Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
11393 results(418 / 456)
Lucette Laurens · Journal for Geography · France
This inquiry examines peri-urban agricultural spaces in Languedoc-Roussillon and the Montpellier agglomeration, France, which are characterized by a decline in agricultural activities and abandonment. These spaces are confronted with new, uncertain, and innovative dynamics, appearing as multifunctional spaces that need to be re-invented. The study highlights the paradox of these areas caught between appropriation for different uses and agricultural decline.
Economic viabilityPeri-urban agriculturePolicyUrban–rural linkageMayra Puente Isidrón · Revista Ciencia y Tecnología El Higo · Cuba
This paper describes the development and impacts of urban agriculture, specifically "organopónicos," in Cuba. It highlights how this approach utilizes local productive potential and available labor to significantly increase agricultural products for the population. The impacts include contributions to human nutrition, providing vitamins, minerals, and plant/animal protein, and fostering new dietary habits based on societal possibilities.
Food sovereignty & justiceCommunityHealth도시농업 육성의 정책적 함의
2009장동헌 · 산업경제연구 · South Korea
To identify policy implications for fostering urban agriculture in South Korea, a perception survey was conducted among experts. The findings indicated the need to establish a basic direction for urban agriculture, prepare legal and institutional frameworks for planned management and use of urban agricultural land, continuously promote related programs, establish an exchange system through network formation, and adopt a comprehensive approach to urban agriculture maintenance.
PolicyCommunityY. A. Iyaka, SE Kakulu · African Research Review · Nigeria
This study determined the levels of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) in soil samples collected from cultivated farmlands near abandoned industrial sites in Minna and Bida, Niger State, Nigeria, using flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Concentrations ranged from 12-89 mg Cu kg-1 and 2.8-41 mg Zn kg-1 for Minna, and 2.4-6.5 mg Cu kg-1 and 0.57-36 mg Zn kg-1 for Bida. Apparent accumulation of Cu was found in Minna cultivated farmlands, with a mean Cu content of 24 ± 22 ppm, which was almost five times that of the control soils. Other mean values were similar to soil background averages.
Contamination & food safetyHealthOrganic cycleHeather Elizabeth Dalrymple · · United States
This report examines community gardens as a means to address urban food provision and promote sustainable communities. It highlights that community gardens offer benefits beyond food security, such as fostering community development and effectively utilizing open spaces. Through case studies in Cleveland, Ohio, and San Francisco, California, the report demonstrates the adaptability of community gardens in meeting diverse community needs across various urban environments.
CommunityPolicyFood sovereignty & justiceMetasabia Solomon Mulugeta · Maynooth University ePrints and eTheses Archive (Maynooth University) · Ethiopia (Wolenchiti)
This qualitative study in Wolenchiti town, Ethiopia, identified determinants of livelihood strategies among female household heads. Major activities included petty trading, domestic services, daily labor, prostitution, and urban agriculture. Demographic factors like age and household size, and socioeconomic factors such as access to financial, human, social, physical, and natural capital, were found to be leading determinants.
WelfareEconomicsJustin Stoler, John R. Weeks, Arthur Getis, Allan G. Hill · American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene · Ghana (Accra)
A 2003 study in Accra, Ghana, surveyed 3,164 women to examine the relationship between self-reported malaria and proximity to urban agriculture (UA). The odds of self-reported malaria were significantly higher for women living within 1 km of UA compared to those living near an irrigation source, with the association disappearing beyond this distance. Malaria prevalence was often elevated in communities within 1 km of UA, even with more favorable socioeconomic characteristics.
Environmental trade-offsHealthUrban–rural linkageStefan Dongus, Dickson Nyika, Khadija Kannady, Deo Mtasiwa, Hassan Mshinda, Laura Gosoniu, Axel Drescher, Ulrike Fillinger, Marcel Tanner, Gerry F. Killeen, Márcia C. Castro · Geospatial health · Tanzania (Dar es Salaam)
A cross-sectional survey in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, investigated the influence of agricultural and geographical features on Anopheles larvae presence. The study found that agricultural areas, covering over 5% of the 16.8 km2 study area, had a 1.7 times higher proportion of habitats containing Anopheles larvae compared to other areas. However, breeding sites originating from urban agriculture accounted for less than a fifth of all malaria vector breeding sites in the city.
Environmental trade-offsHealthBiodiversityLei Yan-hua · · Australia
This paper discusses the state of therapeutic horticulture in Australia, describing the field as largely project-driven with little government or philanthropic funding to sustain long-term growth. It notes that recent initiatives in community gardens, school and children's gardens, and horticultural therapy services have expanded the scope of activity and, while still small compared with many other countries, are high-profile, community-led, and have secured significant government funding. However, the paper states that this needs to be balanced against numerous barriers facing the sector: insufficient research, limited organization and representation, few education and training opportunities, and a lack of outreach and community services.
Governance failureHealthWelfareCommunityLaDona Knigge · Geographica Helvetica · United States (New York City)
A mixed-methods case study drawn from a larger study of community gardens in Buffalo, New York, United States. It examines issues of public space, citizenship, gender and race in the context of state restructuring and welfare reform that shifted responsibility for social services toward private communities through elimination, privatization or devolvement. The study found connections between community organizations' commitment to community gardening and their involvement in providing social, youth and emergency services, including after-school programs, tutoring, refugee services and winter coat drives. It concludes that the everyday lives of Buffalo residents cannot be separated from the effects of larger structural processes such as deindustrialization, privatization and state restructuring.
CommunityWelfarePolicy赵三志, 杨正强 · 中国农业银行武汉培训学院学报 · China
A report on how the Hubei branch of the Agricultural Development Bank of China supported urban agriculture development in Wuhan, China, by using credit as a leverage tool to cultivate pillar industries of agricultural industrialization, taking advantage of Wuhan's designation as a comprehensive pilot zone for a "resource-conserving, environmentally friendly society." It states the bank optimized its credit assets and customer structure, achieving a coordinated balance of speed, structure, quality, management and efficiency, but the abstract provides no specific quantitative data.
PolicyEconomicsUrban–rural linkageCommunityAbdullah Al-Khater · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Africa
In Libyan cities, a six-month comparative study assigned older women to either a community gardening intervention group or a control group, collecting data through surveys, interviews and observations by trained researchers to assess food security. The intervention group showed a 20% increase in homegrown vegetable consumption compared to baseline levels.
CommunityHealthWelfareElderlyZhao Shu-jie · Journal of Hebei Agricultural Sciences · China
A 2009 paper on coastal urban modern agriculture in Tianjin analyzes the essential conditions for its development and discusses basic approaches based on Tianjin's natural and economic characteristics. It proposes countermeasures spanning government support, coordination across sectors, improving farmers' overall competencies, and combining multiple development models, intended as a reference for coastal urban agriculture development.
PolicyCommunityPeri-urban agricultureUrban agriculture in Ezibeleni (Queenstown): contributing to the empirical base in the Eastern Cape
2009Nigel L. Webb, Harrison Kasumba · Africanus Journal of Development Studies · South Africa
In Ezibeleni near Queenstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa, a sustainable-development framework was used to gather empirical findings on vegetable crop cultivation, covering duration of crop consumption, the value of produce to households, environmental benefits, and social/psychological benefits. Both the scale of cultivation and the benefits obtained were found to be modest, reinforcing prior studies that focused on the actual practice of urban agriculture rather than its hypothetical potential.
Limited or null effectCommunityHealthEconomicsBiodiversityC. Liesegang · · Europe
An empirical, cross-context study of community engagement in public urban space examined community garden projects in Berlin, Germany, and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, as case studies. These projects — which typically upgrade empty, abandoned land into public or semi-public urban space and community access to nature — were studied to understand why people get involved in collective projects in public space, focusing on social and place-bound processes, with a central research question of which social processes and project features lead organizers, participants, and neighbors to understand community gardens as fostering place-making and social connectedness. The two case studies were selected as legally or formally recognized grassroots, self-organized initiatives combining individual and mainly collective gardening activities with semi-public or public access, and were analyzed for place characteristics, social and organizational features, partnerships with public institutions, degree of public accessibility, and collective versus individual gardening.
CommunityS. Al-hassan · The IUP Journal of Agricultural Economics · Ghana
Using cross-sectional data from 196 urban agriculturalists (136 vegetable farmers and 56 non-vegetable farmers) in the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly, Northern Region, Ghana, a 2009 study examined the factors determining the decision to cultivate vegetables. Results showed vegetable production in the study area was influenced by extension services, use of inorganic fertilizer (manure), and availability of farmland. The study recommends training existing extension agents in modern vegetable production techniques so they can in turn train farmers, with emphasis on quality seed production, variety selection, diversification and quality control; directing extension services toward efficient manure application; encouraging vegetable farmers to form cooperatives to network with livestock producer associations; and having policymakers provide large, suitable irrigable land for vegetable production.
CommunityEconomicsPolicyHui Li · Journal of Hebei Agricultural Sciences · Global
This paper discusses the characteristics of urban agriculture, the significance of linking agricultural universities with urban agriculture, and concrete measures by which agricultural universities can serve agriculture.
Food educationCommunityBianca Ambrose‐Oji · · Sub-Saharan Africa
This book chapter reviews the role of urban and peri-urban agriculture in food security across sub-Saharan African cities and peri-urban areas, focusing on how the production and collection of indigenous vegetables along the rural-urban continuum contributes to it. Drawing on literature from geography, agriculture, ethnobotany and rural sociology, it defines urban agriculture and the spaces where indigenous vegetables are produced and collected, and closes with a typology for understanding the range of spaces involved in indigenous vegetable production and harvest, without presenting new empirical data.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceFood miles & supply chainHealthJing Liu · · China
A study of urban agriculture enterprises in China's Pearl River Delta (PRD) region built an evaluation index system for innovation capability across three dimensions: management innovation, technology innovation, and institutional innovation. A fuzzy AHP model was applied to assess enterprise innovation capability against the development conditions of urban agriculture.
CommunityEconomicsPolicyMunguzwe Hichaambwa, Margaret Beaver, Antony Chapoto, Michael T. Weber, Hichaambwa, Munguzwe, Beaver, Margaret, Chapoto, Antony, Weber, Michael T. · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Sub-Saharan Africa
An overview report based on the 2007-2008 CSO/MACO/FSRP food consumption survey in urban Lusaka, Kitwe, Mansa and Kasama, Zambia. It states that policies promoting demand-driven smallholder agriculture and improved urban food marketing system performance in Sub-Saharan Africa need to be grounded in careful food demand analysis, and that governments, donors and policymakers require an up-to-date understanding of urban consumption patterns, including the extent of and constraints on urban agriculture for household consumption and cash income. This excerpt does not present specific survey results.
EconomicsCommunityMajora Carter · Anglican Theological Review · United States
This piece, published in the Anglican Theological Review, is a first-person essay by an author raised in the South Bronx, New York, discussing environmental injustice and hopes for greening in the neighborhood. It states that the South Bronx is the poorest congressional district in the United States, with over 20% unemployment and more than one-third of residents living in poverty, hosts four power plants and most of New York City's solid waste and sewage processing, and has a childhood asthma hospitalization rate seven times the national average, alongside fewer trees and parks per person than other parts of the city. It cites a 2006 Columbia University report finding learning disabilities in children living nearest to fossil fuel emissions sources. The piece is a personal essay drawing on the author's experience and advocacy rather than an empirical study, and presents no methodology or sample.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceRich Pirog, Ross Baxter, Kate Lyon · Iowa State University Digital Repository (Iowa State University) · United States
This Iowa State University document is a practical guidance resource, not an empirical study. In response to growing interest in and demand for local food in Iowa and nationally, it answers frequently asked questions about food regulations from small market producers who sell through farmers markets, community-supported agriculture (CSA) enterprises, farm stands, and institutions such as restaurants, hospitals, schools, and conference centers. Responses were prepared by state agency and university specialists in food safety and food regulations.
Food educationPolicyCommunityDelia Nicoleta Vieru, Narcis Paul Vieru · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global
This descriptive article on composting states that about half of household waste consists of food remains, vegetable, and garden waste, and that over 50% of waste is organic material that ends up in storage sites, cesspools, or is burned, causing significant pollution. As an alternative, it describes transforming organic material through microbial, biochemical, chemical and physical processes into a humus-like material called compost. Producing quality compost requires managing the pile's dimensions, humidity, structure, and composition so decomposition agents (bacteria, fungi, mites, springtails, woodlice, worms, millipedes) have an ideal, nutrient-rich substrate; these agents need nitrogen ("green" elements, from food remains, cut grass, and green leaves) alongside carbon ("brown" elements, from wood chips, dry leaves, and sawdust), maintained at roughly a 30:1 brown-to-green ratio through alternating layers. The article states that producing compost in schools can bring the whole school community together for environmental work, contributing to natural resource recirculation, community education about compost's benefits, a shift in cultural attitudes toward waste, reduced food-remainder volume from school canteens, student involvement in extracurricular activities, and fertile soil for school gardens and planting. The abstract text is truncated at the end, cutting off its description of composting's benefits as a fertilizer.
CompostOrganic cycleDIYXU Guang-zhong · Journal of University of Science and Technology Beijing(Social Sciences Edition) · China
This article, using Qinghai Province as a case, argues that as urbanization accelerates and cities' ecological crises intensify, developing urban agriculture can help address this crisis. It describes urban agriculture as based on modern technology and reliant on agricultural industrialization, combining features of production, service and consumption, and states that promoting urban agriculture can expand green space, improve urban ecology, and strengthen urban functions.
Climate changeBiodiversityPolicyCommunityYun Li · Guangdong nongye kexue · China
This report describes the planning of a Modern Agro-ecological Park in Gaoming District, Foshan city, Guangdong province, China. The park is designed as a modern standardization zone for eco-agricultural production and demonstration, a resort zone for eco-agricultural tourism and leisure, a base for green food production, modern urban agriculture and export-oriented agriculture, a base for modern agricultural logistics and information, and a base for eco-agricultural popular science education and agricultural exhibitions (a two-zones, four-bases scheme). Based on the current state and future needs of agricultural development in Gaoming, the plan adopts a development model of a garden section, four subdivisions and one ecological protection belt, with a layout concept center comprising three counterpart units, aiming to build a comprehensive modern agriculture development area combining production and living, ecological protection, scientific research and development, tourism and recreation, culture and education, and information and logistics services. The park's stated goal is to drive the development of modern agriculture in Gaoming District and the wider Pearl River Delta region.
PolicyCommunityFood education