Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
9074 results(361 / 363)
A City of Farmers: Informal Urban Agriculture on the Open Spaces of Nairobi, Kenya
1994P. Anyang’ Nyong’o, Donald B. Freeman · Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines · Kenya
This study by Donald Freeman examined informal urban agriculture in Nairobi, Kenya, through on-site surveys of 618 small-scale cultivators in ten different areas. It describes urban farmers, their land use practices, and crops, and discusses the development and significance of urban agriculture within Kenya's social and economic development. The findings suggest a need to redefine urban productive activities in the Third World to include basic food production in cities.
CommunityEconomicsUrban–rural linkageFood sovereignty & justiceRutgers Urban Gardening: A Study in Cultural Diversity and Gardening
1994Ishwarbhai C. Patel · HortTechnology · United States
The Rutgers Urban Gardening (RUG) program in the United States fosters cultural diversity by employing six ethnic minority workers and reaching over 30 ethnic groups through various educational programs. It creates an environment where people can connect, share concerns, and solve problems, bridging social, economic, cultural, and racial barriers.
CommunityFood educationWelfareInstitutional responses to uncontrolled urban cultivation in Harare: prohibitive or accommodative?
1994Beacon Mbiba · Environment and Urbanization · Zimbabwe (Harare)
This review examines local government responses to uncontrolled urban cultivation in Harare, Zimbabwe, covering both the colonial period and post-independence since 1980. The study finds that local authorities struggle to manage urban agriculture effectively and sustainably. It suggests new directions for policy and research to address these difficulties.
Governance failurePolicyCommunityFood Systems and the Poor in Harare Under Conditions of Structural Adjustment
1994David Drakakis‐Smith · Geografiska Annaler Series B Human Geography · Africa
This paper focused on the impact of structural adjustment programs on the urban poor in Africa, specifically examining the urban food system in Harare, Zimbabwe. In Harare, food retailing is largely structured through supermarkets, which keeps costs high for the poor. While the informal sector has expanded, it remains relatively restricted and unorganized compared to Asian cities. Consequently, urban agriculture has grown extensively in house-gardens and illegally in the urban periphery, yet there is little coordinated or positive policy response from urban authorities.
Governance failureWelfareEconomicsPolicyUrban–rural linkageUrban horticulture: a part of the biodiversity picture
1994H. B. Tukey · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Global
This paper defines urban horticulture as the functional use of plants to improve urban environments. It states that urban horticulture contributes to screening views, food production, reducing noise and air pollution, ameliorating urban climates, and improving human well-being. The abstract notes that information on city plants often comes from observations and anecdotes, and that strategies from commercial agriculture do not always apply well to urban horticulture.
BiodiversityHealthClimate changeFood sovereignty & justiceUrban agriculture in South Africa: Policy issues from the international experience
1993Christian M. Rogerson · Development Southern Africa · South Africa
This paper argues that urban agriculture is an important issue for South African policymakers, noting an increase in urban food gardening and cultivation of vacant land in South Africa's metropolitan peripheries. It reviews research on informal agriculture in Asian and African cities to offer suggestions for policy debates and research in South Africa.
PolicyUrban–rural linkagePeri-urban agricultureUrban Agriculture in Kenya
1993Pyar Ali Memon, Diana Lee-Smith · Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines · Kenya
Based on a recent survey by the Mazingira Institute in Nairobi, this article analyzes the nature of urban agriculture in Kenyan cities, focusing on food supply as part of the informal urban economy. Urban agriculture, involving crops and livestock, is a common activity in African urban centers and a key element of poor households' economies, despite being often overlooked by urban planners. The article argues that African urban theory must incorporate this vital aspect of urban reality.
EconomicsFood sovereignty & justiceWelfarePolicyUrban agriculture in Kampala: Indigenous adaptive response to the economic crisis
1993Daniel Maxwell, Samuel Zziwa · Ecology of Food and Nutrition · Uganda (Kampala)
This study examines urban agriculture in Kampala, Uganda, as an adaptive response to economic hardships. It identifies significant constraints, including institutional obstacles to accessing underutilized urban land, municipal bylaws that suppress urban agriculture, and urban officials' indifferent to hostile views. The study found that these bylaws and views are based on misleading or false generalizations about urban agriculture.
Governance failurePolicyEconomicsFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityCONSERVATIONOF FARMLAND IN URBAN AGRICULTURAL PROMOTION AREA
1993Hiroshi AIZAWA, Kensuke Inoue, Masazumi NOMA · Journal of Architecture Planning and Environmental Engineering (Transactions of AIJ) · Japan
This study explained the reasons for non-cultivation in urban agricultural promotion areas and examined future subjects for conserving normal farmland surrounded by urbanization promotion areas. The occurrence rate of wasteland and infringement on agricultural land diversion in non-cultivated land differed according to city planning regulations and cultivating forms. The reasons for non-cultivation were found to be greatly related to farmers' workers, land ownership scale, and planning law, with owners of large landholdings who had no workers due to advanced age showing little intention to maintain agricultural operations or conserve farmland.
Governance failurePolicyUrban–rural linkageEconomicsSupplying the City: The Role of Reservoirs
1993Indian Urban Landscape · · India
This study focuses on the diversity and complexity of agricultural production organization in urban landscapes of nonindustrial societies, specifically analyzing the role of reservoirs in the agricultural landscape around Vijayanagara, southern India. Vijayanagara's agricultural facilities and strategies were diverse in both form and scale, ranging from vast canal irrigation to small rain-fed plots. Reservoirs, as a single morphological type, crosscut traditional agricultural categories, indicating significant variability in productive organization and suggesting that ecological and organizational contexts, beyond facility typology, are crucial for understanding production.
Urban–rural linkageFood sovereignty & justiceEconomicsFurther Report on the Surrey Docks City Farm in London, England
1993Joyce Anstey · Environmental Conservation · United Kingdom (London)
An abstract is not available for this content.
CommunityFood educationRecognizing Ethiopia's urban farmers.
1993Lee M · PubMed · Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, urban agriculture faces significant challenges due to government disapproval of public land use for farming and difficulty in obtaining credit. A 1983 survey in Addis Ababa found that 17% of 1352 households produced their own food on less than 25 sq. meters, with 90% of non-farmers citing lack of land. Despite urban agricultural cooperatives demonstrating 70% higher member income, their lack of government legalization prevents access to loans for productivity improvement.
Governance failureCommunityEconomicsPolicyFood sovereignty & justiceHealthWelfareClimate changeUrban–rural linkagePeri-urban agricultureFood educationBiodiversityCompostDIYElderlyFood lossHeirloom & landraceOrganic cyclePollinatorsFood miles & supply chainCSA & TeikeiDigital agricultureUrban irrigation and cooperative organisations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
1993Axumite G. Egziabher · Digital Library Of The Commons Repository (Indiana University) · Ethiopia
This paper summarized the character and role of urban agriculture in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and the organization of producers for whom urban agriculture is the sole means of survival. While urban agriculture contributes to food provision, employment, and income for producers, cooperatives face the challenge that concerned authorities cannot grant them legal status for credit access due to their urban location.
Urban–rural linkageCommunityEconomicsFood sovereignty & justiceThe ideology of the nature garden. Nationalistic trends in garden design in Germany during the early twentieth century
1992Wolschke-Bulmahn J., Gröning G. · Journal of Garden History, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 73–80 · Germany
Critically analyzes how the 'nature garden' ideology that emerged in early-twentieth-century Germany, while claiming scholarly basis, carried nationalist and native-plant preferences that fed into later Blood and Soil thinking.
PolicyBiodiversitySome Notes on the Mania for Native Plants in Germany
1992Gröning G., Wolschke-Bulmahn J. · Landscape Journal, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 116–126 · Germany
Examines how German landscape architects' obsession with native plants produced 'landscape rules' that, under National Socialism, became tied to the planning of occupied territories and acquired xenophobic, ideological character.
PolicyBiodiversityUrban agriculture for sustainable cities: using wastes and idle land and water bodies as resources
1992Jac Smit, Joe Nasr · Environment and Urbanization · Global
This article describes how urban agriculture can transform cities from mere consumers of food and agricultural products into sustainable generators of these products. It focuses on using wastes and idle land and water bodies as resources to achieve resource conservation and health improvement.
CommunityOrganic cycleClimate changeFood sovereignty & justiceLAND USE AND TRAVEL DEMAND
1992James W. Roberts, C Wood · · Global
This paper proposes a three-way study for 1992, building on previous case studies in Milton Keynes (UK) and Almere (NL) that noted substantial differences in travel behavior due to land use. The proposed study would cover Manchester, Berlin, and a low-density, car-dependent suburb in Melbourne, examining travel habits under diverse demographic and land use conditions. It suggests potential changes in travel modes and trip lengths following planned urban structural alterations, such as reduced car space in Manchester, S-Bahn and airport extensions in Berlin, and light rail near Melbourne.
PolicyCommunityTurning sunshine into water: PV water pumping in South Africa
1992Richard Gosnell Richard Gosnell · Waterlines · South Africa
This study assesses the performance of a photovoltaic (PV) pump installed at Sondela Community Garden in South Africa. The garden is a vegetable garden managed by 46 Zulu women in a semi-rural area. The research investigates whether solar-electric water pumping can provide water supplies in a region with abundant sunshine but limited water resources.
CommunityPeri-urban agricultureClimate changeFeeding Africa's Cities: The Role and Potential for Urban Agriculture
1992Christian M. Rogerson · Africa Insight · Africa
Professor C M Rogerson from the Department of Geography, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, assesses the role and potential of urban agriculture in sustaining Africa's rapidly growing cities.
Food sovereignty & justiceUrban–rural linkageEconomicsReviews/Comptes rendus
1992· Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes · Kenya (Nairobi)
This record contains reviews of two books: "The Geomorphology of Canada: An Introduction" by Alan S. Trenhaile and "A City of Farmers: Informal Urban Agriculture in the Open Spaces of Nairobi, Kenya" by Donald B. Freeman. The latter focuses on informal urban agriculture in Nairobi, Kenya.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceCity and Country: That Awkward Embrace
1991John M. Merriman · Oxford University Press eBooks · France
This chapter emphasizes the “awkward embrace” between city and country in the faubourg and the persistence of an urban agricultural population. It also considers how the troubled relationship between state and city affected the urban periphery and provides an overview of industry's role in faubourg development. To understand the urban periphery in France during the first half of the nineteenth century, it explores the state-city relationship (reflected in town walls), the persistence of rural life at the edge of and within cities, and industry's place in the emergence of the nineteenth-century faubourg.
Urban–rural linkagePolicyCommunityChapter 7: Urban Gardens
1991David R. Coffin · Princeton University Press eBooks · Italy (Rome)
This chapter, authored by David R. Coffin, explores urban gardens in Papal Rome. It contrasts these secular urban horticultural retreats with the cloistered gardens of monks.
CommunityUrban–rural linkageUrban Agriculture in the United States
1991Nelson L. Bills, Bills, Nelson L. · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · United States
A National Agricultural Lands Study (NALS) in the United States did not provide conclusive evidence of serious conflicts between urban development land requirements and the nation's agricultural production capacity. The study was also flawed by faulty data on farmland conversion rates.
PolicyUrban–rural linkageEconomicsMedicinal plants and primary health care: part 2.
1991· PubMed · Global
This paper emphasizes the need for technological infrastructure to maximize the value of medicinal plants within primary health care (PHC). The WHO Programme on Traditional Medicine highlights the importance of appropriate drug availability in PHC and recommends cultivating medicinal plants in home or community gardens. It advocates for strengthening data gathering and analysis capabilities for economic mapping of medicinal flora in developing countries and for clinical research on the safety and efficacy of herbal medicines used by traditional health practitioners.
CommunityHealthDIYThe International City Design Competition: Introduction
1990Jeffrey E Ollswang · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · Global
This introduction to the International City Design Competition outlines a vision to humanize cities by implementing tools over time, including narrowing streets, introducing electric mini-buses or light rail, and bold civic gestures. It proposes using pre-industrial town building principles and strategically building on existing character, with a focus on densification, incremental small-scale infill, domestication of highways, and urban food production.
PolicyUrban–rural linkage