Research & reports

Thalita Barbalho, Rita de Castro Engler · Design e Tecnologia · Brazil

A study examining design's contribution to social innovation and sustainability, aimed at showing how the design field can help improve and expand the practice of urban gardens in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Using service design tools, the study designed a service for the collective "Agroecologia na Periferia" (Agroecology in the Periphery), seeking to understand its current activities and how they could be strengthened. The methodology was a qualitative, applied approach with exploratory and descriptive aims, carried out in two stages: (1) a systematic literature review covering social innovation, service design, relational services, sustainable development, and urban agriculture; and (2) a case study following a four-stage method of exploration, reflection, ideation, and prototyping. The study concludes that service design for social innovation proved to be an approach capable of helping resolve the stated objective and build viable futures, fostering and guiding social innovations toward gradual, meaningful change toward sustainability.

Bareng Antolin · Digital Scholarship - UNLV (University of Nevada Reno) · United States

A survey distributed via Farm to School state lead contacts to school garden networks nationwide in the United States collected data on high school-level garden programs, an area with limited prior research compared to elementary and middle school garden studies; 42 respondents completed the survey and were included in the final analysis. Many respondents reported perceiving positive benefits from having a high school garden program, and the study documents current practices, barriers, and implementation and sustainability strategies reported by these programs.

Brian Raison · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

This is a review of "A Garden Experience: Growing Organic," a film about an organic community garden project in Colorado, United States, that centers on a participating gardener's statement, "It's not about the vegetables. It's about community," and is framed as potential inspiration for local food groups, garden clubs or food-and-community events.

Alex Dias da-Silva · Revista Geográfica de América Central · Brazil

A qualitative, descriptive and exploratory study investigating public policies that promote urban agriculture as an instrument of urban sustainability in the city of João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil. Because urban agriculture promotion is a recent phenomenon locally, the study examines whether a specific legislative framework exists for it. It finds that the municipal government has fostered public policies supporting urban agriculture management and improvement since 1993.

Samantha Senda-Cook · Argumentation and Advocacy · United States

Gifford Park, a neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, has been recreating itself through urban agriculture like many neighborhoods across the country. This case study conceptualizes urban agriculture as a "place ballet" — describing interactions between places and bodies — extending the idea that places can function as spatial arguments. The analysis found that urban agriculture reveals a complex material argument about the positive impacts places and bodies can have on communities and their members, while simultaneously overlooking the economic and racial privileges inherent in these efforts, and concludes that the place-ballet concept itself carries its own implications of economic and racial privilege.

Grace Claire O'Neil · ScholarWorks -A service of University of Vermont Libraries (University of Vermont) · United States

This guide established a baseline of soil health for community gardens in the Burlington, Vermont, area of the United States. Ten sites in the Winooski Valley area were soil-sampled in fall 2018, and eight sites in the Chittenden County vicinity were sampled in spring 2019 for comparison, using the Modified Morgan's Universal Extraction Solution to quantify phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), pH, and percentage of organic matter, along with testing hypotheses about nutrient concentration changes from 2011 to 2018 under till and no-till management. Nearly all soils sampled in the Winooski Valley area were found excessive in phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium, most likely due to soil amendment application. Comparing the 2018 tests with tests done by Burlington Parks, Recreation, and Waterfront in 2011, only potassium had increased significantly, and tillage (till vs. no-till) did not affect nutrient concentrations. The guide notes concern that these excess soil nutrients could be exported from the gardens via erosion and leaching, given the gardens' proximity to the Winooski River and Lake Champlain.

Matthew Potteiger · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

A review of The Community Food Forest Handbook by Catherine Bukowski and John Munsell of Virginia Tech, a systematic analysis of 30 community food forest projects — landscapes producing food modeled on forest ecosystem form and function. The review reports that only one of the 30 projects has existed for more than 10 years, and situates the food forest movement, like earlier urban agriculture and CSA efforts, as a grassroots phenomenon that has spread across the country with little coordination among individual projects.

Kumudu P.P. Kopiyawattage, Laura Warner, T. Grady Roberts · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · United States (Columbus)

This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to describe factors influencing the intention of urban food producers in Columbus, one U.S. city, to continue farming in urban settings. It found that perceived complexity can negatively influence attitude and hinder intention, while subjective norms shaped by peer growers and family members may heighten the intention to continue. The findings also revealed personal characteristics, such as education and access to resources, that may enhance perceived behavioral control.

Sarah Grace Davenport, Joanna Mishtal · Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment · United States (Florida)

Based on 2017 ethnographic fieldwork, this paper critically examines the sustainability initiatives and practices of an urban farming program in Florida, exploring the extent to which they consider a community's race and socioeconomic class. The authors argue that the program's initiatives overlook food justice concerns and apply the same approach across disparate communities, focusing on environmental rather than community benefits. They call for incorporating social justice themes into sustainability agendas.

Juily Phun, Elise Dang · AAPI Nexus Journal: Policy, Practice, and Community · United States (San Gabriel Valley)

This article focuses on a service-learning program at Cal State LA (Food Justice, the Body, and the Environment in the API Community) that partners with schools across the San Gabriel Valley to build culturally relevant produce gardens for students in a region with a large low-income Asian American population. The essay centers on the partnership process, noting that a lack of procedural transparency within university structures is one of the greatest barriers to community–university partnerships.

Jae Ho Lee, David Matarrita-Cascante · Sustainability · United States (Austin)

Using a survey of gardeners at three plot-based community gardens in Austin, Texas, this study examined how past gardening experience moderates the motivations behind community garden participation. Results showed that greater gardening experience strengthened the effect of emotional motivations on participation, while it had no effect on the relationship between functional motivations and participation.

Candis Hunter, Dana Williamson, Matthew Gribble, Halle Bradshaw, Melanie Pearson, Eri Saikawa, P. Ryan, Michelle Kegler · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · United States

Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior, this mixed methods study examined community gardeners' beliefs about and intentions to conduct heavy metal soil testing. It combined five focus groups of garden leaders in Atlanta, Georgia with a questionnaire administered to 500 community gardeners across the United States, finding that soil testing intention was associated with attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.

Rachel Romero, Deborah A. Harris · City & Community · United States (Austin, TX)

This study uses in-depth interviews with urban farmers and their supporters and with residents of gentrifying East Austin to examine competing definitions of "community" in the dispute over rewriting Austin, Texas's urban farm code. Drawing on the concept of "interpretive communities," it argues that when communities feel threatened they coalesce to defend their position, showing how class, race, and ethnicity remain tied to environmental justice.

Junhong Chen, Zhifeng Gao, Xuqi Chen, Lisha Zhang · Sustainability · United States

Drawing on a national U.S. survey of 795 respondents, this study analyzed how motivation, perceived barriers, and advertising methods shape consumers' past, current, and future participation in community-supported agriculture (CSA). Younger consumers, higher-income families, and supporters of sustainable agriculture were more likely to renew subscriptions, and members were sensitive to the timing, price, and location of food distribution. The effects of barriers and advertising varied with members' participation status.

Marshman J., Scott S. · Canadian Food Studies · Ontario, Canada

A study of five Ontario gleaning groups showing that modern gleaning contributes to community food security by reducing food waste, improving access to fresh food, and fostering social connections.

· Economic Geography · USA

Focuses on the unpaid 'surplus labor' that sustains urban agriculture sites, analyzing how it is appropriated and distributed. It shows these sites depend heavily on unpaid, contested embodied work central to workers' subject formation.

Mysha Clarke, Melissa Davidson, Monika Egerer, Elsa C. Anderson, Nakisha Fouch · People Place and Policy Online · United States

This paper argues that community gardens should be a prioritized element of green infrastructure to improve cities' adaptation to climate change. Community gardens can reduce urban heat islands, provide ecosystem services, and increase stormwater retention. However, a qualitative analysis of 18 policy documents for Baltimore, Chicago, and New York City, U.S.A., found that green infrastructure for climate change adaptation prioritizes rain gardens, bioswales, and green roofs, but seldom acknowledges the role of community gardens.

Michael Carolan · Journal of the American Planning Association · United States

This 2019 study, based on 82 interviews in Denver, New York, and San Francisco, investigated how traditional and digital urban agriculture converge and diverge regarding land use and gentrification. It found that both digital and traditional urban farming systems are linked to gentrification and inequitable land use patterns. Digital urban farming systems also operate in a regulatory gray area, with their "digital" aspects used to gain more zoning permission than traditional urban agriculture.

Mariana Peixoto Espósito, Bruna Caroline Lima de Souza, Dirceu Pereira Siqueira · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Brazil (Maringá)

This article analyzes the fundamental right to food within national and international legal frameworks, focusing on its implementation in Brazil through public policies. It specifically examines the Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture Program and the Community Gardens Program in Maringá/PR, concluding that the Community Gardens Program is an effective public policy for realizing the right to food. The methodology included a bibliographic review and field research based on interviews.

Wooley, Megan Katherine · Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · United States

This study interviewed four community gardens in low-income neighborhoods across the United States about their programs and outreach activities. It also conducted an in-depth review of existing literature on community gardens and their benefits. The research noted that some difficulties exist with creating community gardens.

Sarah E. Cramer, Anna Ball · Journal of Agricultural Education · United States

This qualitative case study in the United States examined a school garden program transitioning from non-profit to public school district control, conceptualizing this as a shift from a non-formal to a formal education paradigm. The research explored tensions between constructivist, non-formal educational philosophies and standardized, formal education within school garden settings. The findings indicate challenges in integrating non-formal learning into formal public education structures, arguing for broader legitimation of garden-based learning in curriculum.

Brian Doucet · Technology and Culture · United States (Detroit)

Kimberley Kinder's book, "DIY Detroit: Making Do in a City without Services," ethnographically documents how Detroit residents engage in self-provisioning strategies to address voids in safety, municipal services, and development. The book details six strategies, including acting as informal realtors, defensive architecture for vacant homes, and repurposing vacant properties for urban gardening, often in "gray spaces" abandoned by landowners and neglected by officials.

Giszell Dymond Weather · Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · United States

A 7-month study of the Angier Avenue Neighborhood Farm in East Durham, a predominantly Black area, found that Black residents rarely participate in farm activities. This research, based on participant observation, interviews, and food systems research, theorizes the relationship between urban farming and gentrification, arguing that equitable community food projects must incorporate local Black residents' cultures and histories to be sustainable.

Karla Solari Pérez, Jazmín Goicochea Medina, Mishel Huamán Nakamura, Ronaldiño Tamara Pachas · Investigaciones Sociales · Peru (Lima)

This article analyzes the role of women in promoting and developing urban agriculture in two districts of South Lima, Peru: San Juan de Miraflores and Villa María del Triunfo. These experiences are part of the "Red de agricultores ecológicos huertos en línea" (Network of ecological farmers online gardens) social responsibility project by Red de Energía del Perú, and are analyzed transversally through the sex/gender system.

Arantza Elena Sanchez Gutierrez · · Mexico

In Querétaro Municipality, Mexico, a strategy was designed and implemented to increase and incentivize the use of urban agriculture. Previous strategies implemented in Mexico had resulted in low participation and abandonment of practice due due to low interest from inhabitants and a lack of will to follow through on plans. This qualitative research analyzed the causes of these failures using User-Centered Design tools and Design Thinking. Findings showed that a "strategy of appropriation," emphasizing a sense of belonging, well-being, and commitment, resulted in an increase in this variable, which influences the abandonment of agricultural practices.