Research & reports

Marie T. Ruel, James Leo Garrett, Sivan Yosef, Meghan Olivier · · Global

This chapter reviews poverty, food security, and malnutrition in urban versus rural areas, noting a rapid shift of poverty to urban areas and high prevalence of food insecurity and malnutrition among urban dwellers. It highlights alarming rises in urban overweight and obesity, alongside persistent undernutrition. The review identifies critical knowledge gaps regarding factors shaping urban food security and calls for new research and data to inform policies supporting urban agriculture, healthy food access, and income generation to address these challenges.

Izquierdo Acosta, Daniel Francisco · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This study examined five urban agriculture experiences in Bogotá, Colombia, focusing on productivity (species richness and market prices), resource use and management (water, energy, land, waste), and human organizational forms. The research aims to make these contexts known to farmers and academia, providing insights for better implementation of urban agriculture.

Aloysius Clemence Mosha · Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance · Global

The book 'Cities and Agriculture' presents experience and evidence on key dimensions of urban food challenges and types of intra- and peri-urban agriculture across 15 chapters. This book illuminated the urban challenge of food provisioning, which has long been overlooked in urban studies, policies, and planning. Neglecting the dynamics and sustainability of food provisioning in scientific research on sustainable urban development is identified as a serious omission, given its significant social and physical impact.

Cecília Delgado · Moravian Geographical Reports · Portugal

This article analyzes 29 urban agriculture (UA) initiatives in Portugal, finding that UA primarily involves allotment gardens, urban farms, and short food chains, focusing on vegetables and fruit. It predominantly occurs on public and institutional land, championed by municipalities and civil society. UA is a recent metropolitan phenomenon that expanded rapidly after the 2008 economic crisis, organizing activities around food production, processing/distribution, and capacity building.

Immaculate Mugisa, Bernard Fungo, S. O. Adur, O. Ssemalulu, A. Molly, Jackie Atim, W. Nakyagaba, T. Kizza, Ruth Kabanyoro, Godfrey Sseruwu, B. Akello · African Journal of Plant Science · Uganda

A household survey of 297 farming households in Kampala, Wakiso, and Masaka districts, Central Uganda, investigated urban and peri-urban crop farming characteristics and trends. Cropping activities contributed an average of 40% to household income, with major crops including vegetables, maize, and bananas. Sixty percent of households practiced irrigation and fertilizer application, and 64% recycled waste, with 75% of those converting kitchen waste into manure.

Javier Fernández Andrés · · Global

The abstract is too short to provide a meaningful summary. It only states that cities grew unprecedentedly in the last century, leading to an urbanized world population, and that agriculture adopted industrial methods.

Gabin Korbéogo · Environment and Urbanization · Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou)

This article explores how land tenure, water flows, and water quality are legally, politically, and socially framed in urban agriculture in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Urban agriculture serves as a revenue source and a socio-political arena involving state representatives, experts, and farmers. Public authorities monitor legal standards for water use and hygiene, while farmers strive for efficient resource use, sometimes challenging official norms. These competing interests lead to conflicts over resource use or rule legitimacy, which are negotiated through institutional or informal bargaining.

Georgia Pollard, Philip Roetman, James Ward · Kobra (Universitätsbibliothek Kassel) · Australia (South Australia)

While urban agriculture is seen as a sustainable approach to improving food security, there is a significant knowledge gap regarding the financial accessibility of urban food production for all households. If urban agriculture remains primarily a middle-class discretionary activity, its role in city-wide food security improvement will be limited. This paper demonstrates that citizen science offers an effective approach to investigate the inputs (labor, costs, water use) and outputs (produce yields, value) of urban food gardens, using the Edible Gardens project in South Australia as an example.

Jason Byrne · · Global

Research on urban greenspace, including parks, gardens, and green infrastructure, consistently demonstrates that marginalized and vulnerable communities have less access to these areas. This chapter overviews environmental injustice research on urban greenspace, examining debates and challenges for researchers and policymakers, and highlighting issues like climate injustice and food insecurity related to environmental inequality.

Hayford Mensah Ayerakwa · Geographical Research · Ghana

This paper descriptively analyzed the contribution of household engagement in agriculture to urban food security in Techiman and Tamale, Ghana, using household data. The study found that nearly half (43%) of urban residents participate in food production, primarily for consumption and surplus sale. For households engaged in both urban and rural agriculture, agricultural income was the highest, contributing 43% of total cash income in Techiman and 33% in Tamale.

Rémi Schweizer, Cyril Mumenthaler · VertigO · Switzerland (Genève)

This case study in Geneva, Switzerland, examined the integration of urban agriculture and food sovereignty into public policy, focusing on the regional brand Genève Région - Terre Avenir (GRTA). The analysis, based on a cognitive approach, highlighted compromises and imbalances among actor communities with divergent value systems. Ultimately, the study demonstrated the difficulty in challenging the dominant agricultural framework.

Daniela Artunduaga Arboleda, Laura Michelle Bayona Ruiz, Juan Camilo Gómez, Laura Marcela González Vargas, Lady Jhoana Leiton Peña, María Fernanda Pardo Pachón, Daniela Alejandra Quintero Bautista, Möritz Velásquez Riaño · Revista de Tecnología · Colombia (Bogotá)

This descriptive study in a kindergarten in Santa Bárbara, Bogotá, addressed food security for 14 children, who received 16,693.6 g of vegetables/month, significantly less than the FAO-recommended 42,000 g. To mitigate this deficit, urban agriculture workshops were held for parents. The implemented proposal covered 65% of the vegetable supply deficit, equivalent to cultivating 140 plants, and 100% of participants showed interest in continuing the project.

Norul Hafizah Yusoff, Mohd. Ramzi Mohd. Hussain, Izawati Tukiman · PLANNING MALAYSIA · Malaysia

This paper reviews and analyzes the importance of a framework for urban farming activities within cities, describing the community's role in achieving environmental, economic, and social sustainability. It evaluates the benefits and potential of urban farming in limited urban spaces, noting its contribution to improving quality of life and addressing food shortage crises. The paper concludes that the community's role is crucial for implementing urban farming activities in urbanized areas.

Antoinette WinklerPrins · CABI eBooks · Global

This chapter provides definitions and theoretical framing for urban agriculture (UA). Research on UA has evolved beyond describing food production systems to its role in creating spaces of community, resistance, and empowerment. UA serves as a means for those not central to the city's function to claim a right to the city, and it is a rich field for interdisciplinary inquiry into urban sustainability.

Éric Darier · · Global

This chapter reviews Michel Foucault's contribution in the context of environmental effects of biopolitical disasters and presents three Foucaultian approaches. It then illustrates three specific components of the food justice movement: Via Campesina, urban agriculture, and Slow Food. The food justice movement exemplifies the theoretical lenses of power/knowledge, resistance, and ethics from the three Foucaultian perspectives.

Imogen Bellwood‐Howard, Eileen Bogweh Nchanji · CABI eBooks · Ghana

This book chapter argues that the market function of urban agriculture, combined with characteristics of the urban zone, allows urban farmers and marketers to reconnect ecological aspects with social and economic ones in their livelihood strategies. Drawing on urban political ecology and livelihoods frameworks, it shows this occurring to varying extents across the Global North and Global South, depending on the degree of politicization and connection between producers and consumers. The chapter draws on primary data on vegetable marketing in Tamale, northern Ghana, comparing it with case studies from the Global North, and concludes by considering implications for the future of market-oriented urban agriculture in both regions.

Jim Downing · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global

The 2017 DOAJ-indexed abstract states only that the work operates at the intersection of technology, civic society and sustainability to build food security and community-university connections; no specific study site, method or findings are given.

Philippe Robert-Demontrond, Vanessa Beaudouin, Isabelle Dabadie · Recherche et Applications en Marketing (English Edition) · Global

This article examines consumer engagement in community-supported agriculture (CSA) programmes, an alternative direct-selling model, using ethnographic fieldwork and cultural theory as an anthropological analytical framework. It finds that CSA programmes function as "community enclaves" operating outside of and against the conventional market, and that different cultures coexist within the broader CSA movement. This diversity of worldviews generates tensions, but their complementarity is described as proving positive for the movement.

Luz Dary Agudelo Gutiérrez · Journal of research in engineering sciences. · Colombia

In Colombia, this study aimed to implement urban agriculture as a pedagogical and didactic strategy for training vulnerable populations in the production and consumption of healthy food, oriented toward food security. To structure a proposed design for agroecological gardens, the researchers carried out a participatory validation process with the community and supporting local professionals, aiming to spread knowledge and build community ownership of the project. The initiative aims to use vacant urban land for gardening that increases biodiversity while strengthening food security.

Silvia Rodríguez Navarro, Juan Esteban Barranco Florido, Victor Hugo Marín Cruz, Roberto Alejandro Terrón Sierra · Sociedades Rurales, Producción y Medio Ambiente · Global

To identify control alternatives for Macrodactylus pests in urban agriculture zones, this study evaluated the biopesticide action of enzymatic extracts from the entomopathogenic fungi Beauveria bassiana, Isaria fumosorosea, and Metarhizium anisopliae against Macrodactylus infuscatus, an insect of economic importance. The fermentative extracts showed chitinolytic and proteolytic activity that degraded the insect cuticle and caused mortality. After 12 days, survival was lowest with I. fumosorosea extract (20%), followed by B. bassiana (25%) and M. anisopliae (38%), versus 48% in the control. With transformed data, I. fumosorosea again showed the lowest survival (10%), followed by B. bassiana (18%) and M. anisopliae with the highest survival (31%) (p 0.0026). Mean time to death was shortest for I. fumosorosea (5 days), followed by B. bassiana (7 days) and M. anisopliae (9.5 days), all significantly different from the control (p 0.05). This is described as the first study applying these biological control agents to M. infuscatus; treated insects showed decreased food consumption and mobility, apparently due to fungal metabolite effects.

N. Delille · WORLD OF ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT · Global

This article examines the concept of ecological citizenship -- which positions citizens as agents of change and sources of progress, in contrast to environmental policy's long-standing treatment of citizens as passive actors -- against the backdrop of the rise of community-supported agriculture (CSA). It argues that this new form of sustainable consumption can be considered tangible evidence for Dobson's theory of ecological citizenship, but states that the scientific literature needs to take more interest in the topic to understand its implications for public policy, which it says has not yet been done.

Bronwen Morgan, Declan Kuch · Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks · Global

A chapter draws on an extensive study of grassroots innovation responding to climate change, spanning a continuum from social activism to social enterprise, examining the diverse motivations of entrepreneurs who started community-supported agriculture projects, car-sharing schemes, and co-working spaces. It shows how entrepreneurs' differing biographical trajectories shape the initiatives they create around economic, environmental, and social benefits. The chapter argues these benefits must be understood through the ambiguity of a socio-legal lens: while "sharing" initiatives may occasionally catalyze opportunities to move beyond neoliberalism, the ways lawyers and legal techniques shape the infrastructure of collaboration are deeply implicated in the economics of the neoliberal inheritance — meaning such sharing-economy governance remains entangled with, rather than genuinely escaping, neoliberal economic structures.

Fábio Cunha Coelho, Enilce Maria Coelho, Monika Egerer · Scientia Agricola · Global

A review paper on the consumption of locally produced food examines its relationship to local and global sustainability, the effect of transport distance ("food miles"), low-carbon farming practices, urban agriculture's contribution to local food, and links to nutrition and health. It states that transportation is not the sole determinant of how efficiently local food is consumed — the agricultural technologies used are often more responsible for the degree of sustainability — and that local production does not always mean lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Christine Hvitsand · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Norway

This article explores why Norwegian producers and consumers engage in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), identifying distinct values and motivations related to environmental protection, justice, health, participation, and communication. While CSA demonstrates transformational power in the agri-food system through sustainable practices and power reallocation, the challenge remains to upscale these actions and prevent the dilution of core values and agroecological practices.

Piroska Nagy · Repository of the Academy's Library (Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) · Global

This study provides an overview of the development, geographical emergence, and key values of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) globally and in Hungary, using secondary research methods. The roots of CSA trace back to Rudolf Steiner's ideas in the 1920s, forming the basis for CSA movements in Germany, Switzerland, and the Americas. In contrast, the French AMAP and Hungarian CSA are based on the teikei communities that emerged in the 1970s. Both models were found to be motivated by consumers' desire for access to healthy food, with consumers initiating their establishment.