Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
1626 results(46 / 66)
The Impact of a Community Garden on a Local Township
2015Mariah E Reitz · Digital Commons - Otterbein (Otterbein University) · United States
This research aimed to determine if a community garden would benefit a suburban township, Blendon Township, in addressing food insecurity and food deserts. A survey evaluated fruit and vegetable consumption, healthy food affordability, and education, as well as the garden's effect on participants' families. Through a literature review and survey assessment, the results indicated that Blendon Township needed a community garden due to its proximity to Columbus and suburban setting.
CommunityHealthWelfareSocioeconomic Disparities in the Provision of Outdoor Time in Portland, Oregon Public Elementary Schools
2015Sabine Lefkowitz · · United States (Portland)
This thesis examined the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and outdoor time in Portland, Oregon public elementary schools. The study found that higher SES elementary schools spend more time outdoors than low SES schools. This disparity amplifies existing disadvantages for children in high-poverty schools, suggesting an inequity in outdoor time provision.
Equity & displacementFood educationCommunityHealthEconomicsHealthy Kids, Healthy Cuba
2015Patricia Keane, Alejandro Ortega Hortelano, Jeanette Linville · Journal of Public Health Management and Practice · United States
As an evaluation of the "Healthy Kids, Healthy Cuba (HKHCuba)" program in a triethnic rural community in New Mexico, 12 partners participated in a group model building (GMB) session to introduce systems thinking. The session identified 27 influences as feedback loops from behavior over time graphs and 5 subsystems from a causal loop diagram. Results showed that in addition to strategy-related influences like access to healthy food and community garden participation, a sense of cultural pride, community, and social engagement, especially among youth, were highly salient.
CommunityHealthFood educationPhosphorus Cycling in Montreal’s Food and Urban Agriculture Systems
2015Geneviève S. Metson, Elena M. Bennett · PLoS ONE · Canada (Montreal)
This study quantified the role of urban agriculture (UA) in phosphorus (P) cycling in Montreal, Canada, using existing data and surveys of local UA practitioners. In 2012, Montreal imported 3.5 Gg of P in food, with 2.63 Gg accumulating in landfills, 0.36 Gg discharged to local waters, and only 0.09 Gg recycled through composting. UA was found to be only a small sub-system in the city's overall P cycle, contributing just 0.44% of the P consumed as food. Although recycling rates within the UA system are high, the land area dedicated to UA is too small to accommodate all P waste produced on the island.
Limited or null effectOrganic cycleEconomicsCommunityHeartside’s Glean Ride: Bringing Fresh Food and Ideas to the Heart of Grand Rapids
2015Selina Dorking, Paige Eisen, Joseph J. Godfrey, Regina López, Steven A. Smith · ScholarWorks - GVSU (Grand Valley State University) · United States
In the Heartside neighborhood of Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, the non-profit Heartside Gleaning Initiative (HGI) has been addressing food insecurity since 2014. During the winter semester of 2015, the "Food Fighters," a team of Grand Valley State University students, collaborated with HGI to tackle the challenges of food waste, food insecurity, and community sustainability. Their efforts resulted in the Heartside Glean Ride mobile food cart plan and a brochure for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes, designed to increase food distribution.
Food lossWelfareCommunityFood educationHealthUrban Farm & Garden Alliance Nelson Report UPDATE
2015Rachel Grewell · · United States
The Urban Farm and Garden Alliance (UFGA) conducted a measurement project from summer to fall 2015, involving UFGA gardens and backyard gardeners weighing and measuring produce. The project also included a community survey on the social impacts of gardening. Based on these results, community-friendly guides were designed to help collect and disseminate data on both social and vegetative yields in urban gardens.
CommunityEconomicsUtilizing Michigan Brownfield Policies to Incentivize Community-Based Urban Agriculture in Detroit
2014Nicholas Leonard · Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law · United States (Detroit)
This article argues that Detroit could use the Michigan Brownfield Redevelopment Financing Act to incentivize community-based urban agriculture on abandoned properties. It contends that many cities where urban farming has flourished are riddled with brownfields, and that leveraging brownfield policy could promote urban agriculture as a cost-effective revitalization tool while protecting farmers and food from toxic contamination, giving Detroit a viable strategy to reverse blight.
PolicyCommunityEconomicsChallenging Inclusivity Urban Agriculture and Community Involvement in San Diego
2014Bruno Monardo, Anna Laura Palazzo · Advanced Engineering Forum · United States (San Diego)
This article discusses how urban agriculture is being used across US cities—shaped by 'food deserts' that limit access to fresh, local, healthy food—to give new perspectives to blighted post-crisis neighborhoods and address social distress linked to migration. Focusing on the New Roots Community Farm in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, it highlights the farm's potential to combine social inclusion with physical and economic redevelopment.
CommunityPolicyEconomicsWhere have all the houses (among other things) gone? Some critical reflections on urban agriculture
2014Laura B. DeLind · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · United States (Lansing)
Using Urbandale Farm in Lansing, Michigan as a case, this paper critically reflects on how urban agriculture can inadvertently rationalize the displacement and continued inequity of urban neighbors rather than reinforce place-making and neighborhood empowerment. It questions the movement's underlying assumptions and beneficiaries and suggests how UA might be reconfigured to shed its neoliberal tendencies.
PolicyCommunityEconomicsResource needs for a socially just and sustainable urban agriculture system: Lessons from New York City
2014Nevin Cohen, Kristin Reynolds · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · United States (New York)
Drawing on the two-year "Five Borough Farm" study of urban agriculture projects in New York City, this paper examines the resource needs of urban farms and gardens in terms of viability and equity. It documents that resource needs extend beyond land, soil and money to include government support and networks of practitioners, nonprofits and philanthropies, and that significant disparities in access to resources make the city's urban agriculture system unequal. The paper concludes with strategies to align resource needs with urban agriculture goals in New York and other cities.
PolicyCommunityEconomicsWorld Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) in the United States: locations and motivations of volunteer tourism host farms
2014· Journal of Sustainable Tourism · United States
Analyzes the locations and motivations of WWOOF volunteer-tourism host farms in the US, finding host distributions are spatially skewed toward the west coast and Appalachia.
EconomicsOrganic cycleCommunityGreening the urban frontier: Race, property, and resettlement in Detroit
2014Safransky S. · Geoforum · Detroit, USA
Analyzing plans to repurpose Detroit's vacant lots as urban farms and green infrastructure, the article argues that framing this land as 'empty' and 'wasted' legitimizes the racialized dispossession of nonwhite residents, distributing the costs and benefits of 'green' redevelopment unevenly.
PolicyCommunityInnovation in urban agricultural practices: Responding to diverse production environments
2014Anne Pfeiffer, Erin Silva, Jed B. Colquhoun · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · United States
A project centered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison gathered data through site visits and interviews with urban agricultural organizations in seven US cities. It examined how structural and strategic food system factors shape urban agricultural efforts, considering diverse business and production models. The study discusses unique innovations in space-intensive agricultural production and assesses significant challenges facing urban agriculture.
CommunityPolicyEconomicsUrban–rural linkageConceptualizing Community Buy-in and Its Application to Urban Farming
2014Melissa N. Poulsen, Marie L. Spiker, Peter J. Winch · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (Baltimore)
This study explored the perceived importance of community buy-in for urban farming, along with its barriers, facilitators, and strategies, through participant observation at urban farms and interviews with urban farmers, neighborhood leaders, residents, and key stakeholders in Baltimore, Maryland. Findings revealed that residents' unfamiliarity with urban farming, concerns about negative neighborhood impacts, and perceptions of urban farms as "outsider projects" were barriers to buy-in. Strategies for gaining buy-in were shown to follow three main phases: gaining entry into a neighborhood, introducing the urban farm idea, and engaging the neighborhood.
Governance failureCommunityEconomicsPolicyUrban Community Gardeners' Knowledge and Perceptions of Soil Contaminant Risks
2014Brent F. Kim, Melissa N. Poulsen, Jared D. Margulies, Katie L. Dix, Anne Palmer, Keeve E. Nachman · PLoS ONE · United States (Baltimore, Maryland)
This study characterized urban community gardeners' knowledge and perceptions of soil contaminant risks in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, through surveys with 70 gardeners from 15 gardens and interviews with 18 key informants. It found low levels of concern and inconsistent knowledge regarding heavy metal and organic chemical contaminants among gardeners. Furthermore, barriers to investigating garden site history and conducting soil tests, along with limited knowledge of best practices for reducing exposure, were identified.
Contamination & food safetyCommunityHealthPolicyStudy protocol: effects of school gardens on children’s physical activity
2014Nancy M. Wells, Beth M. Myers, Charles Henderson · Archives of Public Health · United States (New York State)
This study is a protocol for a randomized controlled trial involving 12 schools in New York State. It aims to examine the effect of school gardens on children's overall physical activity, sedentary behavior, and physical activity during the school day. Data will be collected at baseline and at three post-intervention follow-up waves at 6, 12, and 18 months using surveys and accelerometry.
Food educationHealthCommunityGrowing Everyday Multiculturalism
2014Hongxia Shan, Pierre Walter · Adult Education Quarterly · Canada
Based on a qualitative study of the learning experiences of six Chinese immigrants in community gardens on a university campus in Canada, this article identifies three ways of learning that foster knowing, connecting, and hybrid knowledge production across cultures. These include learning through communities of conviviality, learning mediated through nonhuman things like land, waste, and free-floating seeds, and learning through assemblages that integrate culture, place, and space.
CommunityFood education미국 학교정원운동(School Garden Movement)의 발전과정
2014금혜진 · · United States
This study examined the philosophical background and historical development of the school garden movement in the USA to derive implications for Korean school gardening programs. The movement emerged from late 19th-century educational ideas, showing a process of formation (1891-1914), decline (post-WWI, 1950s), and revival (from 1990s). The revival was driven by efforts to address childhood obesity, nature-deficit, and improve academic achievements.
Food educationHealthCommunityKnowing “Good Food”: Immigrant Knowledge and the Racial Politics of Farmworker Food Insecurity
2014Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern · Antipode · United States
Research on farmworker food insecurity in the USA points out that food assistance providers often treat farmworkers' inability to afford healthy food as a lack of knowledge, reinforcing racialized assumptions that people of color do not know "good" food. This study argues that food security and healthy eating are not a matter of consumers making healthy "choices," but rather a matter of class-based and racial differences within the food system.
Equity & displacementCommunityFood sovereignty & justiceHealthWelfareMonitoreo e identificación de algunos insectos plagas asociados a la agricultura urbana en Veracruz centro
2014Mabel Hernández Osorio, Ana Lid del Ángel Pérez, Carlos Nahin Castro José · Revista Biológico Agropecuaria Tuxpan · Mexico
This study in Veracruz, Mexico, identified insect pests associated with urban cultivation of vegetables and aromatic species in two types of recycled containers. Daily ethological monitoring revealed five insect pests: whitefly (Trialeurodes vaporariorum), red spider mite (Tetranychus urticae C.L.Koch), leaf miner (Liriomyza sp), thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis), and aphids (Myzus persicae). The findings aim to inform preventive actions and biological control strategies to reduce pest presence in urban container vegetable production.
BiodiversityDIYCommunityGearing up to support urban farming in California: Preliminary results of a needs assessment
2014Rachel Surls, Gail Feenstra, Sheila Golden, Ryan E. Galt, Shermain Hardesty, Claire Napawan, Cheryl Wilen · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · United States (California)
Urban agriculture (UA) in California has been slower to gain momentum compared to other urban states, partly due to limited availability of relevant information and technical assistance for urban farmers and municipal decision-makers. A University of California Cooperative Extension project is developing web-based educational resources based on a needs assessment, which includes a literature review, an internal survey of personnel, and community interviews. Preliminary findings indicate challenges in supporting urban farming due to resource constraints and information gaps.
Governance failurePolicyEconomicsCommunityQuel(s) rôle(s) pour l'agriculture urbaine à Montréal-Nord : perceptions et vision des résidents.
2014Marie-Ève Voghel Robert · · Canada (Montréal)
This research internship, conducted in Montreal-Nord, Canada, during winter and spring 2013, aimed to understand the potential of urban agriculture from the perspective of both gardeners and non-gardeners. Through five group interviews, participants emphasized the essential role of human and social relationships in collective gardening projects, beyond just food production. They also proposed integrating collective gardening with other projects to create a comprehensive food system in Montreal-Nord, enhancing project longevity and food accessibility.
CommunityFood educationHealthCity of Rosemount Community Gardens Evaluation Proposal
2014Elizabeth McNamara, Danielle Proulx, Luke Hanson, Yue Zhang, T.H. Stephan · University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy (University of Minnesota) · United States
This report was completed by students enrolled in PA 5311: Program Evaluation, taught by Hanife Cakici and Jodi Sandfort in fall 2014.
CommunityPolicyDemonstrating fence options for community, school and home vegetable and ornamental gardens in areas with high deer and woodchuck pressure
2014Annie Christian · eCommons (Cornell University) · United States
This project tested two fencing methods—heavy woven wire with chicken wire, and heavy black plastic with hex mesh—to exclude deer and woodchucks from gardens. Master Gardener volunteers and CCE staff recorded material costs, participated in installation, and monitored effectiveness weekly. The project also provided IPM education to the public and schools through tours, workshops, and an instructional video.
Food educationCommunityDIYMission San Jose Well Initiative
2014Mary Foran, Nonda Kozas, Daniel Lafranchi · Scholar Commons (Santa Clara University) · United States (California)
The Mission San Jose Well Initiative is a community-based project in Fremont, California, aiming to develop a sustainable irrigation system for a community garden. The system will utilize one of three wells on the Dominican Sisters' Convent property, employing a submersible solar-powered pump to deliver water to a storage tank, which then supplies the garden and other areas via a timer. The project focuses on environmental and water resource design, balancing budget, functionality, and location.
CommunityClimate changeOrganic cycle