Research & reports

Siti Aisyah Salim, Siti Hajar Salim, Fadhlina Mohd Razali · International Journal of Sustainable Construction Engineering Technology · Malaysia

This research explored potential urban farming activities for improving the economic status of urban residents through structured literature reviews (SLR). A search of ScienceDirect, Web of Science, and Scopus databases yielded 851 papers, with 90 articles used for final classification after a three-iteration filtering process. The study indicated that while urban farming's potential is promoted in Malaysia, research investigating its ability to improve urban residents' economic status remains very lacking.

Soraya Nór · Revista Latino-americana de Ambiente Construído & Sustentabilidade · Global

This article reflects on the urban landscape, focusing on its environmental dimension, to understand how to better integrate natural and social elements in urban spaces. The study proposes the green and blue infrastructure and urban agriculture as planning and territorial management practices, based on a broad notion of landscape, to favor an expansion of nature's presence in city living spaces. These proposals analyze their environmental and socio-cultural aspects.

Sekolah Menengah Islam As-Syddiq, Simpang Renggam, Milah Zainal, M. Z. Rosmiza, Program Geografi, Pusat Kajian Pembangunan, Sosial dan Persekitaran, Fakulti Sains Sosial dan Kemanusiaan, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia · Malaysian Journal of Society and Space · Malaysia

This qualitative study explored human assets among 8 participants in community garden projects in Malaysia. While the government introduced community garden projects to improve urban residents' well-being, their success rate is reportedly low, with many projects expected to be unsuccessful. The study found that participants possessed human assets such as good health, physical strength, ability to seek agricultural inputs and information, strong religious practices, and resilience.

Jorinda Steenkamp, Elizelle Juaneé Cilliers, Sarel S. Cilliers, Louis Lategan · Sustainability · Global

This paper proposes urban agriculture as an intervention for planners to support sustainable food production and supply chains, addressing the neglect of food security in planning. A multiple-case study analyzed four urban agriculture examples in the Global South. The findings indicate urban agriculture's potential to improve food security for at-risk populations and mitigate urban risks like unemployment, community decline, and food deserts through its multifunctionality.

Pastory Salvatory Thomas, Wilbard Kombe, Aldo Lupala · Urban and Regional Planning · Tanzania

This qualitative study examined perceptions of urban agriculture among 60 urban farmers and officials in Arusha City, Tanzania, through interviews, observation, and literature review. Findings revealed that negative effects of urban agricultural activities influenced negative perceptions, which city officials seldom managed. While urban agriculture is acknowledged in policy, the critical effects of negative perceptions among stakeholders are considered less crucial in policy implications and formal governmental proclamations, despite their real-world impact.

Anne Forbes, Vinesh Chandra, Linda Pfeiffer, Rachel Sheffield · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Australia

This textbook, "STEM Education in the Primary School," introduces pre-service teachers to STEM theory, skills, and practice via a project-based learning approach. It integrates STEM elements with the Australian Curriculum using a school garden project case study and explores popular STEM topics with age-appropriate examples. The text connects current STEM education research to teaching practice, supported by questions, information boxes, and real-world scenarios.

Sandra Patricia Montenegro Gómez, Yetfersson Arley Serrato Velosa, Yolvi Prada Millán · Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia eBooks · Colombia

This paper contextualizes relevant experiences and technical tools for implementing urban and peri-urban agroecological orchards in Colombia. While urban and peri-urban agriculture yields positive results in food security, sustainability, and resilience, Colombia currently lacks government policies to support these processes. The paper aims to transfer knowledge on crops to various communities to strengthen their food security through vegetable production.

Paizinho, C., Maria de Fátima Ferreiro · Repositório do ISCTE-IUL · Portugal (Lisbon)

This study identified solidarity economy practices in three urban gardens in Lisbon: Vale de Chelas, Alta de Lisboa, and Horta do Baldio. Quantitative and qualitative methods, including surveys of 42 users, semi-directive interviews with 3 stakeholders, and participant observation, were employed. Out of 35 evaluated practices, 31 were identified, with seven deemed "very relevant" and four "relevant." Organic production, contributions to social cohesion and health, knowledge sharing among users, promotion of reciprocal relationships, and democratic decision-making were highlighted. The remaining 20 practices were considered "less relevant."

Joshua Amponsem, Nathalie Sänger, Marie-Claire Graf · Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · Global

This chapter presents youth perspectives on opportunities and barriers for green urban transformation (GUT) in urban centers. It highlights best-practice examples from Germany and Ghana to promote self-sufficient urban food production and zero-waste communities. The discussion focuses on overcoming barriers through youth governance, a post-COVID green recovery pathway, and making GUT knowledge accessible to young people.

Anne Forbes, Vinesh Chandra, Linda Pfeiffer, Rachel Sheffield · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Australia

This textbook, "STEM Education in the Primary School," introduces pre-service teachers to STEM theory, skills, and practice using a project-based learning approach. It integrates STEM elements with the Australian Curriculum through a school garden project case study, exploring topics like health, shelter, and space with age-appropriate examples. The text connects current STEM education research to teaching practice, covering assessment, learning spaces, and community.

Yumin Park, Yong-Wook Shin · Journal of people, plants, and environment · Global

A study analyzed the trends and network structure of 'grow-your-own (GYO)' activities by collecting 6,388 Instagram posts containing '#gyo' and '#growyourown' hashtags from June 13, 2020, to April 13, 2021, using social network analysis. The results showed that users expressed preference and interest in GYO through various word combinations, positive emotions and pride through gardening-related hashtags, and participated in urban gardening, indicating trends towards self-sufficiency and sustainable living.

Petra Schneider, Vincent Rochell, Kay Plat, A. Jaworski · Circular Economy and Sustainability · Global

A chapter starting from the premise that food production is one of the world's major consumers of water and energy, and that greater efficiency in food production is needed given population growth. It states that circular approaches have a long tradition in food production but that industrial farming has interrupted traditional cycle-closed farming approaches, leading to various environmental challenges. The chapter outlines the basics of traditional gardening and farming approaches and describes how their characteristics have been adapted in modern farming systems including aquaponics, permaculture, urban farming, and recovered traditional farming systems.

Joëlle Salomon Cavin, Valérie Boisvert, Simone Ranocchiari, Quentin Dusserre-Bresson, Monique Poulot · Natures Sciences Sociétés · Global

A collective reflection on militant/activist engagement in urban agriculture research in France and the United States, based on a qualitative literature review complemented by a series of seminars. It finds that US research on urban agriculture, rooted in critical and militant geography, has concentrated on community gardening and promoted food justice, whereas in the French context the spaces and actors studied are far more diverse but critical and political reflexivity is comparatively less developed. The article concludes with a call for greater critical reflexivity in this field.

Louise Mitchell, Lawrence Houston, Michael Hardman, Michelle Howarth, Penny A. Cook · Cogent Social Sciences · Global

Against the backdrop of health services becoming stretched, particularly in ageing populations in the Global North, this paper discusses Green Infrastructure (GI) interventions including the development of social farms in urban areas and deprived communities. Social farms use farming practices as spaces for therapeutic outcomes such as care, rehabilitation, and education, framed within the concept of social prescribing alongside community gardens and urban farms as non-medical approaches. Noting that social farming and social prescribing research is currently concentrated in Scandinavian countries and the USA, the paper focuses on increased UK attention to the concept, including in DEFRA's 25-year Environment Plan. Findings show an agglomeration of social farming sites in rural rather than urban contexts, and the paper discusses tools and barriers for urban development of the practice.

Mariana Cecilia Grohar, Barbara Gacnik, Maja Mikulič-Petkovšek, M. Hudina, Robert Veberič · Horticulturae · Global

A laboratory study measured caffeine content and phenolic profiles across three types of tea and coffee waste through two successive solvent extractions. The first extraction was far more efficient overall, though green tea retained high flavanol content and mate tea high phenolic-acid content in the second extraction, black tea had the highest caffeine content across both extractions, and water proved the most effective solvent in nearly all cases — a simple, accessible extraction method the authors note is relevant to urban horticulture as a potential alternative to conventional pesticides.

Anne Cleary, Julie Dean, Danielle Pollock, Lisa McDaid, Frances M. Boyle · JBI Evidence Synthesis · Global

A protocol for a scoping review aiming to understand the types of nature-based interventions currently used in bereavement care and to map the theories of change explaining how such interventions may support bereavement care. It notes bereavement can be associated with adverse psychosocial health outcomes, describes this as an emerging research field, and states there is a need to explore the literature on different types of nature-based interventions used in bereavement care, including animal-assisted therapy, care farming, therapeutic horticulture, and community gardens, and to identify the underpinning theories of change. Inclusion criteria cover studies or reviews of participants who experienced bereavement following the death of a loved one and took part in a nature-based intervention, across all nature contexts and geographic locations. The planned method searches eight databases—Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Social Science Database (ProQuest), PTSDpubs (ProQuest), and Research Library: Health and Medicine (ProQuest)—plus manual reference-list and keyword searches, extracting data on intervention type, target sample, health outcomes, measures and methods, and theory of change, to be presented in tabular format with a narrative summary.

M. G. Morshed, SB Rahman, MA Rahman · Journal of Environmental Science and Natural Resources · Bangladesh

A survey conducted in Sadar upazila, Bogura district, Bangladesh, found that 66% of rooftop gardeners and 70% of homestead gardeners cited producing healthy, fresh food as their reason for gardening. Rooftop gardens contained about 80 plant types and homestead gardens 87, comprising fruits (97%), vegetables (86%), spices (72%), flowers (64%), medicinal plants (64%), ornamentals (23%) and plantation crops (12%). Time invested ranged from under 30 minutes to about an hour a day. Only 28% of homestead gardeners had received training from government agencies or NGOs, while most rooftop gardeners learned from agriculture-focused television programs, and just 18% of rooftop gardeners and 24% of homestead gardeners gardened primarily for economic return.

Paulo Germán García Murillo, Laura Belkis Parada Romero, Juana Yadira Martín Perico, Julio Ernesto Rojas Mesa, Bernardo Garibello Suan · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This paper reports a research project on urban agriculture aimed at fostering scientific citizenship, carried out with fifth-grade students and teachers at the El Carmelo school in Teusaquillo, Bogota, Colombia. Focused on raising awareness of STEAM (environmental, technological, pedagogical and artistic) competencies, it designed two at-home experimental practices using easily obtained cargamanto bean seeds, addressing sustainability, STEAM and learning competencies while surfacing issues such as food security, nutritional culture, a culture of prototyping and strengthened scientific citizenship, and reports that the pandemic unexpectedly extended the project's reach from students to their families.

Cristina Visconti · TECHNE - Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment · Global

A paper examines how the circular economy applied to urban contexts, within a growth-oriented neoliberal paradigm, tends to focus on environmental performance while overlooking socio-political implications. Analyzing three socio-technical assemblages—Transition Towns, Repair Cafes, and Community Gardens—as cases, it develops a counter-perspective grounded in degrowth debates and identifies the effectiveness of urban practices where circularity extends beyond purely economic interactions or eco-efficiency parameters, outlining the potential for a 'degrowing circular city' based on inclusiveness, social justice, and reciprocity.

Nur Surayya Mohd Saudi, Mohd Nor Yahaya, Muzafar Shah Habibullah, Baharom Abdul Hamid, Muhammad Amirul Azlan, Mohd Haizam Mohd Saudi · Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry · Malaysia

A study on Malaysia's Movement Control Order (MCO) noted the extension may effectively contain the pandemic's spread but is expected to have a devastating impact on food security, and proposed urban farming as a means of generating household income and food security for the low-income B40 group. Econometric modeling of the effect of lockdown measures and COVID-19 on selected vegetable prices found that not all vegetables reacted uniformly to lockdown measures; price increases were associated with reduced household purchases and income, denying people access to food security. While the substitutability of vegetables allowed some switching to cheaper options, the study states that higher food prices themselves deny people access to food security.

Aman Tejaswi, Saket Anand, Manoj Kumar Tiwari · WEENTECH Proceedings in Energy · Global

Reuse of wastewater is becoming progressively more common, but comes with a set of risks and challenges (2021). This paper analyzed and evaluated various non-conventional treatment options and on-site farm management practices for wastewater-fed irrigation aimed at growing safer produce, with fit-for-purpose treatment and effective farm practices seen as ways to enhance benefits and reduce risks. Treatment techniques assessed ranged from simple sedimentation ponds to sandbag, fabric-based and bio-sand filtration, natural and synthetic adsorbents, and microfiltration, with the advantages, risks, applicability and limitations of each system evaluated. Farm management practices, including various irrigation methods, were likewise assessed. Wastewater-fed drip irrigation was identified as a much safer practice, especially for producing leafy vegetables.

Santiago Restrepo Vélez, Jairo Mauricio Velásquez Posada · Revista de la Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas · Global

A paper presenting the experiences and results of a research project titled "Design and creation of urban agricultural garden practices and systems." It frames urban agriculture as a tool for institutional and non-governmental political actors, and concludes by analyzing the role gardens have played during the COVID-19 period.

Most. Tania Akter, Mohammad Mahbub Islam, Parvin Akter Bithy, Suraya Parvin, Md. Ehtasham Bari · Asian Journal of Biology · Bangladesh

A factorial trial at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University's rooftop garden in Dhaka, Bangladesh (October 2017-March 2018) tested two growing structures (plastic pot, earthen pot) and six growing media in a completely randomized design with four replications. Plastic pots produced the most flower clusters, flowers, fruit length and fruit breadth per plant, with maximum yield of 1.69 kg/plant. Medium M5 (80% soil + 10% cowdung + 10% vermicompost + inorganic fertilizer) gave the highest yield at 2.17 kg/plant, and the plastic pot with M5 combination reached 2.15 kg/plant.

M. N. Erokhin, D. M. Skorokhodov, A N Skorokhodova, ALEKSANDR A. ANISIMOV, Roman Potemkin · Agroinženeriâ · Global

This review discusses modern modular plant-cultivation devices for city farming, identifying technological factors, plant parameters, ambient temperature, air humidity and lighting as the main variables governing crop growth under intensive cultivation systems that avoid plant-protection chemicals. It argues that separately developing cultivation technology and equipment for each crop's agrotechnical requirements, and standardizing modular unit design and manufacturing, would reduce design work, shorten design time, improve equipment quality and reliability, and lower production costs when modules are manufactured in series. No experimental data are presented.

Kit Prendergast, Amelie M. Vanderstock, Heather Neilly, Catherine E. Ross, Vanessa Pirotta, Patrick Tegart · Austral Ecology · Australia

A reflection on a citizen science project in which five early-career and PhD female researchers guided school-age children across five schools to build artificial flowers, install them on school ovals, and record over repeated 10-minute observations how flower colour (yellow vs. blue) and configuration (isolated, clumped adjacent, clumped mixed-colour, clumped single-colour) affected the number and taxa of visiting insects. The project achieved a low-cost, engaging format and exposure to female STEM role models, but the authors report constraints including having to run it in a season made suboptimal by fixed school curricula, confounding of results caused by the children's own observations, and an inability to verify the collected data.