Research & reports

Goldsmith, Leah · Occidental College Scholar (Occidental College) · United States (Los Angeles)

Low-income neighborhoods, communities of color, and immigrant communities in Los Angeles often experience unjust access to fresh, healthy foods. Project CAFE published the "Los Angeles Fresh Food Access Guide" in 2002 to inform residents of fresh food resources like farmers' markets and community gardens. This study conducted research on language and formatting to make information easy to understand, aiming to revise the guide for a lower literacy audience. The revised guide will include updated food resource information and new content focusing on the linkages between food and health.

R. Robles · Revista Agraria · Mexico (Mexico City)

This paper provides an overview of urban agriculture in Mexico City and its conurban area, contrasting production models in developing and developed countries. It reviews the main urban, suburban, and peri-urban production systems and discusses public policies for promoting urban agriculture. The study concludes that no specific policy has been designed to promote urban agriculture in Mexico.

Fernando Neira Orjuela · Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos · Mexico

This study examines San Luis Tlaxialtemalco, a town of 12,553 inhabitants in the Xochimilco borough in southern Mexico City that engages in urban agriculture, through a survey of 185 households, to determine whether greenhouses are a viable option for generating household income and which forms of family economic participation and sexual division of labor prevail. It also examines whether access to financial resources, age, and educational attainment give wives greater say in decision-making and freedom of movement, comparing them with wives engaged in paid and unpaid non-farm activities in the same town.

Fernando Neira Orjuela · · Mexico

This study focuses on San Luis Tlaxialtemalco, a town of 12,553 people in the Xochimilco delegation in southern Mexico City. Because the town practices urban agriculture, a survey of 185 households provided an opportunity to examine whether greenhouses are a viable option for generating household income, and the forms of family economic participation and sexual division of labor that shape this. The study also sought to clarify whether access to economic resources, age, and schooling grant wives the final say in household decision-making and freedom of movement, comparing them with wives engaged in salaried and non-salaried non-agricultural activities.

Lauren Baker · Geographical Review · Canada (Toronto)

Toronto's community gardens, numbering over 100, are sites of place-based politics linked to the community food-security movement. These gardens reflect the city's cultural landscape and serve as a strategy to regenerate the local food system and provide access to healthy, affordable food. Three case studies illustrate the complexities of "food citizenship" and the role gardeners play in transforming urban spaces.

CAST · · United States

This comprehensive report by a twelve-member task force examines the changing role of agriculture in urban settings within historical and contemporary American society. It outlines geographic, demographic, and economic changes in rural and metropolitan life, considering policy issues such as land preservation, alternative market opportunities, sprawl, taxation, and food security. The report also presents research and educational challenges for higher education institutions.

Daniela Adil Oliveira de Almeida · Organic Eprints (International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems, and Research Institute of Organic Agriculture) · Brazil (Belo Horizonte)

This article focuses on the "Project for Training Local Development Agents in Food and Nutritional Security and Urban Agriculture," which began in 2003 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

J. S. [UNESP] Gonçalves, S. A. A. dos [UNESP] Santos, F. F. CURADO · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Brazil (Corumbá)

This work, part of the "Food Security and Citizenship" project coordinated by Embrapa Pantanal in Corumbá and Ladário, Brazil, aims to promote healthy food production. It seeks to improve the food quality of the urban population by creating alternatives for better food and nutritional security and income generation in these areas.

Christopher M. Smith, Hilda E. Kurtz · Geographical Review · United States (New York City)

New York City community gardens have faced political contestation for thirty years, notably in 1999 when 114 gardens were slated for public auction and redevelopment. This article examines the controversy as a politics of scale, where garden advocates expanded the dispute beyond individual gardens and the city. The analysis highlights the significance of scale politics for grassroots organizations within a market-centric, neoliberal economic framework.

Gregory Hellmann Flatt · School for International Training Digital Collections (School for International Training) · United States (Vermont)

This thesis examines the diversification of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement in Vermont, expanding beyond vegetables to include other products. The author, a CSA coordinator, documented several local businesses applying CSA concepts and practices in novel ways through participant observation, formal and informal interviews conducted at farmers' markets and agricultural conferences. The author concludes that CSA concepts and principles can be widely applied and represent a viable economic model for small- to medium-sized businesses that produce high-demand goods and services with local support.

Cynthia M. Hellman · School for International Training Digital Collections (School for International Training) · United States

A phenomenological interview study of 10 Vermont CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farmers, combined with observation of sessions involving farmers, community-based organizations and low-income community members, addressing how Vermont CSA farmers can effectively incorporate members of the low-income community. The findings show that effective incorporation requires farmers to collaborate with community-based and non-profit organizations, treat the low-income community as a resource, enlist support from the wider community, and become part of a "food justice" movement.

Karen Schmelzkopf · Urban Geography · United States (New York City)

This study examined the conflict over community gardens in New York City, arguing that it was a struggle concerning the right to space. The city, operating from an entrepreneurial governance perspective, claimed that the gardens represented a loss of exchange value and potential housing. The city used market economy rhetoric to dismiss incommensurable use values, thereby restricting rights to the city within a demonstration of power and "reason."

Sigrid Stagl, Sabine O’Hara · International Journal of Agricultural Resources Governance and Ecology · United States (New York City)

This study examined whether Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) groups are a broadly accepted or limited alternative food system, based on a household survey in two distinct socio-economic neighborhoods in upstate New York. The survey found that approximately 25% of respondents expressed interest in becoming CSA members, with similar interest levels in both wealthier and low-income areas. However, several factors preventing food demand through CSAs were identified, indicating that these barriers would need to be addressed for expansion.

C. Clare Hinrichs, Kathy S. Kremer · Journal of Poverty · United States

This 1997 case study examined a Midwest community supported agriculture (CSA) project that aimed to increase low-income participation through financial subsidies, using a telephone survey of 41 member-households. The study found that while subsidized households had lower incomes, the overall CSA sample was more advantaged in income, occupation, and education compared to local populations. The project inadvertently served the "advantaged" poor, indicating that social inclusion efforts in local food systems may not effectively reach the most vulnerable.

Cindy Rosenthal · TDR/The Drama Review · United States (New York City)

In New York City, a group of NYU students and local community activists protested and performed against landlords and the city bulldozing community gardens. Their performance piece documented the transformation of garbage-strewn lots into lush, vital community havens and cried out against their destruction. This highlights a conflict over urban garden governance.

CAST · · United States

A twelve-member task force report examines the changing role of agriculture in urban settings within American society. The report frames urban agriculture historically and contemporaneously, detailing geographic, demographic, and economic changes. Policy issues such as land preservation, alternative market opportunities, sprawl, taxation, and food security are discussed, alongside research and educational challenges for institutions of higher education.

John Ferris, Carol Norman, Joe Sempik · Social Policy and Administration · USA

This article reports on research and experience from the USA regarding community gardens and their role in the social dimension of sustainable development. It explores how the use of urban green spaces for gardens links to health, education, community development, and food security. The article concludes that using urban open spaces for parks and gardens is closely associated with environmental justice and equity.

CAST · · United States

This comprehensive report, written by a twelve-member task force, considers the changing role of agriculture in urban settings. The report frames "urban agriculture" within historical and contemporary American society, depicting geographic, demographic, and economic changes in rural and metropolitan life. Policy issues such as land preservation, alternative market opportunities, sprawl, taxation, and food security are examined.

Melford Mj W. Gunderson · UND Scholarly Commons (University of North Dakota) · United States

A study of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation and the community of Elbowoods, North Dakota (2001) describes the social disorganization and community upheaval inflicted on Native Americans by the 1954 construction of the Garrison Dam by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Flooding of thousands of acres stripped Elbowoods residents of farmland, natural shelter for people and cattle, family structure, community gardens, and a way of life that had existed for thousands of years. Drawing primarily on interviews with ten former Elbowoods residents, supplemented by newspapers, published reports, photographs, video, and congressional records, and framed through social disorganization and community theory, the study documents that the dam's construction and the resulting relocation devastated the community and forced residents to cope with and adapt to a "loss of community."

Susan Andreatta · Culture & Agriculture · United States

This paper describes marketing opportunities for small-scale, limited-resource organic producers in Central North Carolina, United States. It examines farmers' markets and community-supported agriculture programs, highlighting how growers advocate and educate consumers about local agriculture. The study discusses the increasing demand for local organic food and strategies for growers to enhance community support, suggesting that alternative production and niche marketing could help sustain small-scale growers amidst farm loss and declining conventional agricultural prices.

Andres Dasso, Teobaldo Pinzas · · Peru

In Lima, Peru, a city with an infertile sandy environment and 0.0 mm average rainfall, urban agriculture has been implemented since the late 1980s to improve the living conditions of the resource-poor urban population. This initiative addresses the rapid urban growth experienced by Lima between the 1950s and 1990s, primarily due to migration.

Claire Bach · · Canada (Montreal)

A case study of informal citizen-led urban agriculture projects in Montreal, Canada, focuses on the dynamics surrounding their establishment and complex structure. While often initiated by citizen groups, other actors, including non-profit organizations, municipal officials, or business owners, are also involved. This research demonstrates that collective urban agriculture projects exist simultaneously as a political practice that might not significantly alter the existing spatial and social orders.

David Billings · · United States

A study of Portland, Oregon, examines claims that the well-documented benefits of community gardens are inequitably distributed across society. Portland is recognized as a sustainability leader with an abundance of community gardens and urban agriculture, yet it is also one of the whitest urban cities in the United States, where people of color — and the black community in particular — have faced a legacy of oppression and marginalization. Based on 17 in-depth interviews and extensive observation of community gardens, the research finds that the whiteness of these garden spaces functions to marginalize black individuals and contributes to the ongoing oppression of the black community. It also documents how Portland's black community engages in community gardening as a means of resisting these and broader effects of structural racism.

Laura DeLind, A. Ferguson · Human Organization · United States

This paper explores the role of gender within Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) using a Michigan CSA as a case study. It notes that women constitute a majority of active CSA membership and seeks to understand what attracts them and the nature of their involvement. The study finds preliminary answers within the wider context of new social movements.

Dream of Wild Health · Dream of Wild Health · United States

Dream of Wild Health (DWH), founded in 1998 (its predecessor Peta Wakan Tipi began in 1986), is a Native-led nonprofit. On its 30-acre farm in Hugo, Minnesota, it runs Indigenous seed-saving, traditional food and youth education programmes, and operates an Indigenous food network from its Minneapolis office. In 2022 the farm produced 13.5 tons of food; as of 2024 it had 20 full-time staff and had planted 1,000 trees since 2022.