Research & reports

Celeste M. Schultz, Alexander Rosen · The Journal of School Nursing · United States

A garden-based education program implemented in elementary, middle and high schools on Chicago's South and West Sides was examined for its effects on students. Implementing gardens was found to have a positive impact on the availability, access and consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as on students' social-emotional well-being. More rigorous studies controlling for socioeconomic status were identified as needed to establish the long-term effects on obesity prevention, mental health outcomes and economic benefits.

Michelle Tokunbo ‘Tok’ Oluwaseyi Oyewole · Capitalism Nature Socialism · United States (New York City)

Based on the perspectives of gardeners in public schools in Brooklyn, New York, a four-part framework of liberatory practices and potentials via school gardening is outlined, examining what liberatory practices occur in Brooklyn school gardens and their potential for building on them in relation to rectifying injustices faced by racially minoritized communities. Gardens were found to support personal achievement, health benefits, adult mentorship, peer bonding, identity affirmation, community transformation, and positive relationships with the natural world. Some programming addressed social and environmental injustices explicitly, but students and staff identified potential to expand this work, particularly through clearer curricular prioritization and social and material support.

Asep K. Supriatna · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Indonesia

This study examined strategies for implementing agricultural extension methods and materials suited to the "new normal era" during the COVID-19 pandemic in Serang Regency, Banten Province, Indonesia. It used a mixed method combining descriptive-exploratory analysis with the Analytical Hierarchy Process, involving 37 participants in Serang Regency. The analysis found technical aspects to be the top priority criterion, with material indicators ranked as the top priority and extension method indicators second. For the on-farm segment, suitable materials included cultivation techniques for food crops, ornamental plants, fruit plants, biopharmaceuticals, post-harvest handling, fish and livestock rearing, and use of yards and rice fields, with a strategy of continuing face-to-face methods — lectures, discussions, practice, technical guidance, field schools, pilot plots and field trips — under health protocols, alongside distributing learning videos, e-modules and e-leaflets via social media or virtual learning. For the off-farm segment, suitable materials included online product marketing, information technology use, entrepreneurship, farm business analysis, marketing and partnership growth, group planning and health protocol materials, with a strategy centered on virtual extension methods, some combined with face-to-face approaches.

Silvia Septhiani, Diah Oga Nusantari, Ihwan Zulkarnain · PUNDIMAS Publikasi Kegiatan Abdimas · Indonesia

This report describes a community-service activity in Harapan Jaya, Cibinong District, Bogor Regency, Indonesia, aimed at improving residents' productivity and health during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the pandemic producing a lack of productive at-home leisure activity and a sense of stagnation among residents, urban farming is positioned as one pandemic-era activity offering economic, health, and environmental benefits, covering food crops, medicinal plants ("living pharmacy"/apotik hidup), and ornamental plants. The team provided residents of Harapan Jaya with information on family medicinal plants (TOGA). The activity is described as increasing residents' understanding of medicinal plants and fostering productive attitudes and a healthy, green environment.

Abby M. Lohr, Melanie L. Bell, Kiera Coulter, Sallie A. Marston, Moses Thompson, Scott C. Carvajal, Ada M. Wilkinson‐Lee, Lynn B. Gerald, Josephine D. Korchmaros · Health Education & Behavior · United States (New York City)

This cross-sectional secondary analysis used evaluation data from a university-supported Community School Garden Program (CSGP) to examine, mostly among Latino/a (Hispanic) elementary students at Title I schools in New York City, United States, whether duration of school garden exposure (≤1 year versus >1 year) was associated with self-reported learning and school connectedness, using social cognitive theory as the analytic frame. Duration of school garden exposure showed no statistically significant association with self-reported learning or feelings of school connectedness. Regardless of past exposure, fifth-grade students, females, and those identifying as Latino/a (Hispanic) felt the garden program improved their learning; qualitative results indicated most students enjoyed time in the garden and felt the program helped them learn new things and feel connected to school.

Jennifer Catalina Murcia Rodríguez, Adriana Quimbayo Feria · HUMAN REVIEW International Humanities Review / Revista Internacional de Humanidades · Colombia

A short piece on urban agriculture in Colombia (2022) states that urban agriculture enables food production, particularly of fruits, vegetables, and aromatic plants, contributing to reduced ecological footprint and self-sufficiency, and that in Colombia it forms part of a worldwide trend used to help mitigate environmental pollution and reduce spending on basic foodstuffs. It notes that inflation has raised the cost of basic foods, and frames urban agriculture as helping reduce the amount of such purchases at the household level.

Rosmiza Mz, Noorziah Mohd Salleh, Nurin Sahira Che Helmi, Milah Zainal, Jabil Mapjabil, Mohd Nor Mohd Rosmi, Mazdi Marzuki · Journal of Asian Scientific Research · Malaysia

Against the rise of community gardens driven by increasing living costs, growing interest in healthy lifestyles, and limited agricultural land, a quantitative study of 50 residents in Kampung Gali Hilir, Pahang, Malaysia, examined the role of institutions in increasing community involvement in cultivation using fertigation methods. Most respondents, described as agripreneurs, agreed that agricultural institutions play a crucial role in providing information and assistance on fertigation cultivation through courses and training and in supplying agricultural inputs and related programs, and the study identified a need to strengthen institutional approaches to further increase participation in newly introduced methods.

Ningombam Sushma Devi, Preeti Hatibarua, Ningombam Bijaya Devi, Tadar Jamja, Nangki Tagi, Ruthy Tabing · Ecology Environment and Conservation · Global

This review argues that, amid exponential population growth, expanding urban dwellings, climate change, and limited natural resources, planting fruit and vegetable home gardens and using rooftops and small plots for small-scale vegetable production can provide households with sufficient production and income generation. It states that meeting the food and nutritional needs of growing urban populations requires integrating information-technology tools, breeding crops suited to urban farming, and closing water, waste, and energy loops, and it outlines the significant features of contemporary urban horticulture alongside the traditional practices, technologies, and innovations that support it.

Suzanne Spence, Grace Gardner, Dorota Zarnowiecki, Katie Adolphus, Clare Lawton, Louise Dye, Emma Patterson, Charlotte Evans · · Global

This chapter reviews school-based food policies in England and elsewhere aimed at improving children's diets and reducing childhood obesity, noting that reintroduced school meal standards across the UK have improved the quality of school-provided meals, whereas fewer policies exist for packed lunches, which consequently remain of lower quality than school meals. It also discusses the wider school food environment, including school gardens and programs to increase children's fruit and vegetable consumption, as opportunities to improve children's diets.

W. Wang, J.A. Garner, G.A. Marshall, M. Sitaker, E.H. Belarmino, A.S. Ammerman, S.B. Jilcott Pitts, R.A. Seguin-Fowler, J. Kolodinsky, K.L. Hanson · UNC Libraries · United States

The Farm Fresh Foods for Healthy Kids (F3HK) randomized controlled trial, conducted in New York, North Carolina, Vermont, and Washington from 2016 to 2018, assigned 305 caregiver-child dyads to a cost-offset (half-price) community supported agriculture (CSA) share plus tailored nutrition education, or to a delayed-intervention control group. After one growing season, no significant net effects were observed on children's dietary intake, BMI, or physical activity. Caregivers, however, showed statistically significant net improvements in cooking attitudes, skills, and self-efficacy, fruit and vegetable intake and skin carotenoid levels, and household food security. Improvements in attitudes and self-efficacy persisted at one-year follow-up, but improvements in caregiver diet and household food security did not. The number of weeks a household picked up its CSA share — not the number of education sessions attended — was associated with improvements in caregiver fruit and vegetable intake and household food security. The study concludes that cost-offset CSA plus nutrition education improved caregiver and household outcomes within one season but had no effect on children, and some improvements were not maintained after the CSA season ended.

Shimpo N. · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems (Wiley), 6:e20015 · Japan

A case study of a suburban-Tokyo community garden that collects neighborhood kitchen waste and returns it to the soil as compost, forming a local food cycle. It documents how the bottom-up founder sustained the garden, provided work opportunities for people with disabilities and food-education for children, and built links with welfare facilities, kindergartens, and schools.

Landry M., van den Berg A., Hoelscher D., Davis J. · Nutrients, 13(9):3081 (MDPI) · United States

A randomized controlled trial across 16 mostly Hispanic, low-income elementary schools in Texas evaluating the TX Sprouts intervention, which embedded gardening, cooking and nutrition lessons. Children in intervention schools significantly increased vegetable intake, showing that garden-centered food education can improve children's dietary quality.

農林水産省 農村振興局農村計画課都市農業室 · 農林水産省（都市農地活用支援センター セミナー資料） · Japan

A Ministry of Agriculture briefing on the current state and policy trends of urban agriculture. It summarises trends in urban farmland area, productive/specified-productive green space, measures under the Urban Agriculture Promotion Act, and initiatives toward diverse functions such as citizen farms, experience farms and agriculture-welfare collaboration — a baseline reference for municipalities designing urban-agriculture policy.

Artmann M., Sartison K. · Making Green Cities: Concepts, Challenges and Practice (Springer, Cities and Nature series), 173-194 · Global

A case study analyzing the 'Edible City' of Andernach, Germany, as a multifunctional productive green space where citizens can harvest freely in public areas. Drawing on interviews with key initiators, it shows that the project generates multifunctional social, ecological and economic benefits addressing urban challenges such as food security, biodiversity and social cohesion, and examines its potential for upscaling local food supply.

Wetherill M.S., Bourque E.E., Taniguchi T., Love C.V., Sisk M., Jernigan V.B.B. · Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 53(11):991-995 · Global

Describes the development of a tribally-led garden curriculum for Indigenous preschoolers in the Osage Nation, integrating the traditional Three Sisters planting to teach Native foodways and improve children's vegetable intake and food security.

Davis J. N., Pérez A., Asigbee F. M., Landry M. J., Vandyousefi S., Ghaddar R., Hoover A., Jeans M., Nikah K., Fischer B., Pont S. J., Richards D., Hoelscher D. M., Van Den Berg A. E. · International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 18:18 · United States

Cluster RCT in 16 elementary schools. A one-year gardening, cooking and nutrition program significantly increased children's vegetable intake but did not reduce BMI or other obesity outcomes.

世田谷区 · 世田谷区 検討報告書 · Japan

Setagaya's review report from its urban-agriculture and farmland-conservation PT after the 2022 productive-green-area issue, outlining the current state and future direction of publicly supported urban farmland use including buy-out conservation, agriculture-welfare collaboration, ward allotments and community farms such as Tamaribatake.

Hutton G.B., Brugulat-Panés A., Bhagtani D., Maadjhou Mba C., Birch J.M., Shih H., Okop K., Muti M., Wadende P., Tatah L., Mogo E., Guariguata L., Unwin N. · Journal of Global Health Reports · Cameroon

This systematic scoping review synthesized 118 studies (from 4,828 screened) on community food production initiatives across Kenya, Cameroon, and South Africa, finding that economic and environmental impacts dominated the literature while health and social dimensions were understudied; Cameroon-specific studies (10 papers) primarily addressed economic impacts.

Carola Grebitus · PLOS ONE · United States (Detroit)

Using an online survey of 420 residents in Detroit, Michigan, this study analyzed behavioral and socio-demographic drivers of growing produce at home and in community gardens. It found that trust, attitude, and knowledge affect home growing, while involvement and personality drive community gardening; household size affects home growing, and gender, age, and income affect community gardening. The findings offer implications for fostering small-scale urban agriculture through city planning and nutrition education.

· Sustainability Science · Germany (Munich)

A Munich case study exploring how urban vegetable gardening fosters an embodied human–food connection and pro-environmental behaviour.

· Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · USA

A scoping review of how urban agriculture education programs foster youth civic engagement, leadership, and understanding of social justice in the United States.

· Horticulture International Journal · Nepal (Kavrepalanchok)

Evaluates how home garden interventions contributed to household access to vegetables and nutrition security in Nepal's Kavrepalanchok district during the COVID-19 period.

Yufei Qi, Sareena Hanim Hamzah, Erya Gu, Haonan Wang, Yue Xi, Minghui Sun, Siyu Rong, Qian Lin · Nutrients · Global

A meta-analysis pooling 14 randomised controlled trials covering 9,187 children aged 7–12 that tested school gardening combined with physical activity. Fruit and vegetable intake increased significantly, but the intervention showed no clear effect on BMI and related obesity measures, with only a modest positive direction for weight reduction. The result separates dietary behaviour change from anthropometric change and shows that whether school gardens are judged effective against obesity depends heavily on which outcome is measured.

Riris Lindiawati Puspitasari, Arief Pambudi, Yunus Effendi, Genta Hadela · · Indonesia (Depok)

This community service activity aimed to enhance the skills of street children attending Sekolah Masjid Terminal (Master) in Depok, Indonesia, through simple hydroponics training. The training, initially conducted online due to restrictions, introduced participants to hydroponic techniques using simple equipment. Initial results showed participants gained information on simple hydroponic techniques.

Jackie Hendrickson · Digital Commons - USU (Utah State University) · United States (Utah)

Utah State University's Food $ense and Master Gardener programs partnered to create the "Create Farm Fresh Gardens" community gardening program, targeting low-income families in Cache Valley, Utah. Piloted during the 2018 growing season, the program aimed to improve food security by increasing access to fresh vegetables and enhancing participants' self-efficacy in gardening and nutrition. Participants provided supportive feedback, and the program was slated for statewide implementation in Utah during the 2019 growing season.