacities (URCs). It found that a strategic, place-based, combinatorial approach to integrating UA typologies can produce mutually reinforcing outcomes, strengthening various URCs simultaneously. However, a strong risk of trade-offs exists when UA systems are not aligned, and a critical research gap remains as empirical case studies are concentrated in Europe and North America, overlooking experiences in the Global South.

Sunil Babu Shrestha · NCWA Annual Journal · Nepal

This article discusses critical urban issues in Nepal, including climate change impacts, informal settlements, and infrastructure deficiency, based on a review of secondary data. With over 66% of its population in urban municipalities, Nepal faces challenges in creating sustainable cities and requires integrated urban planning. The article suggests that Nepal can address these issues by learning from Japan's city policies and practices, such as comprehensive land-use planning, community participation, disaster resilience, and the promotion of green spaces and urban agriculture.

Kelvin Kekeli Kobla Ahiakpor, David Ebo Adjepon‐Yamoah · DMPedia Lecture Notes in Computer Science & Engineering · Ghana

This paper presents Cultivate, an AgroAgent-as-a-Service (AaaS) platform designed to scale agricultural extension services in Ghana by allowing agronomists to deploy configurable AI agents. A pilot study with one agronomist and one farmer from Farmitecture, a Ghana-based urban farming startup, validated the system. The agronomist configured an agent in under ten minutes and estimated it could handle 50-60% of queries, while the farmer found responses specific and grounded. The pilot demonstrated the technical feasibility and positive reception of decentralized, agronomist-trained AI agents, noting limitations such as a small pilot sample and lack of WhatsApp integration.

Jonas Sohn, Juliane Dziumla, Atiqah Fairuz Salleh, George Xydis · Sustainability Nexus Forum · Global

This study evaluated vertical farming (VF) through the resource nexus (RN) lens, emphasizing the interdependencies among energy, water, land, and materials. While VF offers advantages such as space efficiency, water conservation, and climate resilience, it was found to entail high energy demands, material dependencies, and economic feasibility challenges. An overview of these synergies and constraints helps identify mitigation strategies like circular water systems and hybrid renewable energy solutions.

Hamed Faghiri, Zulkornain Yusop, Zainal Abidin Mohamed · IOP Conference Series Earth and Environmental Science · Malaysia

This systematic review analyzed 46 studies published between 2010 and 2025 to assess the role of urban farming in enhancing food security in Malaysia. Findings indicate that urban farming positively impacts food accessibility, availability, and affordability, while also promoting environmental sustainability and socio-economic inclusion. However, challenges such as limited space, regulatory hurdles, and public awareness gaps hinder its widespread adoption.

Supriya Dadaso Dighe · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · New Zealand

This study provides an eco-critical analysis of Eleanor Catton’s novel "Birnam Wood," exploring the entanglement of environmental activism, capitalist expansion, and identity formation. While the novel depicts conflicts between activist collectivism and corporate techno-capitalism through guerrilla gardening and land commodification, the study argues that its allegorical structure and reliance on familiar ideological binaries may constrain its capacity to generate radically new ecological insight. The research ultimately raises questions about the limits of literary representation in envisioning transformative environmental futures.

Devotha B. Mosha · East African Journal of Agriculture and Biotechnology · Tanzania

A study of Tanzania combining a systematic literature review with a comparative analysis of rural and urban food-production systems, examining how patriarchal land tenure, unpaid care work, and insecure urban farming arrangements restrict women's participation in higher-value agricultural production. The findings show that technical support alone is insufficient unless paired with structural reforms strengthening women's land rights, labour-saving technologies, and changes to unequal gender norms. Based on this, the study proposes a Gender-Transformative Approach linking legal reform, institutional support, technological innovation, and community-level change.

Fernando Adrihel Sarubbi-Baltazar, Iván López-García, Guillermo López-López, Marbella Sánchez-Soriano · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Global

A conceptual paper on territorial food governance argues that territorial food networks function as governance structures rather than mere exchange channels, sustained day to day by women's labor, knowledge transmission and coordination — work typically classified as informal or subsistence-based and denied political recognition. It contends these networks are structurally low-carbon because of their socio-productive organization rather than any explicit climate strategy, and frames women's role as collective, local governance leadership rather than individual participation.

Tomoki Fujii, Christoph Waibel, Xinyi Du, Zhongming Shi · CABI climate change series. · Global

A book chapter reviewing Singapore's changing urban agriculture landscape and recent progress toward its "30-by-30" goal of 30% food self-sufficiency by 2030, discussing land constraints, high production costs, and resource limitations. It examines building-integrated agriculture (BIA)—using rooftops, façades and balconies for food production—as a potential way to raise self-sufficiency through simulation, but concludes that practical issues including regulatory concerns and infrastructure limitations must be addressed before BIA can be implemented at scale.

Elaheh Jalilzadehazhari · Sustainable Development · Global

This study analyses research trends at the intersection of nature-based solutions (NbS), food systems and the SDGs using a multi-method approach combining a systematic literature review, betweenness centrality analysis and fuzzy logic. It identifies growing interest in climate change and urban agriculture and expanding European-led international collaboration, and names five major trends -- land-water-food nexus, urban farming and green infrastructure, governance and policy, community readiness and indigenous knowledge, and soil health and regenerative techniques -- finding the governance/policy trend has the highest betweenness centrality for bridging SDGs and the community-readiness trend shows the strongest convergence of social, urban and ecological goals.

Javier Cañarejo-Antamba, Mónica Delgado Yánez, Nieves Anderson, Pamela Quinatoa León, Tatiana Elizabeth Freire Rosero · Eídos · Colombia

A comparative hydrological study, based on extreme-value statistics, of the Caupicho ravine south of Quito, an urban-agricultural transition zone. The most significant flood events correspond to 50-100 year return periods, but historical records show that the Lucha de los Pobres Baja neighborhood experiences flooding roughly every five years, causing economic losses and undermining social resilience. Based on vulnerability mapping and scenario modeling, the study identifies earthen ponds reinforced with totora (Schoenoplectus californicus) as biomaterial as a key input for flood-risk management and territorial planning, proposing the delimitation of evacuation and rescue areas.

Rattan Lal · · Global

A book chapter addresses rising food and nutritional insecurity from rapid urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and elsewhere, noting that 55% of the world population currently lives in cities, projected to reach 70% by 2050. It states that as much as 10-20% of food consumed could be grown within city limits, but that careful planning is needed to reduce risks from soil contamination, plastic pollution, and reuse of grey/black water and city-waste compost. It identifies rooftop gardens, multistory glass buildings, and soil-less methods such as aquaculture, hydroponics and aeroponics as modern forms of urban agriculture, and discusses barriers including land tenure and research priorities for scaling up.

Crystal Victoria Olin · Journal of urban regeneration and renewal · New Zealand

A paper examines Wellington, the capital of Aotearoa New Zealand, and its Town Belt, a green belt paradigmatic of 19th-century planning ideals that has shaped the city's urban form. It argues that this enduring ring of public green space can mask significant gaps in equitable, everyday access to green space within the compact urban area it encircles, with steep terrain and peripheral location limiting everyday use for residents who are less affluent or mobile. It also notes that the city's colonial history has obscured Māori sites of significance, including historic streams — such as Waimapihi — that once flowed from the area now known as the Town Belt but have since been piped and diverted underground. The paper discusses the Town Belt's colonial legacies and Waimapihi to illustrate the limits of protection at the margins and of symbolic recognition within the core, and considers two emerging responses at public housing sites — an Indigenous-led community garden and the planned Frederick Street Park — as responses to the need to retrofit existing spaces in densifying centres and improve accessibility, quality and everyday use. It situates Wellington within debates on shifting from green belts to connected green and blue infrastructure networks, arguing that edge protection must be complemented by sustained, equitable and culturally informed investment integrating natural and built environments to support accessibility, resilience and quality of urban living.

Joan Casanelles-Abella, Monika Egerer · Frontiers in Sustainable Cities · Global

A perspective article discusses biodiversity conservation in cities as often afflicted by "suboptimal" situations where human needs and nature's needs are imbalanced or in conflict. In human-dominated landscapes, land use intensification often replaces large habitat patches critical for metapopulation stability with smaller, isolated patches, a pattern Island Biogeography Theory predicts will reduce biodiversity; this may be most extreme in cities experiencing rapid population growth and infrastructure densification, where small urban green spaces, balconies, home and allotment gardens, small forest patches and green walls, become the primary compensatory interventions for retaining habitat. However, under certain conservation frameworks (land-sparing vs. land-sharing, the SLOSS debate), such small, scattered urban green spaces may be predicted to produce suboptimal or even detrimental biodiversity outcomes if their size and isolation prevent them from sustaining viable population sizes. The article notes this "ecology of suboptimals" framing risks a futile perspective on nature conservation in densifying cities, while also considering how rethinking urban environments in light of this situation might be approached.