Research & reports

Mohammad Amizi Ayob, Nurul Aida Yaakob, M. Nursalwani · Canadian social science · Global

This study investigated the level of participation of poor town communities, primarily homeless individuals, in urban agriculture entrepreneurship, involving 79 respondents. Descriptive statistics and chi-square tests were used. Results showed that implementing urban agriculture requires the right attitude, knowledge, and perception. However, the chi-square test revealed no significant value on socioeconomics towards urban agriculture within the poor town community.

Steven Beckers · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Belgium (Brussels)

The Abattoir Farm in Brussels, Belgium, established in 2015 on the roof of Foodmet, is BIGH's first full-scale production site. This project utilizes an aquaponic production system, linking fish-farming tanks to greenhouses for growing plants, recreating a natural ecosystem in an artificial environment. The system produces minimal waste, requires limited energy inputs, and delivers positive environmental impacts, while providing city consumers with year-round access to quality, locally sourced products such as tomatoes, fish, herbs, and berries.

Florijn de Graaf, Simon Goddek · · Global

This research proposes integrating a neighborhood microgrid with a decoupled multi-loop aquaponics facility to enhance self-sufficiency and flexibility. This "Smarthood" concept, connecting Food–Water–Energy flows, significantly improves microgrid performance. The integration achieved 95.38% power and 100% heat self-sufficiency due to the flexibility of thermal mass, pumps, and lighting systems.

Héctor Ávila Sánchez · Investigaciones Geográficas Boletín del Instituto de Geografía · Global

This study analyzed the impact and potential of Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (UPA) on urban food systems, focusing on cities in Western Europe, North America, and Latin America. It concluded that while UPA practices have increased, their presence in urban food systems remains limited, and their consideration in territorial public policies is still marginal. In developed countries, its impact has been primarily therapeutic, landscape-related, and for heritage preservation, while in poorer countries, it has contributed to self-sufficiency for low-income urban populations, public space recovery, social fabric strengthening, and community development.

Cindy Carolina Ortiz Franco, kleber Bajaña Avarado · · Ecuador

A study was conducted in the Atahualpa parish, Santa Elena province, Ecuador, on the design of an urban agriculture model for family garden development. The investigation was carried out through documentary research, comprising stages of diagnosis via surveys and interviews with council managers, approach, theoretical proposal based on survey results, methodological procedure, analysis, and conclusions on project viability. The diagnosis determined that farmers are interested in participating in the implementation of the urban agriculture proposal designed for the Atahualpa parish to improve food security and nutrition in families.

Nury Katherine Da Graca Vega, Jessica Johana Roman Torres · · Colombia

This work was carried out within the framework of a research project focused on developing an urban family agriculture model as a strategy for social integration and economic development for less favored strata in Cumaral municipality, Colombia. Urban family agriculture is presented as a social development proposal that links individual needs with the use of urban spaces, fostering sustainable ecological, economic, cultural, and social activities.

Santiago Manuel Sáenz Torres, Alfredo López, Lena Prieto, Tulio Rodríguez · Equidad y Desarrollo · Colombia (Bogotá)

The production potential of cubio (Tropaeolum tuberosum), an Andean native root vegetable, was investigated under urban agricultural conditions in Bogotá. Cubio was found to be highly nutritious, exhibit good performance under adverse edaphoclimatic conditions, show tolerance to pests and diseases, and yield excellent quality and productivity. Production was higher with organic fertilization compared to conventional chemical fertilizers.

Rubén Darío Peña Chacón, Viviana Alejandra Vergel Rojas · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This project implemented an educommunicative strategy through a communication piece to promote the visibility and recognition of the "Guerreros y Guerreras Unidos en Acción" urban garden in Fontanar del Río, Suba, Bogotá. The garden strengthens social fabric, offers cultivation activities and urban agriculture training, and aims to share knowledge on good practices for organic food cultivation for self-consumption and as a business option. The goal is to make the garden's urban agriculture processes and organic products visible in Bogotá, demonstrating how environmental actions can foster social cohesion, good food practices, business opportunities, and coexistence.

Munirah Hayati Hamidon, Samsuzana Abd Aziz, Tofael Ahamed, MUHAMMAD RAZIF MAHADI · Jurnal Teknologi · Malaysia

This research designed a compact smart vertical garden system for urban agriculture in Malaysia and analyzed the growth performance of lettuce (Lactuca sativa) within it, comparing it to a commercial conventional hydroponic system. The bottom stack of lettuce in the vertical garden showed maximum height, highest leaf count, and width, though only height had a significant difference across stacks (P < 0.0001). No significant difference was found between the smart vertical garden system and the conventional hydroponic system for lettuce height, number of leaves, or leaf width.

Edgar Ortiz-Mena, Jairo Ricardo Mora-Delgado · Revista de Ciencias Sociales · Colombia (Sonsón)

This hermeneutic study analyzed the Urban Agriculture Program in Sonsón, Colombia, which aims to improve the living conditions of violence victims. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation with 40 elderly beneficiaries over two months, it was found that while 40% improved their diet through broiler chicken training, beneficiaries perceived that the taught production techniques were time-consuming and did not lead to short-term cost reduction or income increase. The study concludes by recognizing the perceptions and adaptation strategies of families facing change.

Gaston E. Small, Robert McDougall, Geneviève S. Metson · International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics · Global

This study analyzes the potential benefits and costs of urban agriculture, comparing tradeoffs in different sustainability metrics. It assesses how optimal urban agriculture varies by context, such as maximizing production in dense areas versus filling vacant land in post-industrial cities. The research also examines urban agriculture's role in making food systems resilient and includes a case study comparing resource use and pollution for lettuce production via outdoor urban agriculture, indoor urban agriculture, conventional methods, and cross-continental transport for one U.S. metropolitan area.

Ibrahima Saidou · Journal of Environmental Science and Allied Research · Cameroon (Yaoundé)

A 2014 study in Yaoundé, Cameroon, surveyed 40 farmers and analyzed soil in two valley bed suburbs, Nkolodom and Nkolbisson, to identify soil constraints on urban agriculture. While nitrogen and phosphorus levels were adequate, soil salinity at Nkolodom was brackish to moderate (810 mS/m), potentially constraining crop growth. Soil fertility was also found to decrease with distance from farmers' houses.

Delphine Bernadette Ouédraogo, Delwendé Innocent Kiba, Zacharia Gnankambary, Sheick K. Sangaré, Diakouba Sirima, Hassan Bismarck Nacro, Michel Papaoba Sédogo · Journal of Agricultural Science · Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou)

This study investigated cropping practices and their drivers in 133 peri-urban farms near Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Soil sample analysis revealed that monoculture led to low soil organic carbon, while polyculture led to low soil available potassium. The socio-economic conditions of the farms explained up to 60% of the variability in cropping practices.

Suhaimi Mhd. Sarif · The International Islamic University Malaysia Repository (The International Islamic University Malaysia) · Malaysia

This study investigated the effect of infaq (charitable contribution) and takmil wal istikmal (complementarity) on sustaining community vegetable farming in Malaysia. Personal interviews with selected farmers, CSA administrators, and agricultural regulators revealed that the effect of infaq and takmil wal istikmal is limited to small-scale community farming.

Bronwyn Wilkes · ANU Open Research (Australian National University) · Australia, New Zealand

This report presents preliminary descriptive results from a survey of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand in 2018. The survey aimed to gather characteristics of CSA farms operating in the region to capture a point-in-time snapshot. The survey was not intended to provide detailed qualitative information regarding the CSA experience in the region, which is anticipated to be explored in a future series of interviews.

Julian Cribb · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Global

This paper points out that none of the world's megacities can feed themselves, and food chain risks pose an imminent threat of starvation. It presents concepts such as climate-proof food supplies, novel urban food production systems, the importance of urban permaculture, rewilding, and developing wise consumers as solutions to urban food risk. However, it does not explicitly state that these solutions fully resolve the issue of urban food self-sufficiency.

Andrzej Klimek, Isidoros Ziogou, Apostolos Michopoulos, Theodoros Zachariadis, Sadiq Gulma, Dina Suhanova, Mure Agbonlahor, Sabine Jung-Waclik · Acta Innovations · Global

This article summarizes current efforts to mitigate the urban heat island (UHI) effect, focusing on the widespread deployment of green roofs. It discusses solutions like rainwater and energy harvesting or urban agriculture to make green roof dissemination viable. The authors conclude that retrofitting existing roofs is the only method to achieve the desired scale and explore business models for a prosumer approach to retrofitting.

Rosangela Medeiros Hespanhol · Confins · Portugal

This field research in Portugal analyzed urban gardens, identifying both spontaneously emerging gardens with no public oversight and those organized by public authorities. Interviews revealed that urban agriculture facilitates subsistence food production without pesticides, creates intergenerational and intercultural coexistence spaces, fosters social cohesion through experience exchange, and promotes environmental education. These findings emphasize the social and cultural importance of urban cultivation practices.

Neal Chalofsky · Advances in Developing Human Resources · Global

This paper reflects on the 35-year growth experience of the TPSS Food Cooperative, examining challenges faced by social entrepreneurship. It notes that individuals with vision often lack social movement learning (SML) and human resource development/organization development (HRD/OD) skills to grow and direct organizations, leading to their demise or a shift towards business over social aspects. The paper argues that lessons from the 1970s food cooperative movement can benefit contemporary social entrepreneurships.

Antoine Perrin · Working paper/Working paper CIRIEC ... · Global

A study examining that, alongside calls from international institutions and states for food security through large-scale subsidies and improved market access, small initiatives addressing access to healthy, sustainable food are emerging everywhere - farmers' self-help groups, shared gardens, community-supported agriculture, cooperative supermarkets, and similar organisations - and analysing the discourse and practices of 20 such initiatives dealing with agriculture and food. The study drew on roughly 500 hours of fieldwork within the initiatives and 50 interviews with project planners, coordinators, and monitors, chosen from two contrasting social and economic contexts: Nancy, a medium-sized French town, and Ahmedabad, a large Indian city. The results identify two major trends common between France and India and across small farmers, shared gardens, cooperatives, and other social and solidarity initiatives: first, a general call for localised, short food circuits, with producers and consumers seeking a direct connection to each other or growing their own food; and second, participants not claiming to be part of a recent innovative wave but instead falling back on traditional ways to grow, sell, and cook food. The initiatives studied were themselves small in scale, with around 200 participants each.

Jessica Ann Diehl, Kate Oviatt, Amanda Jennifer Chandra, Harpreet Kaur · Sustainability · Global

This study examined household food security among migrant urban farmers by surveying and conducting semi-structured interviews with market-oriented small-to-medium scale farmers in three rapidly urbanizing cities: Delhi, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Quito, Ecuador. Participation in urban agriculture was found to have a positive impact on household food security through direct means (self-consumption) and indirect means (improved income and access), though the form of low-income migrant urban agriculture differed across the three cities.

Thị Ngọc Anh Nguyễn, Thi Hiep Ta · The Journal of Agriculture and Development · Global

Using 2016 survey data from 340 farm households in two administrative divisions (Dasar commune and Lac Duong town) of Lac Duong district, Lam Dong province, Vietnam, this article used Probit regression to examine how socio-economic and demographic characteristics, land area, and household members' occupations affected the probability of households changing their land-use purpose. It found that other production potentials retained on the land, despite limited land and income, directly affected farmers' decisions to change land use. Although close to Da Lat city and holding a large area of farmland, Lac Duong district remained a rural area not strongly affected by urbanization, and the study concluded there was no pressing need to change land-use purpose there, noting farmers could instead adopt advanced production methods such as hi-tech agriculture, urban agriculture, and agro-tourism.

Ilona Liliána Birtalan, Ágnes Neulinger, József Rácz, György Bárdos · International Journal of Consumer Studies · Global

Using an explorative design, this study examines how spousal involvement affects membership in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a type of alternative food network centered on fresh produce. It identified three patterns of spousal influence: coherent, integrative, and neutral/antagonistic. CSA membership was found to significantly affect lifestyles and often require substantial adaptation, at times leading to a crisis point over whether to remain in or leave the CSA. Spousal support was found to be crucial over the long term, and the study suggests that inconveniences associated with CSA membership could be reduced by providing more information about the importance of that support.

Jean-Louis Yengué · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · Cameroon

Focusing on the Cameroonian capital Yaoundé and one of its valleys, the Ekozoa, this study examines the forms taken by urban residents' cultivation of food and horticultural crops and its place within the urban fabric. Despite its illegality, this agriculture proved essential to the survival strategies of the poorest households, improving their nutrition and economic base, and it also played an environmental role through waste recycling and greening the city. At the same time it raised numerous problems related to pollution and public health. The solution proposed by the authorities is to bring these areas under control as non-buildable zones, incorporating them into a green network that is more ornamental than productive.

Rosângela Aparecida de Medeiros Hespanhol, Antônio Nivaldo Hespanhol · Revista Campo-Território · Cuba

In Cuba, political and economic factors have made urban cultivation an important alternative for easing food supply and food security problems. Examining cases of organopónicos (organic urban farms) in the cities of Camagüey and Cienfuegos, the article shows that urban agriculture, structured on agroecological principles, is an important food-producing and job-generating activity that is closely integrated with the city's economy, ecology, and physical planning.