Research & reports

B.H.M. Elands, Bianca Ambrose‐Oji, Annegret Haase, Karin Peters · · Europe

A book chapter examining how citizen engagement with urban green space in European cities addresses the needs of increasingly diverse urban populations, focusing on three forms of engagement: recreation, community gardening, and community-led nature management. Gardening and community-led nature management were found to strengthen existing friendships and build new ones - including across culturally diverse groups - more often than park recreation does. The chapter also notes that addressing cultural diversity can create spaces of exclusion, where one group's use of space excludes others.

J.E. Jansma, Sigrid Wertheim‐Heck · Landscape and Urban Planning · Netherlands

A study of the Dutch city of Almere examining, through a social practice perspective, how planning practices came to fully integrate urban agriculture into a new urban area called Oosterwold. Analysing meanings, materials, and competences across four periods over 55 years of planning history, the study finds that agriculture has been part of Almere's planning since the city's inception, yet it took 55 years for hybrid urban-rural planning practices that fully integrate agriculture to emerge. The case also shows that this integration required interdisciplinary, unconventional operation and leadership, stretching the professional domain of urban planning.

Benjamin Hennchen, Michael Pregernig · Sustainability · Europe

This study systematically analyzed how joint practices of gardening, cooking, and eating together are organized in five urban food initiatives — such as community-supported agriculture, urban gardening, food sharing, and community kitchens — in two smaller cities in southern Germany. Data were gathered through qualitative methods including interviewing, participatory observation, and document analysis, covering five dimensions: institutional integration, recruiting mechanisms, goal-setting, time management, and types of knowledge. Based on these dimensions, the results portray two distinctive organizational profiles among the urban food initiatives, and the article concludes with a reflection on how local governments could support food initiatives and contribute to sustainable urban food systems.

Jan Hassink, Angela Moriggi, Saverio Senni, Elisabeth Hense, Dries de Moor · · Europe

A 2020 paper uses care ethics as an analytical tool to examine caring, regenerative agricultural and food practices, including community supported agriculture, urban agriculture, care and social farming, and organic and biodynamic farming. Drawing on empirical cases in the Netherlands and Italy guided by social justice, cooperation, respectful relationships, inclusion, and education, it describes how care for the community, vulnerable citizens, the environment, farm animals, and food is practiced. It identifies challenges farmers face around access to land, budgets, and dealing with the conventional system, and poses as an open question the extent to which such caring practices can influence dominant agricultural and food systems.

Nicholas Henderson, Quentin Lefèvre · Sens-Dessous · France

This article investigates biology, economics and landscape through the lens of a relational paradigm that the author identifies as pervasive across both the social and life sciences, positing the relational nature of the world as an actant reality that remains largely invisible. It also examines the human relationship to the living world amid what it frames as a crisis in that relationship, and analyzes a shared permaculture garden as a manifestation of "relational design" — an approach to design centered on relationship.

Cordula Kropp, Clara Da Ros · · Europe

Ethnographic case studies examined urban farming movements in Leipzig, Germany and Nantes, France. The Leipzig movement is strongly oriented toward building an environmentally friendly, sustainable post-growth economy, while the Nantes movement is aimed above all at overcoming social inequality and exclusion; in both cities, participants respond to forces in urban development they perceive as opposed to their own needs and interests, encouraging fellow citizens to reclaim local spaces and cultivate them for community subsistence.

Angela Bernadete Lima · História e Cultura · Germany

A historical study examines the food situation in Berlin, Germany, during and after World War I, looking at how residents sought alternatives to the food scarcity of the time and how urban spaces were used for food production, building on a practice of urban cultivation already present in the city's daily life since the 19th century.

Jakob Laage‐Thomsen, Anders Blok · Environment and Planning E Nature and Space · Europe

Drawing on a case study of a civic-driven permaculture garden in Copenhagen, Denmark, this article develops an analytical grid for the imaginative and material domain of public aesthetic norms that shapes tensions over interventions in, and valuations of, the city's multiform green spaces. It models this domain along two axes — "orderliness" versus "wildness," and "pastoral nature" versus city-nature "imbrication" — and uses the grid to make sense of internal debates and external criticisms surrounding the Copenhagen permaculture garden. It explains how and why the garden struggled to secure a legitimate place in a city otherwise committed to urban nature, and argues that attention to variable aesthetic commitments around urban greenery helps recast questions of urban sustainability politics.

Anna Pigott · Environment and Planning E Nature and Space · United Kingdom

Drawing on extended fieldwork with a Community Supported Agriculture project in south Wales, this article re-imagines soils as lively, complex, more-than-human ecologies by examining the largely sidestepped subject of spirituality in agriculture. It explores how care is cultivated through biodynamic farming, a non-conventional method incorporating astrological and spiritual principles, arguing that biodynamic narratives and rituals encourage attentiveness to more-than-human agency and energy, to depth both underground and in above-ground influences of air and celestial bodies, and to reciprocity between soil biota and humans — while also resisting drives to measure and map and leaving room for mystery. It also notes that despite biodynamic farming's growing popularity, its spiritual elements tend to be kept quiet, overshadowed by more familiar secular narratives.

Mirosław Struś, Magdalena Kalisiak-Mędelska, Michał Nadolny, Marian Kachniarz, Magdalena Raftowicz-Filipkiewicz · Sustainability · Poland

A survey of 400 agricultural holdings across nine municipalities of the Wrocław district in Poland examined the potential for Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) to develop in the district, given its proximity to the Wrocław market in Lower Silesia. The research found that the CSA model opens opportunities for long-lasting cooperation between farmers and consumers, but that implementing it requires raising the prices farmers charge for their produce by about 50%, along with solutions to problems related to the cost of transporting agricultural products.

Pierre Donadieu · Territoire en mouvement · France

This is a review-style article introducing a June 2019 opinion document from France's Conseil economique, social et environnemental (CESE), L'agriculture urbaine: un outil determinant pour les villes durables (98 pages). It notes that during the 2010s, six major publications sought to characterize urban agriculture as an economic and social phenomenon that has been emerging or resurging in France and worldwide for at least 20 years, and traces this literature back to three earlier French-language collective works, including one titled Agriculture urbaine: amenager.

Fatih Özden · Turkish Journal of Bioethics · Turkey

This paper discusses the community supported agriculture (CSA) model in Turkey from the perspective of food ethics. It identifies the adverse effects of synthetic agrochemicals on human and ecosystem health, corporate dominance of the food supply chain, and intellectual property rights as issues on the food ethics agenda.

Kévin Bernard, Aurélie Bonein, Douadia Bougherara · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · France

A study eliciting inequality aversion and risk preferences among 162 French community-supported agriculture (CSA) consumers through incentivized field experiments. Consumers were found to be concerned about payoff inequalities, showing advantageous inequality aversion toward CSA farmers but also disadvantageous inequality seeking. Consumers were risk averse and loss averse and distorted probabilities. The study observes that inequality aversion and risk preferences in the loss domain may complement each other in ways that strengthen consumer support for CSA farmers.

Madeleyne Ivonne Demera-Pico, Carlos Francisco Ortega-Ordóñez · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Spain

A study reporting the incorporation of substrate into an ecological garden while applying strategies for organic production. Solid waste was sorted and organic waste used to develop three types of compost: the first from humus-rich soil with 10% sandy soil, the second from silty soil with 20% sandy soil, and the third from silty soil with 40% sandy soil, aimed at improving water filtration and moisture retention. Each compost was combined with production strategies using biostimulants and ecological micro- and macronutrients, and irrigation water was monitored for chlorine concentration and pH before use. The compost made from silty soil with 40% sandy soil, combined with 5 mL of a biostimulant that adjusted alkaline water to neutral pH, produced the greatest increase in soil fertility and the best improvement in germination, cultivation, and post-harvest development.

Andrea Colantoni, Gianluca Egidi, Giovanni Quaranta, R. D’Alessandro, Sabato Vinci, Rosario Turco, Luca Salvati · Land · Europe

Using statistical data analysis and a literature review covering 1961-2017, a regional study in Greece examined the relationship between wildfire frequency/extent and the decline of nomadic livestock (mainly sheep and goats), comparing Attica — the peri-urban region that includes the capital Athens — with the rest of the country. Attica showed a markedly faster decline in nomadic livestock than the rest of Greece, a decline associated with higher wildfire risk in that region. The findings indicate that nomadic livestock grazing helps prevent fuel (biomass) accumulation in forests and unmanaged natural land, contributing to sustainable management of peri-urban land.

Małgorzata Ćwieląg‐Drabek, Agata Piekut, Klaudia Gut, Mateusz Grabowski · Scientific Reports · Europe

A study of family allotment gardens (FAGs) in Silesia Province, one of the most polluted regions in Poland, analyzed 219 soil samples and 64 edible plant samples to link the geochemical disturbance caused by past mining and smelting activity to consumer exposure to toxic and carcinogenic metallic trace elements. Contents of these elements in topsoil were spatially diverse and depended primarily on the location of industrial pollution sources. Average cadmium (0.52 mg/kg fresh weight) and lead (0.57 mg/kg fresh weight) content in vegetables exceeded maximum permissible concentrations under European quality standards. A human health risk assessment based on three dietary exposure scenarios found that, in every scenario, potatoes — a staple of the Polish diet — carried the highest average daily dose for all three elements. The study concludes that consuming vegetables grown in Silesia Province's family allotment gardens may pose a significant health risk to consumers.

Graciela Arosemena Díaz · · Spain

Focused on Spain, this text situates the current urban food supply system — reliant on agrochemicals, crop and animal production, processing, storage, and complex global transport networks with serious environmental impacts from fossil fuel use — as context for arguing that urban and peri-urban agriculture can reduce the food system's environmental impact and fossil fuel dependence while improving food security against economic and climatic vulnerability (2020). It notes that environmental justice is socially and politically complex, with groups of lower socio-economic status typically bearing a greater burden of environmental impacts, and cites as an example a city Council for the Protection of Nature that preserves the agricultural area along the Llobregat River and its agro-economic activity through an agricultural park.

Małgorzata Burchard‐Dziubińska · Economics and Environment · Europe

An analysis of urban gardening's role in building city resilience to economic and social change and global warming examines whether Polish cities use it to strengthen resilience to climate change. It finds that using urban gardening for climate resilience is becoming more common worldwide, but that Polish cities have not yet joined this trend.

Flora Del Debbio · estudoprévio revista do centro de estudos de arquitectura cidade e território da Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa · Europe

Using primary sources such as historical written documents and cartography, an article examines how the interpenetration of urban and rural space has been a defining feature of Lisbon, Portugal's history, and attempts to map in detail the agricultural land occupation within the city's urban soil. The available abstract breaks off mid-sentence while describing a balance maintained over the centuries, and no further specific findings are given.

Valentina Cattivelli · Sustainability · Italy

Urban gardens have attracted considerable academic attention in recent years, with studies emphasizing their positive contribution to social integration, community health, urban regeneration, and food security, as well as exploring individual gardeners' motivations. While these topics are well documented for metropolitan urban areas, few studies have examined mountain areas, an interest gap likely due to lower urbanization in such areas, a preference for other forms of horticulture (essentially home gardens), or the use of different approaches to mitigate negative social effects. The recent proliferation of urban gardens in South Tyrol, Italy, makes this mountain province an interesting setting for studying the practices and narratives associated with socially innovative urban gardening. The paper characterizes all urban gardening initiatives in South Tyrol through cartographic representation and explains gardeners' and public institutions' motivations as well as non-gardeners' perceptions, based on semi-structured interviews conducted in the South Tyrolean municipalities where urban gardening projects have been undertaken. The results suggest that the social and environmental aspects of urban gardens are of great importance, and that there is interest in reconnecting with food practices even when food access is not a priority.

Devi Bühler · Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften digital collection (Zurich University of Applied Sciences) · Germany

An essay in the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) digital collection argues that "urban mining" and "urban farming" have little in common with conventional mines and farms, proposing instead that buildings themselves can serve as the mines and farms of the future. The piece presents no empirical study, data or measurements.

Ana Poças Ribeiro, Robert Harmsen, Giuseppe Feola, Jesús Rosales Carreón, Ernst Worrell · Sociologia Ruralis · Europe

A study of 17 alternative food networks (AFNs) across Poland, Portugal, and the Netherlands, drawn from interviews with AFN organizers, examined the factors that constrain and facilitate the emergence and consolidation of different AFN types. Using a multi-actor perspective framework, the researchers categorized six AFN types: consumer-led, producer-led, third-sector led, community supported agriculture, public-led, and business platforms. Key challenges and facilitating conditions varied by AFN type and country; unlike in the Netherlands, low social capital was commonly cited as a challenge in Portugal and Poland. AFN organizers exercised innovative power in creating new forms of food provision, but the study concludes that a wide scope of actions by both governmental and non-governmental actors is needed to support the emergence of more AFNs.

Giampiero Mazzocchi, Davide Marino · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · Italy (Rome)

A 2020 study of the process by which a local group of stakeholders drew up a proposal for a metropolitan-scale food policy for Rome, Italy, combining a network analysis of the bottom-up process — who took part, what was negotiated — with an analysis of the Roman food system and an overview of urban food policies in Italy. The authors' starting point is that although numerous food-related initiatives have appeared in Rome in recent years, they are unrelated to one another and lack coordination and political coherence. The analysis maps the actors and topics involved and identifies what a more comprehensive participatory process for a systemic metropolitan food strategy would require. As the title 'a policy without politics' indicates, the paper records a situation where participatory policy drafting advanced without the political backing needed to institutionalise it — evidence that a participatory process does not by itself deliver a policy.

Lelario F., De Maria S., Rivelli A.R., Russo D., Milella L., Bufo S.A., Scrano L. · Toxins 11(4):230 · Italy

Identified 19 glycoalkaloids in fruits of commercial eggplant 'Mirabella' and local landrace 'Melanzana Bianca di Senise' via LC-FTICR-MS/IRMPD, assessing anticholinesterase and antioxidant activities. Documents bioactive phytochemistry of a traditional eggplant landrace.

Baldock K.C.R., Goddard M.A., Hicks D.M., Kunin W.E., Mitschunas N., Morse H., Osgathorpe L.M., Potts S.G., Robertson K.M., Scott A.V., Staniczenko P.P.A., Stone G.N., Vaughan I.P., Memmott J. · Nature Ecology & Evolution, 3(3):363-373 · United Kingdom

A large, well-replicated study of floral resources and pollinators across 360 sites in four British cities, comparing pollinator abundance among urban land uses. It shows that residential gardens, allotments and community gardens are urban pollinator hotspots, demonstrating that citizen-tended plots are central to urban biodiversity conservation, and models the benefit of interventions such as adding flowerbeds.