Research & reports

Laine Young · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Ecuador (Quito)

This preliminary research brief explores the potential of using intersectional experiences and feminist political ecology to assess urban agriculture (UA) programming in Quito, Ecuador. It suggests this approach can influence increased access to nutritious food for marginalized people, promote equality and inclusion, and improve urban environments.

Chiara Certomà, Chiara Tornaghi · Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) · Global

This book is a collection of chapters unpacking the forms, functioning, and meanings of urban gardening in the context of the neoliberal transformation of cities. It offers an overview of diverse claims in the micro-politics of garden activism and discusses how these projects are fraught with social solidarities and divisions, empowerment and learning processes, conflicts and negotiations. The collection aims to contribute to a critical discussion of the “politics of urban space” and enrich the emerging debate on radical, critical, and political gardening.

Edgar Alfredo Portilla-Flores · DU & P: revista de diseño urbano y paisaje · Global

This article discusses urban agriculture as a contemporary practice that requires understanding across multiple dimensions. It states that urban and peri-urban food production encompasses not only agronomic aspects but also relates to food security, public policies, urban planning, entrepreneurship, recycling culture, environmental education, and recreational and therapeutic activities.

Stephan Barthel, Christian Isendahl, Benjamin N. Vis, Axel Drescher, Daniel Evans, Arjan van Timmeren · The Anthropocene Review · Global

Global urbanization and food production are in direct competition for land. Displacing crop production from urban and peri-urban land due to soil quality issues will demand a substantially larger proportion of the Earth’s terrestrial land surface than the area lost to urban encroachment. This risks triggering distancing effects, unfair social-ecological teleconnections, and amplifying effects within the Earth System, potentially leading to food riots in cities of the Global South. The paper identifies multi-level leverage points, specifically an advisory global policy aligned with regional policies enabling robust common property rights for bottom-up actors in urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA), to navigate urban expansion away from fertile croplands.

Makiko Taguchi, Guido Santini · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global

The FAO supports urban agriculture globally, providing technical expertise and advice to governments and working with the private sector. Its approach strengthens linkages between urban, peri-urban, and rural agriculture to enhance food security and resilience, adapting programs to local needs. Increased attention to food systems, driven by societal demands against food waste and climate change, has fostered interest in FAO's activities.

Maria Rabadjieva, Anna Butzin · European Planning Studies · Global

This paper analyzes how social innovations diffuse, proposing that they spread through "travelling elements" of material, competence, and meaning, rather than solely social interaction. This perspective explains the global emergence of similar social innovations, such as urban gardening initiatives, without direct interaction between actors. The research argues that "practice fields," defined as bundles of similar social innovation initiatives, facilitate this diffusion.

Jess Halliday, D.M.R. van Veenhuizen · CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) · Global

UA Magazine 36 focuses on Food Policy Councils. Urban Agriculture Magazine (UA Magazine) is produced by the RUAF Global Partnership on Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Food Systems. It facilitates information sharing, promotes analysis and debate on critical issues, and publishes good practices and impact stories related to urban agriculture and urban food systems.

Michal Shur‐Ofry, Ofer Malcai · Regulation & Governance · Israel

This study investigated whether Institutions for Collective Action (ICAs), using community gardens as a case study, exhibit dynamics of social contagion and diffuse in accordance with patterns prevalent in self-organized complex systems. Quantitative methods derived from the field of complexity were applied to measure the temporal, spatial, and spatiotemporal diffusion of community gardens in the city of Jerusalem. The results suggest that the spread of community gardens in the urban space displays patterns of self-organization and social contagion.

Nicolas Bricas, Damien Conaré · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global

The 20th century marked a significant shift in how cities approach their food supply. While the revival of urban food policies extends beyond urban agriculture and food production, urban agriculture can play a role in reintroducing nature and agriculture into the heart of the city while rebuilding social ties. The challenge is less about feeding cities, given its limited production potential, and more about its symbolic dimension.

Jennifer Kent, Susan E. Thompson · · Australia

This chapter reviews the link between the built environment and eating habits, noting that where people live and work influences food types and prices. It examines how urban planning in Australia supports local food production to encourage healthier eating. This support includes protecting peri-urban agricultural lands and promoting food cultivation in community gardens, verges, and homes.

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.

Lucy Rose Wright, Ross Fraser Young · Manchester University Press eBooks · Global

This chapter introduces the concept of political gardening, contextualizing its rise within neoliberal processes and academic interest in urban gardening. It conflates political gardening with injustice, drawing on Rawls' theory of social justice. The chapter uses case study examples to define political gardening as a six-stage iterative process that participants undergo to address injustices and become engaged, democratized citizens.

Wei Wei · DEStech Transactions on Social Science Education and Human Science · Global

This paper summarizes and compares successful urban agriculture experiences from the United States, the Netherlands, and Japan, then provides policy suggestions and development ideas for urban agriculture in China based on existing problems. Urban agriculture has become a global trend in modern urban suburban agriculture, solving urbanization and resource allocation issues in many developed countries.

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.

Julian Cribb · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Global

This concluding chapter lists the book's policy recommendations without presenting new data: build a global food system based on regenerative farming, aquaculture and urban food production; redesign cities to recycle nutrients and water into local, climate-proof food production under permaculture principles; reallocate 20% of world military spending to food-based conflict prevention; rewild half the planet under leadership of small farmers and indigenous peoples; introduce a "Year of Food" in every primary school; and put women in leadership across business, politics, government, religion and society.

Baby Shaharoona, Said Al‐Ismaily, Ahmed Al‐Mayahi, Nadhira Al-Harrasi, Ruqaiya Al-Kindi, Abdullah Al-Sulaimi, Hamad Al-Busaidi, Mohammed Al‐Abri · Heliyon · Global

A study in A'Seeb city, Oman, combined a sociological questionnaire survey of residents' perceptions with sampling of pathogenic bacteria, water-soluble metals, basic cations, salinity and texture in soil and groundwater near urban gardens and municipal waste disposal sites. Most surveyed residents were not paying attention to the negative consequences of their activities on soil and the environment. Heavy metal concentrations were significant at some contaminated sites though still below international standards, while fecal contaminants were reported in some garden, waste-site and groundwater samples, identifying human pathogens in risk group 2 including Klebsiella pneumoniae, Shigella spp. and E. coli.

Claire Elizabeth Haselhorst, Grace Baldwin, Robert M. Stwalley · International Journal of Business and Economics Research ·

This piece argues that a lack of understanding between urban agriculture promoters and local city officials is stunting the development and economic sustainability of urban agriculture, since planning that fails to account for stakeholders can cause delays and economic setbacks. It states that urban farm installations require attention to neighborhood integration, city planning, adaptation to or upgrading of existing infrastructure, odor abatement and visual screening, but presents no original study data.

Lucy Rose Wright, Ross Fraser Young · Manchester University Press eBooks · Global

A chapter introducing the concept of political gardening. It begins by situating the re-evaluation of "everyday space" within neoliberal processes of privatization, devolution and entrepreneurialism, then connects the rise of academic interest in urban gardening with the movement's political dimension. Drawing on Rawls' theory of social justice, it conflates political gardening with injustice, uses case studies to unpack that process of addressing injustice across six iterative stages, and arrives at a definition of political gardening as both a term and a process through which participants become "democratized" citizens.

Asnath Alberto Malekela · · Tanzania

In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, a study of climate change impacts on urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) drew on secondary literature plus primary data from structured and in-depth interviews, observations, and focus group discussions with 201 UPA practitioners. 84% of respondents engaged in UPA for food and income, and UPA made a positive contribution to food security. However, UPA was found to be severely affected by climate change: effects included drying of crops (41%), crop pests and diseases (28%), decreased crop yields (13%), loss of soil fertility (8%), animal diseases (43%), drying of pasture lands (41%), and livestock deaths (16%). The study states plainly that urban and peri-urban agriculture in Dar es Salaam is severely affected by climate change, and recommends adopting farming systems such as vertical farming that use limited water resources.

Michael Martin, Elvira Molin · Sustainability · Sweden

This study assessed the environmental impacts of urban vertical hydroponic farming through a life-cycle perspective, applied to a case-study vertical hydroponic farm in Stockholm, Sweden, comparing current performance with potential improvement scenarios. Results showed that growing medium, pots, electricity demand, and transportation of raw materials and product deliveries were the important contributors to environmental impact in this system. Replacing plastic pots with paper pots was found capable of producing large reductions in GHG emissions, acidification impacts, and abiotic resource depletion, and replacing conventional gardening soil with coir as the growing medium also led to large impact reductions. However, the study states that further reducing the system's impacts will require more resource-efficient steps specifically to address impacts from electricity demand, an issue not resolved by the pot and growing-medium substitutions, and identifies potential for more symbiotic exchanges using urban wastes and by-products.

Ljiljana Vasilevska, Danijela Milanović, Magdalena Vasilevska · Zbornik radova Građevinskog fakulteta · Serbia

This paper analyzes the potential of flat roofs as a suitable form of built environment for urban agriculture, focusing on how different types of flat roofs could support different categories of urban agriculture and considering the ecological, economic, and social benefits of this approach; no specific site measurements or quantitative results are given in the available text.

Magdalena Grochulska-Salak · Practice, progress, and proficiency in sustainability · Global

This book chapter, a conceptual rather than empirical piece, defines urban farming as building development for producing plants to meet local community needs and discusses shaping urban farms to preserve the environmental balance of urban spaces alongside the coexistence of architecture and greenery. It argues that technologies such as hydroponic and aeroponic production integrated into buildings can complement a city's functional and spatial structure in connection with public spaces and green systems, positioning the urban farm as an element of sustainable urban development.

Rana Muhammad Asif Kanwar, Zahid Mahmood Khan, Hafiz Umar Farid · Water Science & Technology · Global

A study in Multan, Pakistan, assessed the feasibility of biological treatment for a typical wastewater stream using daily trends in wastewater characteristics and designed a wastewater treatment (WWT) system for it. Parameters including pH (5.8-6.2), temperature (24-30°C), and BOD5 (128-265 mg/L) supported biological treatment; including nitrogenous BOD indicated a need for nitrification-denitrification, and linear regression of volatile suspended solids against total suspended solids showed high organic solids content suited to biological treatment. A BOD/COD ratio below 0.8 indicated a need for biomass acclimation. The designed system's major units were a primary clarifier, cascade aeration, trickling filter, adsorption filter, and chlorination contact tank. Over a 15-week validation period of the secondary WWT system, removal reached 91% for TSS, 46% for TDS, 88% for BOD5, and 87% for COD. The developed system was concluded to be an appropriate sustainable WWT system, with lower energy consumption and operating costs.

Alana Mann · · Global

This book chapter surveys urban planning initiatives from across the world that engage multiple stakeholders in co-creating diverse "foodscapes" to address food sovereignty, food justice, and food security, examining them as both political and strategic acts. Some of the examples draw on notions of the informal city, while others engage struggles for land justice that cross rural/urban boundaries. The survey of international food-policy instruments and practices is not exhaustive; the chapter's aim is instead to surface the tensions, contestations, and possible bridges involved in transforming urban food environments through voice, participation, and re-learning the city.

David C. Grossman, L.M. van den Berg, Hyacinth I. Ajaegbu · · Global

This is a record of the open discussions from a four-session workshop held in Netanya in June 1996. The first session addressed forming growers' associations to secure access to land and to consumers; the second covered technology transfer for water management; the third examined ecological aspects of urban and peri-urban gardening; and the fourth compiled mission statements each participant wrote after the presentations and discussions. The main synergy expected from urban and peri-urban farming was identified as its use of urban waste products to yield fresh agricultural produce, with geographers and cartographers seen as playing an important role in supporting peri-urban and urban farmers.