Research & reports

Jane Entwistle, Patrick M. Amaibi, John R. Dean, Michael E. Deary, Daniel Medock, Jackie Morton, Ilia Rodushkin, Lindsay Bramwell · Environment International · United Kingdom

This study assessed gardeners' lead exposure in urban agriculture sites (UAS) to improve the derivation of soil assessment criteria. Researchers sampled nearly 280 paired soil and crop samples across 31 UAS gardens in the United Kingdom and measured blood lead levels (BLL) of 43 gardeners and 29 non-gardening neighbors. While 98% of sampled soils had lead concentrations above the current UK UAS soil guideline (80 mg/kg), all participants' BLL were below 0.1 mg/kg despite high soil lead. The study indicated that soil-to-plant concentration factors (SPCFs) used for UAS significantly over-predicted lead uptake.

Les Levidow · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · United Kingdom (London)

This research examines the role of 'community' in London's food initiatives and how it stimulates congenial activities through social innovation. These initiatives involve forms of social innovation such as enhancing socio-political capabilities, fulfilling unsatisfied needs, and redefining societal problems. London's food initiatives face challenges in combining these diverse aims and activities.

Matthew Reed, Evy Mettepenningen, Paul Swagemakers, M.D. Domínguez García, Ingrid Jahrl, Marlinde Koopmans · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · Europe

This paper examined urban food governance in four European city-regions: Bristol (UK), Ghent (Belgium), Vigo (Spain), and Zurich (Switzerland). The case studies demonstrated the role of citizens in urban food and the challenges this presents to city-region governance. Urban food activists, through horizontal networking and clear communication of demands, have raised significant questions about how cities are governed.

Juan Soriano-Baeza, Raimundo Otero-Enríquez, Estefanía Calo · Semata: Ciencias sociais e humanidades · Spain

This study conducted a quantitative sociological investigation in three community gardens on the periphery of A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. The research aimed to theoretically define the concept of urban community gardens and to extrapolate data and reflections on their multifunctionality and the motivations supporting their production to the Galician territorial context.

Toni Karge · Journal of Place Management and Development · Germany (Berlin)

This participatory action research examines the Himmelbeet urban community garden in Berlin from an urban planning perspective, using placemaking principles for ex-post analysis. The study found that the garden functions as a placemaking scheme, despite not being planned with placemaking instruments. Its process demonstrates strategies to address exclusion, disinvestment, and depoliticization of public spaces, showcasing the potential of citizen-controlled placemaking.

Luciana Macaluso · Nova Science Publishers (Nova Science Publishers, Inc.) · Europe

This paper discusses the historical perspectives of architects Leberecht Migge (1919) and Giuseppe Samonà (1976) on urban and rural connections. Both recognized the necessity of gardens within large towns and saw urbanization as a partial solution to agricultural production crises. The authors suggest that integrating gardens into urban design, inspired by these ideas, can contribute to soil conservation, especially as soils are increasingly recognized as cultural heritage.

Martin Gauder, Heinrich Hagel, Nadine Gollmann, Joachim Stängle, Reiner Doluschitz, Wilhelm Claupein · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · Germany

A 2015 survey of 173 participants and 34 providers of self-harvest gardens in Germany aimed to characterize individuals engaged in this form of urban agriculture. Participants generally exhibited middle to high incomes, sustainable lifestyles, high education levels, and strong nutritional awareness, with a disproportionate engagement of females. Providers were primarily farmers with an affinity for organic agriculture, often benefiting from synergistic effects with farm shops. Challenges identified for some gardens included bad harvests, theft, and vandalism.

Birgit Peuker · · Germany

This chapter discusses whether community supported agriculture (CSA) constitutes a real alternative to the conventional food system. From the perspective of social movement research, CSA is viewed not as a niche that will replace the agri-food system in the future, but rather as a space for learning and expressing sustainability. The analysis is based on experiences with CSA in Germany and includes comparisons with developments in other European countries.

S. Parsisson · · Netherlands (Rotterdam)

This study investigated how urban farmers at Rotterdamse Munt, an urban herb garden in Rotterdam, Netherlands, discursively negotiate their status as a 'social enterprise' using ethnographic fieldwork and a semiotic approach. The research found that Rotterdamse Munt has not fully transformed into a sustainable ecological social enterprise. Instead, urban farmers constantly negotiated between altruistic and commercial approaches, failing to fully achieve both, which obliged them to combine two contrasting identities through dual visual identity, services, and products to reach two different populations.

Daina Romeo, Eldbjørg Blikra Vea, Marianne Thomsen · Procedia CIRP · France (Lyon)

This paper analyzed the environmental impacts of ReFarmers' pilot farm, a high-yield vertical hydroponic croft in the urban area of Lyon, France, from a life cycle perspective. Results indicated that the hydroponic farm performed better than cultivations in heated greenhouses and similarly to conventional open field farms. Furthermore, the electricity input source was a determinant factor; if carbon neutral (e.g., wind energy), vertical hydroponic production could outperform the two conventional agriculture types.

Marie Gisclard, Richard Raymond · Institut français d’études anatoliennes eBooks · Turkey (Diyarbakır)

This article examines the Hevsel Gardens in Diyarbakır, Turkey, which face sustainability challenges due to the city's growth and an asymmetric relationship where the city dominates the gardens. It highlights the unbalanced relationships between the gardens and the city, stemming from a lack of quality and quantity in water resources. The coexistence and competition of three socio-political projects, including centralized political networks and farmer-specific adaptations, call for a re-examination of this relationship and an alternative to the concentration of powers in the metropolis.

Alisa Koroļova, S. Treija · Architecture and Urban Planning · Europe

This article provides evidence of the multi-functionality of urban gardening in addressing various societal issues. Case studies from Malmo, Birmingham, and Riga demonstrate how urban gardening contributes to social integration, inhabitants' well-being, and urban regeneration.

P Cacciari · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Italy

This article argues that diverse economic forms exist beyond the market economy, including natural, gift, domestic, informal, and solidarity economies. Solidarity economy, based on ethical principles like sustainability, mutuality, cooperation, and democracy, is presented as a transformative, post-capitalist alternative applicable to all sectors of production, distribution, and exchange. Case studies include buildings as common goods in Naples and Arvaia, a community-supported agriculture initiative in Bologna.

Attila Tóth, Barbora Duží, Jan Vávra, Ján Supuka, Mária Bihuňová, Denisa Halajová, Stanislav Martinát, Eva Nováková · Nature and Culture · Europe

A historical review article on allotment gardening in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Tracing back to the eighteenth century, it identifies the periods and events that shaped Czech and Slovak society and urban gardening in particular, and analyzes the development of allotments before and after 1989 using case studies and examples. The article offers this historical narrative as a basis for discussing contemporary trends, challenges and visions for allotment gardening in both countries.

Céline Henne · European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy · Europe

A review of French philosopher Joëlle Zask's book "La Démocratie aux Champs," which argues against the prejudice that democratic ideals essentially grow out of and thrive in big cities and are antithetical to agricultural life. It notes that both in nineteenth-century Europe and in the contemporary United States, peasants have widely been seen as conservative, bigoted and apolitical, while urban residents are typically seen as more progressive and politically minded. Against this view, and against an alternative romanticized picture of an idyllic rural world, Zask argues that the values and practices associated with democratic freedom "primarily come... from the farm" (p. 7), with "farm" understood broadly to encompass different kinds of agriculture, including urban community gardens, rather than being restricted to the peasant lifeworld.

Patrick Oehler, Nicola Thomas, Timo Huber · Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster · Europe

This German-language sociological article uses the example of allotment garden communities (Familiengartengemeinschaften) to argue that sustainability research and local policy should attend not only to self-identified pioneer groups such as new community gardens, but also to traditional allotment garden groups that are less familiar with sustainability discourse yet still act as practitioners of sustainable resource use; the article argues that sustainable development requires a democratic dialogue between such different actors.

Wojciech Sroka · Annals of the Polish Association of Agricultural and Agribusiness Economists · Poland

A study of opinions and perceptions of the benefits of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) among 512 inhabitants of Polish metropolitan areas (MA), based on a survey. The research found that the concept of urban agriculture is relatively little known in Poland, and inhabitants are fairly skeptical about the benefits generated by agriculture in metropolitan areas. Acceptance of agricultural functions was lowest among inhabitants of the metropolitan core and increased with distance from the core, with residents of rural municipalities furthest from the core attributing the highest social, environmental and economic importance to agriculture.

İşık Sezen · DergiPark (Istanbul University) · Europe

The paper traces the history of allotment gardens (AG), which originated in the United Kingdom, and shows that in European countries such as Germany they now function mainly as recreational and social sites rather than agricultural production areas. Examining Turkish examples — Atatürk Forest Farm, the Yedikule Gardens adjacent to Istanbul's UNESCO World Heritage territorial walls, Boğazköy Kuzguncuk Garden, and the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Diyarbakır City Walls and Hevsel Gardens — it concludes these sites have long served the same function as European allotment gardens, as urban agricultural land in Turkey.

Ciska Ulug, Lummina Horlings · Local Environment · Europe (Netherlands)

Using in-depth interviews and participant observation in rural, peri-urban, and urban community gardens in the North of the Netherlands, this research examined the conditions and processes through which resourcefulness—a community's capacity to engage with its local resource base—facilitates social innovation. Comparing differing contexts, it identified five enablers for altering social relations and community empowerment: clear goals and motivations, diversity in garden resources, experimental knowledge processes, strong internal support and recognition, and place-based practices.

Céline Tanguay, Jean Louis Yengué, José Serrano · VertigO · France

Focusing on the Tours urban agglomeration in France, this article analyzes how an urban agriculture project takes shape, both politically and technically. It argues that feeding city dwellers is only a pretext for addressing economic issues (structuring a sector), social issues (social cohesion), and environmental issues (biodiversity, protection of soil and groundwater), and that the success of an urban agriculture project therefore depends on mobilizing all actors involved in urban planning. This multifunctional territorial vision, the article argues, can overcome the persistent divide between environmental and food objectives given their converging underlying goals, and it proposes linking biodiversity conservation with food production through a "green, blue and food network" (trame verte, bleue et alimentaire, TVBA).

Veronica Barry, Chris Blythe · · United Kingdom

A book chapter frames community gardens as part of "health care as a community collective," exploring active and passive spaces that support health and well-being through practical, healthy place-making. It develops case studies from Birmingham and the West Midlands, UK: Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, which has extended its health care model beyond its buildings to the surrounding landscape, and Jasmine Road Community Garden in Dudley, where local residents have collectively developed a site supporting community and individual well-being, drawing practical and theoretical insight into how gardens can facilitate individual and collective journeys toward health and recovery.

Shruti Desai, Harriet Smith · Feminist Review · United Kingdom

This essay responds to Donna Haraway's call to "stay with the trouble" of learning to live well with nonhumans as kin, using practice-based approaches to caring for nonhuman others. It analyzes two cases — care for trees promoted through mobile game apps for forest conservation, and kinship relations with city farm animals in Kentish Town, London — and proposes two concepts, "learning from" and "facing" the Other, to broaden discussion of interspecies dynamics involving animated trees and urban farm animals as distinct nonhuman subjects.

Alexander Wezel, Julia Goette, Elisabeth Lagneaux, Gloria Passuello, Erica Reisman, Christophe Rodier, Grégoire Turpin · Sustainability · Europe

A study mapping the development of agroecology in Europe through a literature review, interviews, conference participation and internet search. It finds that agroecological research and higher education are concentrated more in western and northern Europe, though farm schools and farmer-to-farmer training exist in other regions too. Bottom-up initiatives and national or continental networks and movements are increasing, with food sovereignty and access to land and seeds as major themes. Except for France, the study states there are very few concrete agroecology policies in Europe.

Bas Spierings, Ilse van Liempt, Emiel Maliepaard · Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie · Europe

A study of social inclusion and exclusion processes in and around the Wijsgeren community garden in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Positioned against a literature that has largely emphasized and celebrated community gardening's benefits, it examines the practices and experiences of both gardeners and non-gardeners, and identifies specific exclusionary barriers based on non-ownership and non-membership operating in and around the garden.

Justyna Kleszcz · Architecture Civil Engineering Environment · Europe

This paper compares urban farm initiatives across European cities (Paris, Barcelona, Vienna) and non-European cities (New York, Brasilia, Hong Kong), differentiating them by scale, purpose, and the role urban agriculture plays according to a developed taxonomy. A system analysis identifies common characteristics behind the growing popularity of new forms of urban agriculture. The paper argues that comparing the causes behind their emergence, how different solutions have been implemented, and the modifications arising from functional analysis of existing facilities is important for developing guidelines for the further development of urban agriculture systems, including in Poland.