Research & reports

Gamel 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.

Lisa Berglund · · United States (Detroit)

This paper analyzes media coverage of informal practices like street vending, murals, and urban agriculture in Detroit's redeveloping neighborhoods. It reveals that while these practices are appropriated by developers and new, affluent arrivals as entrepreneurial and necessary for redevelopment, they are treated fundamentally differently from the informal practices of long-standing, marginalized residents, which are often condemned as illegal. This inconsistency highlights how legal frameworks are manipulated to exclude long-standing residents from the city's "renaissance."

Leonardo Mendes da Silva, Vanessa Dutra, Delton Francelino, Natália Oliveira Dias · Enciclopédia Biosfera · Brazil (Barbacena)

Research was conducted in Barbacena, Minas Gerais, Brazil, to identify empty urban spaces and wastelands suitable for community gardens. The study, carried out by the Center for Studies in Urban Ecology, aimed to map these spaces for potential community garden proposals to public and private entities. Ten locations were selected based on specific criteria, and general perceptions were presented to facilitate understanding and dissemination, though the study did not intend to establish planting projects or direct community contact.

Ana 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.

Naiane Modri Fuzinatto, Sílvio Santos · Turismo - Visão e Ação · Brazil

This qualitative case study evaluated the impact of urban agriculture (UA) on the competitiveness of a restaurant in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Data were collected through documentary research, semi-structured interviews, and direct observation, then analyzed using the VRIO model. The findings suggest that UA can develop a competitive advantage when combined with conceptual and technological elements.

Jackson Green, Lauren Maunder, Kristina Gulczewski · VTechWorks (Virginia Tech) · United States

This project presents group research on urban agriculture as a tool for revitalizing urban food deserts, utilizing a website. The website provides definitions, explanations, and examples of food deserts, urban agriculture, and their combination. The project also includes an addendum to the Green New Deal, discussing government recognition of urban food deserts.

Sheriden M. Hansen, JayDee Gunnell, Anthony Whaley, Xin Dai, Cole Harding, Brent Black · Horticulturae · United States

This study in the U.S. Intermountain West assessed eight tree species for their suitability as windbreaks for urban farms, focusing on initial establishment and use at the urban–agriculture interface. Standard poplar and 'Theves' columnar poplar were most effective for rapid establishment. However, species with moderate growth rates like aspen, juniper, and hackberry may offer lower long-term maintenance costs for the region's challenging environmental conditions.

Justine Lindemann · New York University Press eBooks · United States (Cleveland)

This chapter explores how gentrification in Cleveland, Ohio, impacts Black urban farmers' and gardeners' access to land in disinvested neighborhoods. It examines the ancillary effects of development on alternative land reuse efforts. The study highlights that despite a seemingly endless supply of vacant lots, gentrification negatively affects land access for these communities.

Colleen 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.

Tucker Jensen · Digital Commons - Hamline (Hamline University) · United States

This capstone project reviews the effects of community gardens on low-income urban populations in the United States. After reviewing prior work on the history of racism in America, disparities in food insecurity, the correlation between poverty and health, and environmental impacts specific to urban communities, the project developed a five-day unit of study set at an established community garden. The unit teaches middle school students about community gardens through STEM lesson activities, has students design their own garden, and aims for them to be able to explain why a community garden matters to their neighborhood's success.

Laryssa Mylenna Silva Santos, Maria Elizabete de Oliveira, Darcet Costa Souza, Cristiane Lopes Carneiro d’Albuquerque, Marcus Vinicius Guimarães Clack · Informe Econômico. · Brazil

This paper describes and analyzes the social, economic, and technological aspects of the agroecological transition toward organic certification at the Povoado Soinho Community Garden in Teresina, Piauí, Brazil, outlining the profile of its horticulturists and their production. Teresina's Community Garden Program, created by the municipal agriculture and supply agency (SEMAB), initially aimed to reduce delinquency among socially vulnerable children and adolescents, but later added goals of increasing horticultural output, generating employment and income, and improving farming families' diets. As of 2016, Teresina had 70 production units, five of which were awaiting organic certification from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA), including the Povoado Soinho Community Garden, which was undergoing the transition to organic production with support from the rural development secretariat. The analysis found that plots managed by women predominated and showed greater production diversification than those managed by men, and that more than half of plots received help from at least one family member.

Luiz Andrei Gonçalves Pereira, Marina de Fátima Brandão Carneiro, Igor Martins de Oliveira · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Brazil

A study analyzing the spatial organization of urban agriculture in Montes Claros, Minas Gerais, Brazil, practiced in residential backyards (quintais) and vacant lots. Methods combined a literature review with empirical fieldwork in the city's urban agriculture areas. Through theoretical and conceptual discussion, the study examines urban agricultural practices and public policies aimed at promoting food security in Montes Claros.

Kristan Majors · Educational Media Reviews Online · Canada

This is a review of the 2017 documentary film "From Seed to Seed" (87 minutes, directed by Katharina Stieffenhofer, distributed by Bullfrog Films), which follows four farms of different sizes in Canada over a full year, covering topics including plant breeding, crop diversity, organic farming, green manure and seed exchange; the review recommends the film for classroom and community use and notes it won awards including 2019 Best of the Fest at the Colorado Environmental Film Festival and 2019 Best Documentary at the Big Water Film Festival.

Daniele Eckert Matzembacher, Fábio Bittencourt Meira · Organizações & Sociedade · Brazil

A 2020 case study of the CSA (community supported agriculture) organization "CSA Alfa" in Minas Gerais, Brazil, using Karl Polanyi's theoretical framework. It frames CSA as a movement that repositions agricultural production around fair-trade and agroecological principles through short chains linking production and consumption, and finds that market exchange and reciprocity coexist as different regulatory principles within CSA Alfa. Friendship, tolerance, loyalty, and commitment build a communal ethos around food, and the study argues CSA acts as a counter-movement to commodification by strengthening participants' relative autonomy and raising social cohesion among participating groups.

Abby M. Lohr, Nick Henry, Denise J. Roe, Claudio Andrés Garrido Rodríguez, Rosalva Romero, Maia Ingram · Journal of School Health · United States

This study evaluated the effect of garden-based learning on outlook and behaviors toward vegetables among primarily Latinx third- and fourth-grade students at four elementary schools with different garden programs in southern Arizona. Students completed a bingo-format survey and participated in class discussions measuring their attitudes and behaviors. Students at schools with more garden exposure were more likely to give responses reflecting positive attitudes and behaviors toward vegetables, and most often named vegetables grown in the school garden as their favorites in class discussions. For third- and fourth-graders, longer exposure to a school garden was associated with more positive perceptions of and desire to consume vegetables.

Guillermo Olivera, Kenia Zavaleta · Repositorio Digital Institucional de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (Universidad de Buenos Aires) · Mexico

This study argues that urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA), along with intra-urban open spaces, constitutes a "second best" land use for 21st-century cities pursuing sustainable growth aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals — whether through FAO's Greener Cities Strategy, which promotes garden-based UPA against poverty and food insecurity, or through UPA absorbed by city expansion, much of it commercial in nature. Based on analysis of official statistics and fieldwork in the Ejido Tejalpa in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, the study finds that UPA persists there due to its historical trajectory and access to water and land, existing in commercial form rather than as urban gardens, but not without problems. Its main threat is identified as excessive urbanization and generational change among producers, and its main challenge as achieving greater involvement of urban governments through land management and urban planning, following the experience of other countries where agriculture is given more weight in metropolitan planning.

Cristhiane Oliveira da Graça Amâncio, João Pedro Ribeiro Oliveira, Leonis Junior Santos Silva, Bruna Maria Pereira Ribas, Claudemar Mattos, Ilzo Arthur Moreira, Robson Amâncio · · Brazil (São Paulo)

Among farmers of the Rede CAU (Carioca Urban Agriculture Network) in the Vargem Grande neighborhood of western Rio de Janeiro, data collected from February to December 2019 using the LUME method analyzed production of fruit, vegetables and compost across 8 hectares of land. Total family income was estimated at R$62,632.00, of which 56% (R$38,906.00) came from agricultural income (with the greatest profit from vegetables sold at fairs) and 46% (R$30,726.00) from non-agricultural income (space rental); 65% (R$45,421.53) of total income derived from women's labor (making sweets and dried fruit for sale) and 35% (R$24,210.47) from men's labor (planting and management). The main constraint on improving production was difficult access to the steep, hard-to-reach region and the large distances between subsystems, with optimizing self-production of inputs through composting and mechanizing transport proposed as alternatives.

Caio Tibério Dornelles da Rocha, Luciana Calabró, Diogo O. Souza · · Brazil

A proposal outlines the implementation of technical-pedagogical school gardens in the states of Maranhao and Piaui, Brazil, reviewing Brazil's legal framework on the Right to Adequate Food and Food and Nutrition Security and discussing the main characteristics of a reference school garden. The proposed implementation is a strategy for institutionalizing gardening models in public education institutions serving children and adolescents aged 6 to 14, positioned as the initial step toward establishing a School Vegetable Program for Improving Eating Habits as part of pedagogy aimed at building healthy, sustainable eating habits.

Jackline Gomes Silva, Maria Cleoneide Brito, Jerrana Cantarelli, Sebastião Santos, Paula Vanessa Queiroz, Lourinalda Luiza Dantas da Silva Selva de Oliveira · Revista de Agroecologia no Semiárido · Brazil

A report on SERTA (Alternative Technology Service), a Brazilian institution offering an agroecology technical course for rural and urban youth and traditional communities, describing a 30-hour internship experience of students from the Glória do Goitá unit at the Ibimirim unit in Pernambuco's semi-arid Sertão do Moxotó, in the caatinga biome, on a 5-hectare site with a range of native and exotic trees, shrubs, herbs and medicinal plants and a large variety of cacti. Activities included observing social technologies such as cactus-grafting techniques, animal and plant husbandry, use of high-protein, high-value medicinal and food plants such as moringa (Moringa oleifera) and pitaya (Hylocereus undatus), and participation in the "Caatinga Emoldurada" project making handcrafted lamps from dead plant material, as well as hands-on exposure to solar and wind energy use and to aquaponics combining fish, chickens, medicinal plants, fruit trees, vegetables and unconventional food plants (PANC).

Evan Bowness, Hannah Wittman · The Journal of Peasant Studies · Canada

A study advancing the theory of agrarian citizenship—the bundle of rights and responsibilities underpinning the food sovereignty movement—based on interviews with 34 participants engaged in urban agriculture in Metro Vancouver, Canada. It introduces the concept of urban agrarianism, defined as an urban ethic of care for foodlands and, by extension, a relational responsibility to exercise solidarity with those who cultivate and harvest food. The paper argues that urban people, especially those with privilege, should recognize the impacts of their social-ecological metabolism and mobilize for food sovereignty struggles, including for the repatriation of lands stolen through colonial dispossession.

Rafael Pereira da Silva, Francisco Fransualdo de Azevedo · Revista de Geografia · Brazil

Focusing on Natal, Rio Grande do Norte state, Brazil, this study examines the role of institutional markets — particularly the National School Feeding Program (PNAE) — in commercializing food produced by family farming, drawing on a literature review and PNAE food procurement data from 2013 to 2017. Institutional markets were found to give farmers an alternative outlet for their production, complementing income from open-air markets and potentially reducing the role of intermediaries, but in Natal the PNAE has been underutilized because of problems in its operational structure.

Ana Clara Aparecida Alves de Souza · Revista Brasileira de Casos de Ensino em Administração · Brazil

This teaching case study addresses activism for urban agriculture in an initiative called Horta da Formiga ("the Ant's Garden") in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The initiative is characterized as a social laboratory within the city, and because urban agriculture draws multidisciplinary interest, the case is intended for use across a range of academic fields and disciplines.

Leslie Hossfeld, Brooke Kelly, Julia Waity · · United States

This chapter discusses how the working class in the United States -- including farmworkers and restaurant workers -- engages with the food system as both laborers and consumers, facing precarious working conditions and low pay while also experiencing higher rates of diabetes and obesity linked to a food system that favors sugary foods. It reviews local food movements such as farmers' markets, community-supported agriculture and food sovereignty efforts as responses aimed at food justice, notes criticism that these approaches often primarily serve white, middle-class participants, and surveys initiatives including the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' Fair Food Program, Wholesome Wave and the North Bolivar Good Food Revolution.

Natalie Seymour, Mary Yavelak, Candice Christian, Ben Chapman, Michelle D. Danyluk · EDIS · United States

This is the Spanish-language version of FSHN20-19/FS342, "COVID-19 FAQ for Community Gardens: Steps for Garden Managers and Gardeners," originally written by Natalie Seymour, Mary Yavelak, Candice Christian and Ben Chapman (NC State University Extension) and published by the UF/IFAS Food Science and Human Nutrition Department in April 2020.

Sydney Park Brown, Danielle Treadwell, James M. Stephens, Sue Webb, Francisco Rivera · EDIS · United States (Florida)

Home garden planning and development is described as a year-round activity in Florida, United States, offering benefits for physical and emotional health (2020). This guide provides recommendations for home and community gardening, including planting dates, variety selection for crop planning, water and nutrient management, pest management, and harvesting. It is a Spanish-language translation, by Francisco Rivera, of the Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide (SP103/VH021) by Sydney Park Brown, Danielle Treadwell, J. M. Stephens and Susan Webb, published by the UF/IFAS Horticultural Sciences Department.