Research & reports

Marike Brits · Farmlink Africa · South Africa (Cape Town)

Oranjezicht City Farm (OZCF) in Cape Town, South Africa, was established in response to rising crime in surrounding neighborhoods. According to Sheryl Ozinsky, one of the project's founders, the idea for the farm originated as a response to increasing crime in the vicinity.

Kylie Markow, Sue Booth, Stephanie Savio, John Coveney · Nutrition & Dietetics · Global

This study compared perspectives of low socioeconomic individuals and food system representatives regarding access to community-based food systems. Focus groups with low socioeconomic individuals and interviews with food system representatives revealed that affordability, convenience, and knowledge were barriers. While representatives acknowledged these barriers, their understanding of importance differed, and views were divided on strategies, especially concerning affordability. A disconnect exists between the two groups' views on improving access for disadvantaged groups.

Mr Frank Lewis · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Uganda (Kampala)

This study investigated urban agriculture best practices in Kampala's suburbs, Uganda, employing semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with local farmers, government officials, and community leaders. It found that urban agriculture is critical for food security and community cohesion, with women constituting over 70% of participants in surveyed households and making vital contributions.

Maeve Bassett · Fordham Research Commons (Fordham University) · Global

Urban gardens are advertised as a solution to limited food access in impoverished areas, but they are not productive enough to globally affect food production and the environment. However, for surrounding communities, urban gardens are cheap and effective solutions for many problems associated with poverty and food deserts, such as obesity, education, social interactions, income supplementation, health issues, dangerous neighborhoods, and refugee assimilation.

Neil Harris, Fiona Nicole Rowe Minniss, Shawn Somerset · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · Global

A cross-sectional study conducted semi-structured interviews with twelve African humanitarian migrants participating in a campus-based community food garden. The study explored how involvement in the garden supported their connectedness with their new country. Thematic analysis revealed three important benefits: land tenure, reconnecting with agriculture, and community belonging.

James Farmer, Charles Chancellor, Jennifer Meta Robinson, Stephanie T. West, Melissa S. Weddell · Journal of Leisure Research · Global

This study collected data from 712 individuals regarding participation in local food systems, including farmers' markets and CSA programs. Findings revealed a significant association between participants and privilege variables, suggesting that despite promotion, barriers exclude many from engaging in these agrileisure opportunities.

Nobuhle Sebata, Clifford Mabhena, Mkhokheli Sithole · IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science · Zimbabwe

A qualitative study in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, using data from 30 women, 5 key informant interviews, and 2 focus groups, examined urban agriculture's role in women's poverty resilience. While urban agriculture significantly improved food availability and access, its nutritional contribution was low due to a focus on maize, and income generation remained very low due to subsistence production.

J.F.Y.A. Knegtel, Sershen Naidoo · · South Africa

This article describes the findings of a recent study conducted in the low-income area of Cato Manor, eThekwini, South Africa. The study investigated whether climate-smart urban agriculture could improve the livelihoods of people in urban environments affected by climate change and globalization.

Pierrette Hondagneu‐Sotelo · · United States (Los Angeles)

This chapter focuses on life in urban community gardens in Los Angeles, United States. Here, the poorest and most marginalized newcomer immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, gather to grow homeland vegetables, share community ties, and build new places of belonging. They transform discarded urban patches into oases of freedom, belonging, and homeland connection, producing bountiful vegetables and vibrant community connections.

Jonathan Crush · · Global

Cities in the global South face a deepening crisis of food inaccessibility, characterized by food poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. This urban crisis is largely invisible to policy and research communities, with less attention given to urban food security than in the 1990s. Urban agriculture is the only aspect of urban food security receiving significant attention, though it is improbably seen as the key to achieving food security in these cities.

Sarah Himmelheber · Journal of Progressive Human Services · United States

This study discusses incongruities between social work's professional values and dominant public and private responses to food insecurity. Empowerment theory is positioned as an evaluative lens to examine food assistance, and dominant forms of food assistance are scrutinized using its basic tenets. Innovative programs, including community gardens, community kitchens, and D.C. Central Kitchen, are highlighted for their potential to yield empowering outcomes.

Katherine Luke · D-Scholarship@Pitt (University of Pittsburgh) · United States (Pittsburgh)

This study used a door-to-door survey in six Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhoods to measure the impact of community gardens on residents' perceptions of food access. It found that many gardeners do not consider gardening to improve their personal food security, and despite geographic proximity and expressed interest, community garden participation rates were low. Social and emotional barriers, including lack of gardening knowledge and racial prejudice, appeared to prevent residents from becoming active participants.

Christina Jochum · · Argentina (Buenos Aires)

This study examined the social inclusion potential of urban agriculture, focusing on six community gardens in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It analyzed how urban community gardens can promote social inclusion and identified limiting factors. The research found that urban community gardens in Buenos Aires remain an informal strategy, unrecognized by political authorities. The positive impacts of communal gardening on participants and the community are limited by this lack of recognition and often by associated lack of land use rights.

Monique Centrone Stefani, Debbie Humphries, Rebecca Kline · The FASEB Journal · United States

This study implemented and evaluated a pilot intervention addressing chronic disease risk factors in a low-income Hispanic population in the United States. The New Haven Farms Fresh Produce Prescription program provided fresh produce, nutrition education, gardening education, and cooking demonstrations weekly over sixteen weeks of the agriculture season. Participants, recruited through a community health center, came weekly to a central urban agriculture site and completed baseline and follow-up assessments of dietary diversity, chronic disease risk, food security, and physical activity. Fifty-one people completed the baseline survey and 40 completed the follow-up survey; preliminary analysis showed approximately 30% had some food insecurity at baseline. The study reports on the development of this complex agriculture-based intervention as a pilot.

Milica Koscica · Journal of international affairs · Global

This article traces the history of urban agriculture and analyzes current practices and policies to argue for its role in addressing food insecurity in developing cities, noting that more than half the world's population is urbanized and that global food demand is projected to rise 70-100% as urban population reaches a projected 70% by 2050; it frames urban agriculture as a means to expand access to land and water for food production through innovative growing techniques, without presenting new primary empirical data.

Emmanuel O. Adu · Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences · South Africa

A study of urban agriculture's relationship to students' life satisfaction in Eastern Cape, South Africa, identifies nutrition, self-employment, food security and poverty eradication as components of that satisfaction, alongside economic benefits such as income distribution and small-scale business. It recommends that South Africa's government make agriculture education compulsory for grades 10 and 11, with practical components making up at least half of overall marks, while noting challenges including limited available space, damage to crops from stray animals, pests and diseases, and unreliable access to inputs such as soil, manure, seedlings and water.

이숙미, Kim In Ho · · Global

Aiming to develop approaches for enhancing the self-support capability of vulnerable groups, this study analyzed foreign cases in which urban agriculture activities were used for self-support. The analysis classified urban agriculture activities into four types depending on participants' level of self-support capability and employment status: a healing type that helps mind and body recover through engagement, a self-consumption type that supports healthy eating and cuts food expenses, a social-relation type built around interaction with the community, and an occupation type providing jobs and income through production activities.

Jennifer Vansteenkiste · Development in Practice · Global

This paper examines the social and gender politics of a women's urban garden project in Cap Haïtien, Haiti, supported by the International Organisation for Migration. The study finds that the development process created an unmonitored symbolic space in which society's normalized gender processes were reproduced, importing broader social inequalities that in turn prevented the project from meeting the women's practical and strategic goals. It discusses how an ecohealth approach, as an alternative design framework, could make this symbolic space visible for critical engagement and analysis by participants.

Elżbiata Słabińska · Res Gestae · Poland

In 1930s central Poland, national policy to mitigate the effects of unemployment was expanded into so-called "special actions" providing full or partial employment support, comprising efforts to create bases for independent livelihoods, social and educational assistance, and support for employing white-collar workers. These were coordinated by the Labour Fund (Fundusz Pracy) together with national and local authorities and numerous economic and socio-cultural organizations. Allotment gardens and vocational training drew considerable interest among the unemployed. The paper concludes that although these were innovative measures, they were introduced too late to produce visible effects before the end of the interwar period.

Muhammad Bello Ibrahim, Nobaya Ahmad · Universiti Putra Malaysia Institutional Repository (Universiti Putra Malaysia) · Global

This review paper examines the concept and role of peri-urban agriculture (PUA) as a contributor to solving urban food crises in developing countries. It reviews the historical development and current state of PUA across different parts of the world in relation to rising urban vegetable demand, noting that agricultural communities engaged in PUA make multifunctional contributions to national economies. As approaches to PUA vary by country, the paper argues it is the community's role to identify the functions that benefit local people most, and discusses how PUA, through community and rural development, can boost urban food supply and serve as an income-generating option for farmers in developing countries.

Po Anita Puckett, Nancy Lopez-Romero · Practicing Anthropology · United States

The opening section of this issue of Practicing Anthropology introduces new perspectives in community-based research. One contribution, Eisenberg's article "Social Science, Public Policy, and Amnesty for Chickens," discusses the leading role Pima County, Arizona played in developing urban agriculture in Tucson. Eisenberg led a Policy Team that provided other teams with policy information, educated them on processes, and helped negotiate environmental policy. Through initiatives including fact sheets, policy-information trainings, and workshops, the Policy Team helped develop a tentative plan for the Tucson zoning committee that included a distinct urban agriculture element, with the main focus on proper animal husbandry in urban settings. A Facebook page called "Tucson CLUCKS" was successfully created to keep residents informed and engaged in zoning policy discussions. Eisenberg concludes that a consistent, historically grounded understanding of local issues is an important requirement for effective action.

Alexander Trutko · VTechWorks (Virginia Tech) · United States

A case study of the Common Good City Farm's Green Tomorrows program, a community-based urban agriculture and nutrition education program for residents of Washington, D.C., which aims to increase participants' food security, their ability to grow crops in urban locations, and their knowledge of nutrition, food preparation, and food budgeting. The study sought to understand how effectively the program achieved its intended goals and outcomes through semi-structured interviews with program staff and recent regular participants, in order to (1) identify similarities and differences between staff- and participant-stated program goals, (2) determine key program impacts, and (3) generate programmatic recommendations. Participants reported that the program's food distribution increased their consumption of produce, contributing to improved food security, along with greater knowledge of agricultural methods and healthy eating and an improved ability to prepare and shop for healthy food after completing the program. Overall, the Green Tomorrows program's outcomes aligned with staff and participant expectations and were reported to positively influence participants' food security, nutrition knowledge, food preparation, and food-budgeting skills.

Workineh Ayenew · Developing Country Studies · Ethiopia

A study of 50 women selected by systematic sampling in Arba Minch town, Ethiopia, used logistic regression (maximum likelihood estimation) to examine determinants of women's saving behavior. Education attainment and age showed a negative influence on saving, but this was not statistically significant. Ownership of urban agriculture and income level had a significant positive effect on saving behavior, while access to credit and family size had a significant negative influence. Goodness-of-fit tests confirmed the model fit the data, and a robust heteroscedasticity test found no problems with model specification.

Barrow Cadbury Trust · Barrow Cadbury Trust · United Kingdom

Published 7 August 2014, reporting results for the first cohort of 1,000 prisoners in the Peterborough Social Impact Bond: an 8.4 per cent fall in reconviction relative to the comparable national baseline. The figure was produced for the Ministry of Justice by independent assessor Professor Darrick Jolliffe with Qinetiq and the University of Leicester using propensity score matching, finding 142 reconvictions per 100 prisoners at Peterborough against 155 per 100 in the control group. Payment required a reduction of more than 7.5 per cent, so the project did not qualify at this stage; outcome payments were due to be decided in 2016.

Henderson S. R. · Peter Lang (Studies in Modern European History, vol. 64) · Germany

A comprehensive history of Ernst May's New Frankfurt initiative within the Weimar context, covering housing settlements, construction and material innovations, the parks-and-garden-colony program, the Frankfurt Kitchen, and reforms in schools and medical facilities.