Research & reports

Emma Schroeder, Eric Olmanson · · United States

In this 2010 oral history interview conducted by Emma Schroeder for a master's thesis on the Eagle Heights Community Gardens, former UW–Madison graduate student Eric Olmanson recalls his experience at the Eagle Heights Community Garden. He discusses organic farming, plants that behaved like invasive weeds, permanent versus rented plots, and the garden's international community.

Mamadou Ndiaye, S. Niang, H.‐R. Pfeifer, Raffaele Peduzzi, Mauro Tonolla, Y Dieng · Irrigation and Drainage · Senegal

Lettuces grown at two urban agricultural sites (Pikine and Patte d'Oie) near Dakar, Senegal, and sold in local markets were tested for microbial contamination linked to irrigation water. Salmonella spp. positivity was 6% at Pikine and 7% at Patte d'Oie farm sites, with lettuces irrigated by shallow 'Ceanes' groundwater most contaminated at both sites (8%), compared to wastewater irrigation (4% at Pikine) and well water (5% at Patte d'Oie); at market, Salmonella was isolated at every marketplace surveyed, with higher rates around Patte d'Oie (9% at Grand Yoff, 11% at Dalifort) than around Pikine (4% at Zinc, 2% at Sham) or the control site Rufisque (2%), and lettuces washed with Ceanes water before sale were more contaminated than those rinsed with tap water. Reusing wastewater for irrigation is presented as an alternative to animal manure, with the microbial contamination risk significantly reducible by washing vegetables with tap water before sale.

G. M. Hettiarachchi, Sabine Martin, A. David Rae, Phillip P. Defoe, Dennis Presely, G. M. Pierzysnki · · United States

Using a newly established urban community garden in Kansas City as a case example, this study examines the challenges of converting brownfield sites — abandoned or underutilized properties where environmental concerns impede redevelopment — into community gardens. Soil at the site was found to contain mildly elevated levels of lead (Pb) and detectable levels of DDT/DDE (an organochlorine pesticide). Based on an evaluation of soil properties, safety and corrective measures were proposed and implemented to reduce both direct (soil-to-human) and indirect (soil-to-plant-to-human) exposure for gardeners and their children, and field test plots with three crop types showing different contaminant-uptake patterns were established to evaluate site-specific soil amendments for reducing lead bioavailability.

Nicola Silvestri, E. Bonari · CINECA IRIS Institutial research information system (University of Pisa) · Italy

Focusing on the area around Lake Massaciuccoli in Tuscany, Italy, this paper discusses the relationship between the management of peri-urban agricultural land — the transition zone between city and countryside — and the lake's eutrophication problem. It argues that proper management of the extensive agricultural areas within this heavily anthropized territory could contribute significantly to resolving the lake's eutrophication through management and structural interventions, while noting that partially reorganizing existing agricultural models carries both cost and difficulty.

QU Xue-shu · Anhui nongye kexue · China

A Chinese paper frames Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a risk- and benefit-sharing arrangement between farms and their supporting communities, as an outgrowth of food-security concerns and land interest during urbanization, and explores its potential extension into tourism. Analyzing the feasibility and conditions for combining CSA with tourism, the paper proposes a new tourism form under the CSA model, termed 'TCSA tourism.'

Kathryn Colasanti · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (Detroit)

Using Detroit, Michigan as a case, this study developed a methodology based on secondary data to estimate the acreage needed to supply, as far as seasonally possible, the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed by city residents, and compared these requirements against a catalog of publicly owned vacant parcels in the city. Using high-yield, biointensive growing methods, 31% of seasonally available vegetables and 17% of fruit currently consumed by 900,000 people could be supplied on less than 300 acres, without extraordinary postharvest management or season-extension technology.

Kamasi Angwenya · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Africa

This study evaluated the impact of digital payment systems on cash flow and financial growth performance metrics among Tanzanian urban farmers, focusing on commercial farming activities, using a systematic literature review approach that synthesized existing studies on digital payments in Tanzania's urban agricultural settings. The analysis found a significant positive correlation (r = 0.78 ± 0.15) between digital payment adoption and improved financial growth performance metrics, indicating substantial improvements in cash flow management.

Michael Raleigh · eCommons (Cornell University) · United States

This essay argues that the U.S. food system, being heavily industrialized, consumes large amounts of fossil-fuel energy — citing an estimate that it takes 10 calories of energy to produce one calorie of food — through fossil-fuel-powered planting, spraying, fertilizing, irrigation, tilling, harvesting, processing and transport, all of which generate greenhouse gases and make the food system a major contributor to climate change. It positions the development of urban farms in Buffalo as a necessary strategy to "de-carbon" the food system, on the grounds that urban farms use human labor in place of oil-powered machines and, being smaller than industrial-scale farms, can be managed with fewer machines, with home gardens and small urban farms claimed to be more productive per unit of land and energy than large-scale farms despite their low-tech approach.

Qian Xiong Jin · Chinese Landscape Architecture · United Kingdom

An overview of the history and future of the allotment garden in the United Kingdom. It originated in the subsistence needs of people who had lost their land during urbanization, grew steadily under legislative promotion, and peaked during the two World Wars and the Great Depression driven by national mobilization, before declining during the postwar period of economic recovery. Since the 1990s it has shifted character from allotment garden to leisure garden, and in the context of a pluralistic contemporary society it has become recognized as an important cultural heritage due to its unique social significance and long history, gradually recovering within the framework of sustainable development strategy and the 21st Century Agenda.

Nathan McClintock, Jenny Cooper · PDXScholar (Portland State University) · United States (California)

Between summer 2008 and spring 2009, an inventory identified open space owned by public agencies within the city limits of Oakland, California, that could support urban agriculture. The project mapped Oakland's public commons land to inform food, health and environmental policy decisions and to help nonprofits and city officials identify candidate sites for urban agriculture programs.

Leonardo da Fonseca Barbosa, José Pedro da Silva, Gabriela Vieira Junges, Weverton de Goes Duarte, Cícero Luiz Calazans de Lima, Jakes Halan Queiroz Costa · REVISTA ELETRÔNICA EXTENSÃO EM DEBATE · Brazil

A preliminary diagnostic study of agricultural and environmental conservation activities in the Tabacaria quilombola community, located in the rural zone of Palmeira dos Índios, Alagoas, Brazil, the only such community officially recognized by the state, used monthly participatory meetings, a questionnaire, and site visits to assess potential locations for a community garden. The diagnosis found an absence of technical assistance or guidance from any public agency and a lack of information reaching the community. Agriculture remained subsistence-based, centered on cassava, corn, beans and fava beans, with ecological soil and water management practices practically nonexistent. The study calls for awareness-raising and information activities to address these gaps and for the development of sustainable agricultural practices.

Ratnawati Yuni Suryandari · · Indonesia

An essay arguing that in developing countries, including Indonesia, the fastest urban growth is occurring in city centers, and that unequal income, poverty, poorly functioning food distribution systems and shrinking farmland make food sources especially critical for the urban poor. It cites World Bank figures stating that 360 million urban residents in developing countries suffer chronic malnutrition, that five of six urban households in India spend 70% of income on food, and that in Kuala Lumpur 45–50% of residents' income goes to food, twice the share in the UK. The article frames urban agriculture as a holistic approach to meeting urban poor residents' needs and improving urban environmental quality, discussing urban agriculture's issues and challenges in Indonesia through the case of Jakarta and its surroundings.

Mark Matsa, Thomas Marambanyika · Journal of Environmental Extension · Africa

A study assessing concentration levels of lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd) and sulphides (SO2) within and around Gweru's sole official waste dumpsite in Zimbabwe. Harsh economic conditions in the city have driven further expansion of urban agriculture on open spaces, with residents growing staple food crops such as maize and sweet potatoes for subsistence on numerous plots surrounding the dumpsite; the study states that ingesting crops grown near the dumpsite is likely to put residents' lives at risk. Soil sampling points along transects on and around the dumpsite were randomly selected using ArcView GIS, with sulphide concentrations measured by Leco machine and lead and cadmium by atomic absorption spectrometer. Independent t-test results showed the concentration levels of the three pollutants were significantly elevated from one sampling point to the next, within and around the dumpsite.

Sharon Zukin · Oxford University Press eBooks · United States (New York City)

An ethnographic narrative describing three community gardens in the East New York section of Brooklyn, New York City, long known as one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. On a Saturday morning in mid-October, beneath elevated subway tracks, the piece describes three lush, carefully tended gardens planted in neat rows with green beans, mint, onions, peppers, tomatoes and squash. Since the 1990s these gardens have been created and maintained through the effort and planning of a small number of neighborhood community gardeners, subsidized by city and state government but also at times jeopardized by it. The gardens are described as a tangible symbol of the ongoing struggle to put down roots in the city for those without much money.

Lucy Bastin · · United Kingdom

Against a backdrop where about 90% of UK residents already live in towns or cities, and roughly 60% of the world's population is projected to live in urban areas by 2030, this essay argues that public land such as parks and allotments can easily be lost without a vocal set of "owners" to speak for it. It notes that most of the UK's "natural" areas have historically been created, managed, or modified by humans, and that overlooked brownfield sites can serve as valuable refuges for insect and plant species that can no longer persist in a countryside dominated by industrialized agriculture.

Zhigang Wei · Journal of Qingdao Agricultural University · China

A comprehensive survey of agricultural structure and layout in Qingdao, China. It states the sector has achieved transformation and upgrading, with growing agricultural industrialization and increasingly optimized layout of agricultural areas approaching cluster-scale planting and breeding industries. However, it reports that further adjustment of planting structure faces major bottlenecks due to limits on arable land and food security: the traditional small-scale fish-farming model seriously restricts further development of animal husbandry and aquaculture, and fluctuating agricultural product markets combined with a lack of competitiveness are affecting the agricultural industry's layout. It concludes that crop structure needs further adjustment, that production should be scaled up, specialized and standardized, and that urban agriculture should be emphasized to expand agricultural functions.

Celso Donizete Locatel, Francisco Fransualdo de Azevedo · Revistes Científiques de la University of Barcelona (University of Barcelona) · Brazil

A study of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, analyzing the practice of intra-urban agriculture and the municipal government's response to it. It states that agriculture within the urban fabric is not hard to identify, yet municipal legislation does not formally recognize the practice, despite its significant importance to hundreds of families in peripheral areas; most people involved in the activity have no voice or participation in urban planning and management. The study aims to analyze the importance of urban agriculture for farming families' income and to examine the extent to which the municipal government has factored this phenomenon into territorial decision-making in Natal.

Jessica Mackie, Yuting Ma, Connie Ma, Sanna Maladwala, Sarah Makepeace, Stella Lukman, Angelo Maliksi · cIRcle (University of British Columbia) · Canada

This is a student project report produced through the University of British Columbia's SEEDS program. The available text consists only of a disclaimer stating that UBC SEEDS reports share student findings, opinions, conclusions and recommendations, that such reports are not official UBC documents, and that they may not reflect the current status of the activities described.

O. Muñiz, M. Ternero, Álvarez Montero, F. Martínez, T. Limeres, O. Jouber, M. Orphee, Julia Vidan Estevez, B. Calero, F. A. de Alcantara, Adriana María de Aguiar Accioly · Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) · Global

This paper situates its topic within the urban agriculture movement, which it describes as having successfully enabled low-input food production in cities, noting that organoponicos — plots focused on producing leafy vegetables and condiment crops in organic substrates — have driven up demand for organic material sources. The title indicates the study addresses the effect of using heavy-metal-contaminated compost on vegetable production, but the available abstract provides only this background context, with no results on contamination or crop impact stated.

Stephanie Co · Open Scholarship Institutional Repository (Washington University in St. Louis) · United States

This piece on urban agriculture and its role in transforming socioeconomic status and food security among refugee communities in the United States was published in the Washington University Undergraduate Research Digest (WUURD) in 2010, under mentor Peter Benson.

Priyanie Amerasinghe · CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) · Asia

A chapter in the edited volume "Cities, poverty and food: multi-stakeholder policy and planning in urban agriculture" (Dubbeling, de Zeeuw and van Veenhuizen, eds., Practical Action Publishing), addressing efforts to build stakeholder synergies for urban agriculture in Gampaha, Sri Lanka. The available record consists only of this bibliographic citation; no further findings or methods are given in the abstract.

Sarah Rabkin · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · United States (California)

A profile of Pie Ranch, a farm on a coastal hillside in southern San Mateo County, California, between Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Jered Lawson and Nancy Vail, together with San Francisco-based Karen Heisler, established this non-profit working farm in 2002 as a place for city youth to learn about food. It produces nearly everything needed to make pie — pumpkins, berries, tree fruits, eggs, milk, butter, honey, and wheat. Students and teachers from urban high schools make monthly farm visits throughout the school year, experiencing hands-on learning about soil, compost, weather, the cycle of planting, tending and harvesting crops, the challenges and rewards of group work, and cooking and eating from-scratch meals. Pie Ranch also offers year-long apprenticeships, summer internships, monthly work parties and barn dances, and various educational and cultural events, sells produce at a roadside stand on coastal Route 1, and works with the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) to protect the historic Steele dairy lands. Lawson is described as a UC Santa Cruz community studies graduate and former apprentice at the university's Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS), who spent a summer during college at Live Power Community Farm in Covelo, Mendocino County. The text is cut off mid-sentence during this biographical description.

Tianyi Zhang · Anhui nongye kexue · China

A paper examining the connotation and development of circular economy and circular agriculture from a circular-economy perspective. It uses the replicable Sino-Singapore Eco-City in Tianjin as a case study, analyzing the background, significance, and features of its construction, and identifies a sustainable development orientation of "harmony and three capabilities," along with implications for Tianjin's urban agriculture development in terms of water-saving, land-saving, and energy-saving. Under circular economy theory, enhancing the economical use of agricultural resources and the resource utilization of agricultural waste is said to have positive effects on improving the urban environment, including decentralizing organic solid waste from the sewage cycle system, further studying the physiological and biochemical mechanisms behind increasing yield and income in ecological agriculture, and incorporating urban agriculture into city land-use and development planning.

J. O. Oladeji · Journal of Agriculture Forestry and the Social Sciences · Nigeria

A survey in three urban local government areas of Ibadan, Nigeria, used questionnaires and descriptive/inferential statistics to assess urban farmers' perceived health and environmental problems. Most respondents were middle-aged (mean 35 years, 27.9% of the sample), married (69.2%), and formally educated (87.9%), with trading as the main occupation (47.5%) and crop production the most-practiced activity (38%). The most commonly perceived health problems were malaria, headache, and body pain, while unpleasant odor, air pollution from bush burning, and improper waste disposal were the most perceived environmental problems; chi-square tests found marital status (x²=9.53, P=0.05) and education (x²=18.45, P=0.05) significantly related to perceived health problems, and marital status (x²=23.84), education (x²=30.60), and primary occupation (x²=10.73, all P=0.05) significantly related to perceived environmental problems.

Rebecca T. Barnes, Peter A. Raymond · Ecological Applications · United States

This study examined nitrate export from small, closely spaced headwater watersheds in the United States representing urban, agricultural, and forested land uses, using the dual isotopic composition of stream nitrate (δ15N-NO3− and δ18O-NO3−) together with a numerical model to control for variation in geology, surficial materials, and climate. The isotopic values varied significantly among the three land-use types, with δ15N-NO3− reflecting nitrogen source and δ18O-NO3− reflecting biogeochemical processing; the highest nitrate concentrations coincided with the highest stream δ15N-NO3− values because of enriched anthropogenic sources — septic systems in urban watersheds and manure in agricultural watersheds — and average net removal of the available nitrate pool across urban and agricultural catchments was estimated at 45%, with the degree of removal varying by drainage area and organic carbon availability.