Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
2012 results(42 / 81)
Fighting childhood obesity in Brazil: a grassroots perspective
2020Gamel Nasser · European Journal of Public Health · Brazil
A Brazilian non-profit developed a nutrition education project from 2016 to 2018 to combat childhood obesity, incorporating school gardens and education. The program successfully integrated activities into school curricula, leading to healthier lunches. 76% of parents reported that school gardens increased their children's fruit and vegetable intake, and 33% of children changed their eating habits after the program.
Food educationHealthCommunityPELATIHAN BUDIDAYA JAMUR TIRAM DENGAN KONSEP URBAN FARMING UNTUK MASYARAKAT PERKOTAAN
2020Andi Iva Mundiyah, Ni Made Wirastika Sari, Sharfina Nabilah, Pande Komang Suparyana · Jurnal Pengabdian Al-Ikhlas · Indonesia (Makassar)
This study reports on a training activity in Makassar City, Indonesia, aimed at providing community members with skills in cultivating oyster mushrooms using limited land or home yards. The training was conducted using a Focus Discussion Group (FGD) method over three days, from January 12 to 15, 2020. Results indicated that some participants understood how to cultivate oyster mushrooms and produced growing media uncontaminated by other fungi.
CommunityFood educationEconomicsFood sovereignty & justiceDifferent Ways of Knowing and a Different Ways of Being: On a Path to Reawakening Legacy of the Maya Forest
2020Cynthia Ellis Topsey, Anabel Ford, Sherman Horn · Heritage · Global
This narrative describes an education outreach project in archaeology that incorporates local collaboration, focusing on ancient Maya heritage and the Maya forest garden. The project is centered on the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Maya Flora and Fauna, with activities at the Cayo Welcome Center, Chak Ha Col forest garden, and Känan K’aax School Garden. It highlights that community partnerships require acknowledging tangible heritage, formal information outlets, education links, and cultural traditions.
Food educationCommunityBiodiversityNew School maintains an established garden
2020Lexi Earl, Pat Thomson · · United Kingdom (midlands in England)
This chapter examines a school garden with farm elements at a primary school in a deprived market town in the midlands of England, established as part of an 'eco-school' initiative driven by the former head teacher. The garden included various spaces like a farm, raised beds, a pond, and a herb garden, used for science learning and natural exploration. However, the study notes that the impetus for outdoor learning diminished after the initiating head teacher departed, as school priorities shifted due to other pressures.
Governance failureFood educationCommunityBiodiversitySouth Eveleigh Community Rooftop Garden Methods
2020Linda Corkery, Sara Padgett Kjaersgaard, Lisa Thomson · · Australia
This case study describes the South Eveleigh Community Rooftop Garden, located on the unceded land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. Developed in collaboration with Indigenous practice partner Jiwah, the project is underpinned by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander principle of "give back," emphasizing the sharing of accumulated Indigenous knowledge with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
CommunityFood educationHortas escolares: construção de uma cultura saudável
2020Nunes Vital · Revista Meio Ambiente e Sustentabilidade · Global
This bibliographic research, conducted over four months, explored how school gardens can positively influence the development of a healthy food culture among children and adolescents. The study identified that school gardens, based on urban agriculture and agroecology principles, serve as an attractive tool for students, encouraging participation outside the classroom and offering benefits to all involved agents.
Food educationHealthCommunityThe effect of self-efficacy on participation in urban agriculture practice for college students
2020Jaeho Im, YouJoung Kim, Jinhyun Bae, Seon-Ju Jang · Journal of Regional Studies · South Korea
This study investigated the effect of self-efficacy on college students' participation in urban agriculture in South Korea, using an online survey and statistical analysis targeting urban and architecture majors. The analysis revealed a significant difference in urban agriculture participation levels based on the degree of self-efficacy, showing that for every 1-point increase (on a 5-point scale) in self-efficacy, participation increased by approximately 2.06 times. The most influential variable was attitude towards urban agriculture, with the interaction between gender and experience also found to be highly influential.
Food educationCommunityEconomicsAdaptation
2020Peter Loxley · · Global
This chapter discusses "adaptation" as a scientific concept that helps children understand the diversity of wildlife they encounter in school gardens, local parks, and other outdoor learning areas. It also helps children understand why the destruction of green spaces can have devastating consequences for wildlife. The chapter includes three topics designed to guide teachers in helping children grasp the concept of adaptation.
Food educationBiodiversityHolistic Pedagogies for Social Change: Reflections from an Urban Agroecology Farmer Training
2020Ana Galvis Martinez, Brooke A. Porter, Paul Rogé, Leah Atwood, Natalia Pinzón Jiménez · · United States (California)
The Bay Area Farmer Training (BAFT) program trained aspiring urban farming practitioners in agroecology, utilizing a pedagogy rooted in humanistic values, social justice, and decolonial and feminist frameworks. An analysis of BAFT from the perspectives of participants and founding educators led to recommendations for educators and program developers. These recommendations include training in restorative justice, cultivating cross-cultural dialogue, building trust, humanizing classrooms, preparing guest speakers, and designing values-centered curricula.
Food educationFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityUrban Farming: Teknologi Vertikultur Limbah Plastik untuk Mewujudkan Sekolah Dasar Berbasis Green School
2020Aditya Dyah Utami, Mukti Ahmad Nur Cahya, Olivia Elfatma, Koko Setiawan · PRIMA Journal of Community Empowering and Services · Indonesia (Yogyakarta)
Urban elementary schools often have minimal green open spaces, making it difficult to implement green school programs, as seen at SD Islamiyah Warungboto Yogyakarta. Introducing verticulture technology to students is a solution, implemented through preparation, execution, and final stages. Students learn about verticulture generally, then receive training in designing verticulture systems, gaining knowledge of its benefits and supporting green school programs.
Food educationDIYCommunityOrganic cycleRelationship Between School Gardening and Self-Efficacy Towards Weekly Fruit & Vegetable Intake
2020Hussein Mukasa Kafeero, David Kavuma, Scovia Mbabazi · Advanced Journal of Graduate Research · Uganda
This cross-sectional study in Uganda investigated the relationship between school gardens and students' self-efficacy towards weekly fruit and vegetable intake, comparing two secondary schools (one with a garden, one without). Neither group met the WHO/FAO/USDA recommendation of ≥35 servings per week. However, students exposed to gardening activities consumed more weekly servings of fruits and vegetables (P>0.05) and showed higher self-efficacy towards their dietary intake (P=0.007).
Food educationHealthA Garden-Based Intervention to Improve Dietary Diversity in Kenyan School Children: Results from a Natural Experiment
2020Sara E. Benjamin‐Neelon, Tiange Liu, Eve S. Puffer, Liz Turner, Daniel A. Zaltz, Andrew Thorne‐Lyman, Sherryl Broverman · Current Developments in Nutrition · Kenya
This natural experiment in rural Kenya evaluated whether school gardens improved dietary diversity in children. Gardens were installed in two primary schools, with two comparison schools, and dietary intake was measured for 855 children in 2013 and 688 in 2014. All children's dietary diversity scores worsened post-intervention, likely due to a severe drought in 2014. Although some differences were observed in specific food groups, these could not be attributed to the school gardens.
Food educationHealthA Participatory Action Research Study with One Emancipatory School Garden
2020Colleen Saxen · CORE Scholar (Wright State University) · United States
This participatory action research (PAR) explored a school garden program in a historically marginalized community during the COVID-19 pandemic and racial justice protests. School staff and community partners co-created the garden, expressing meanings, values, and visions through photovoice, mapping, and gardening activities. Participants described experiences of love, empowerment, and justice, demonstrating the value of PAR for cultivating school gardens as sites for social justice and the role of an ethic of love in community building.
Food educationCommunityWelfarePolicyRelationship between Community or Home Gardening and Health of the Elderly: A Web-Based Cross-Sectional Survey in Japan
2019Machida D. · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(8):1389 · Japan
A web-based cross-sectional survey of community-dwelling older adults in Japan examined links between community or home gardening and health-related indicators. Gardening with others was significantly associated with exercise habits, physical activity, vegetable intake and neighborly connections, and with higher subjective happiness and sense of purpose, supporting gardens as a means to counter isolation among the elderly.
HealthWelfareCommunityFood education都市と緑・農が共生するまちづくり 優良取組事例集
2019国土交通省 都市局 公園緑地・景観課 · 国土交通省（MLIT）報告書 · Japan
A Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism casebook compiled to advance both compact urban structure and the 'coexistence of cities with green and agriculture'. It catalogues urban-farming and green-space initiatives — including resident-participation rooftop gardens, allotments and farming-led town-making by private developers and municipalities — and provides the policy backdrop for developer cases.
PolicyCommunityBiodiversityFood educationEdible City Solutions—One Step Further to Foster Social Resilience through Enhanced Socio-Cultural Ecosystem Services in Cities
2019Ina Säumel, Suhana E. Reddy, Thomas Wachtel · Sustainability, 11(4), 972 · Global
A foundational paper of the EU EdiCitNet project that positions citizen-led food production (Edible City Solutions) as urban infrastructure generating socio-cultural ecosystem services—social cohesion, education, health—alongside regulating services such as stormwater management and biodiversity. It offers a framework in which participatory productive green space underpins social resilience and sustainable food-system transitions.
CommunityHealthFood educationWelfareNutraceutical Uses of Traditional Leafy Vegetables and Transmission of Local Knowledge from Parents to Children in Southern Benin
2019Akakpo D. B., Achigan-Dako E. G. · Agronomy · Benin
Interviews with 360 respondents across three southern Benin villages on three traditional leafy vegetables, analyzing how use and knowledge transmission from parents to children vary by generation, gender, and village.
Heirloom & landraceFood educationCommunityHealth世田谷区農業振興計画
2019世田谷区 · 世田谷区 農業振興計画 · Japan
Setagaya's ten-year agricultural promotion plan adopted in 2019, setting basic policies and concrete measures for municipal urban agriculture including citizen farms and contact farms using the Urban Farmland Lease Facilitation Act, agriculture-welfare collaboration and sixth-industry support.
PolicyCommunityFood educationEconomics横浜都市農業推進プラン
2019横浜市 環境創造局 · 横浜市 都市農業推進計画 · Japan
Yokohama's urban agriculture promotion plan, linked to the Midori Up programme, organising policies and results for publicly supported citizen farming infrastructure including diverse citizen farms, cultivation experience farms, harvest farms and Megumi-no-Sato districts.
PolicyCommunityFood educationBiodiversity農の風景育成計画（練馬区南大泉地区）
2019練馬区, 東京都都市整備局 · 練馬区 農の風景育成地区計画 · Japan
Nerima's landscape conservation plan for Minami-Oizumi and Takamatsu under Tokyo's Agricultural Landscape Conservation District system, positioning ward allotments, experience farms, farm stands and food-education events as integrated public farmland conservation and revitalisation.
PolicyBiodiversityCommunityFood educationThe sustainability of a nutrition-sensitive agriculture intervention: a case study from urban Senegal
2019Nordhagen S., Thiam K., Sow S. · Food Security · Senegal (Dakar)
A post-project survey in Dakar found that microgardens were largely abandoned (5% continued use) while poultry activities persisted strongly (75%) due to income-generation potential, suggesting urban nutrition interventions must align with economic incentives to achieve lasting adoption.
HealthEconomicsCommunityFood educationBuilding Gardens: Food Justice, Community Engagement, and Gardens for the Asian Pacific Islander Community in the San Gabriel Valley
2019Juily Phun, Elise Dang · AAPI Nexus Journal: Policy, Practice, and Community · United States (San Gabriel Valley)
This article focuses on a service-learning program at Cal State LA (Food Justice, the Body, and the Environment in the API Community) that partners with schools across the San Gabriel Valley to build culturally relevant produce gardens for students in a region with a large low-income Asian American population. The essay centers on the partnership process, noting that a lack of procedural transparency within university structures is one of the greatest barriers to community–university partnerships.
CommunityFood educationPolicyEffect and process evaluation of a real-world school garden program on vegetable consumption and its determinants in primary schoolchildren
2019· PLOS ONE · Netherlands
An effect and process evaluation of a nine-week school garden program (culminating in a harvest-and-cooking event) on primary schoolchildren's vegetable consumption; well received by teachers and pupils.
Food educationHealthCommunity gardens and wellbeing amongst vulnerable populations: a thematic review
2019Pernille Malberg Dyg, Søren Christensen, Corissa Jade Peterson · Health Promotion International · Global
A thematic review of 51 articles published between 1980 and 2017 examined the effects of community gardens on wellbeing among vulnerable populations. Findings suggested positive impacts on physical health and individual/social wellbeing, but food security enhancements were inconsistent. Two articles raised potential food safety concerns in urban community gardens, recommending attention to minimizing these risks.
Contamination & food safetyCommunityHealthWelfareFood educationUrban agriculture: boon or bust?
2019Martin Stuchtey, Tilmann Vahle · OpenEdition (OpenEdition) · Global
This paper discusses different types of urban agriculture (UA) to assess its potential for future food production. Conventional open-air farming is found to be rarely commercially viable for meaningful food production, though it offers community, educational, psychological, and environmental benefits. High-yielding Controlled Environment Farming (CEF), while potentially contributing substantially to food output, is highly capital and knowledge-intensive and likely to develop at city fringes due to economic considerations.
Economic viabilityEconomicsCommunityFood educationClimate change