Research & reports

Luca Salvati, Pere Serra, Serena Rugiero, Alberto Sabbi · Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia · Europe

This article discusses the relationship between landscape and peri-urban agriculture and the implications of sustainable land management for fringe land quality. It proposes a framework to evaluate the latent nexus between agro-forest systems and human settlements in southern Europe. Eco-sustainable planning integrated with multifaceted research and policy dimensions is a relevant approach to urban fringe sustainability. Permanent assessment of these factors allows for the implementation of different development scenarios.

Young Hyoo Kwon, Su‐Jin Kim, Ha Kyeong Oh, Sang-Kyun Han, Seak Jin Kim · Journal of people, plants, and environment · Global

This study examined the effects of media kinds and container forms on the growth of herbaceous and woody plants for urban greenery and landscape gardens. Five plant species were experimented on three different media kinds (horticultural substrate, decomposed granite, and a mix) and two container forms (vinyl pot and plug tray). Most species experimented on horticultural substrate tended to have the highest growth rate in plant height, root length, number of leaves, and fresh biomass weight. The use of plug trays was found to be more applicable than vinyl pots, considering plant growth rates and shipment convenience.

Rada Betancourt, Bibian Andrea · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This document, based on an action research methodology, aims to provide informative, conceptual, and methodological bases for formulating an agroecological urban and peri-urban agriculture (AUPA) program in Bogotá. It describes the context of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the capital district, projects its future in Bogotá, and formulates foundational principles based on previously obtained results.

Sui Fei-fe · Nongye ziyuan yu huanjing xuebao · China (Weifang)

This study analyzed the driving forces and internal drive mechanisms of urban agricultural development in Weifang County, China. An evaluation index system was built using urban agricultural production and socio-economic data, and 15 driving forces were selected via correlation and principal component analysis, with a model constructed using partial least squares. Results showed that per capita net income of rural residents, agricultural machinery total power, effective irrigation area, and centralized treatment rate of urban sewage greatly influenced urban agricultural output value increase, while the use amount of agricultural plastic film was a negative influence factor.

Renny Ratna Dewi, ‪Eko Budi Santoso‬ · Jurnal Teknik ITS · Indonesia (Surabaya)

In Made Village, Surabaya, Indonesia, traditional farming on 211.85 hectares yields 6000 tons of crops annually, but its reliance on developers' idle land makes it unsustainable due to land conversion. A study using Delphi analysis and content analysis concluded that urban farming activities in Made Village still face several technical and non-technical problems. Future agricultural activities will shift towards modern farming systems aiming for maximum and high-quality production on limited land, with polybag cultivation methods to be developed to address land scarcity.

Prince Antwi-Agyei, Adam Biran, Anne Peasey, Jane Bruce, Jeroen H. J. Ensink · BMC Public Health · Ghana (Accra)

This cross-sectional study in Accra, Ghana, assessed faecal exposure among 80 farm workers during dry and wet seasons, analyzing water and soil samples for E. coli. The results showed that while irrigation water was highly contaminated (5.6 Log E. coli/100 ml), exposure to farm soil (2.3 Log E. coli/g) was the key risk pathway due to soil-to-mouth events, with 53% of farmers experiencing such events daily. The estimated norovirus infection risk to farmers was found to be higher than guidelines set by the WHO, indicating that exposure to soil is a critical pathway of pathogen risk in wastewater farmers, exceeding recommended health targets.

Joe Nasr, June Komisar · · Global

This chapter reflects on the re-emergence of food and agriculture as an urban concern for planners and designers, examining public discourse through exhibitions. It analyzes recent exhibits highlighting the relationship between food and cities, using the "Carrot City: Designing for Urban Agriculture" exhibition as a case study. The authors, as co-curators, reflect on lessons learned from staging this exhibition, which traveled across three continents.

Nicolás Cuvi · Americanae (AECID Library) · France (Paris)

The journal "Letras Verdes" called for reflections on biodiversity and urban agriculture, but many proposals were not published due to their technical report nature and lack of reflection on the meaning of these spaces. However, the article by Ana Cristina Torres et al., "Exploring the human-nature relationship: urban agriculture, conservation sciences, and the city," analyzes community gardens in Paris. In these spaces, dedicated to urban agriculture, the meaning of "nature" is redefined while new meanings about the city are constructed.

M. A. Anderson · IEEE Spectrum · United States

A team of technologists at MIT suggests that urban agriculture may be on the verge of an Internet-enabled revolution, driven by recent technological breakthroughs such as high-efficiency blue LED lighting. This news article explores the potential future of urban agriculture.

Yuanyuan Shi, Min Qingwen, Lu He, Fuller Anthony M · Journal of Resources and Ecology · China

This paper proposes "Agricultural Heritage Systems" as an entry point to balance urban and rural development in China, addressing threats posed by rapid urbanization. It focuses on public dietary change, agricultural industry development, institutional guarantees, ecological restoration, and cultural tourism in urban and peri-urban agricultural heritage sites, establishing a development model that balances urbanization and urban-supported agriculture. The paper argues this approach can preserve traditional culture, maintain organic farming, leverage landscape tourism, and utilize urban funds and technology to support rural enterprises.

· · Italy

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) document from 2004 recognized the strategic value of peri-urban agriculture, describing these areas as complex territories with important economic, environmental, and social roles. The document also noted that peri-urban areas may include less favored areas, entitling local farmers to additional indemnity for natural or environmental limitations.

Gražina Janulytė-Bernotienė · Journal of Sustainable Architecture and Civil Engineering · Europe

A conceptual paper positioning the Lithuanian tradition of green architecture as both a perception of landscape identity and of human-nature coexistence, treated as a field of cultural activity that extends beyond urban planners, architects, or landscape architects. It examines the urban expression of green architecture in Lithuanian cities, identifying two branches with different origins running from urban agriculture to city landscape. The paper argues that future development of green architecture should be tied to the concept of a self-sufficient city that ensures renewal of both artificial and natural structures, and that Lithuanian cities need to grow the intensity of green structures in parallel with urban intensity.

Kris Scheerlinck, Yves Schoonjans · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · United States

This paper presents a theoretical framework treating gardens (flower or vegetable gardens, front and back yards, allotment gardens, community playing fields) as structural elements of streetscapes, and discusses a case study in Williamsburg, New York. The case is part of the international Streetscape Territories Research Project run by the Department of Architecture at KU Leuven, which compares streetscapes across cities including New York, Barcelona, Ghent, Brussels, Havana, and Addis Ababa. It argues that streetscapes are delimited not only by building facades but also by garden walls, fences, strips of grass, tree lines, muddy roads, and parking slabs as territorial borders, and poses the research question of whether the structural role of gardens in the making and use of contemporary streetscapes can be described. No specific empirical findings are reported in the abstract.

KIKUCHI Toshio, TABAYASHI Akira · E-journal GEO · Japan

A case study of the Sunagawa area in Tachikawa City, in the Tokyo metropolitan fringe, analyzed the mechanism sustaining urban farming through the relationship between the siting of farm-product direct-sale stands and the commodification of rural space. Urban farming's persistence in the area depends heavily on the location of these direct-sale stands: because the stands sell directly to urban residents and are maintained to meet their needs, agricultural production continues. As a result, not only the rural landscape and agricultural land use but also the rural community itself are sustained, and as urban residents visit and buy from the stands, the rural space comes to be understood as both a production space and a consumption space.

François Mancebo, Sylvie Salles · Challenges in Sustainability · Global

This essay-style article surveys urban agriculture projects that have proliferated worldwide since the late twentieth century, reshaping urban landscapes and urban fabric, offering alternatives to traditional urban life, creating new commons, and bringing people together. It cites examples from Singapore (self-reliant in meat), Bamako (self-sufficient in vegetables), and Berlin (80,000 community gardens on communal land with 16,000 more people on a waiting list). It states that vacant and derelict land arising from deindustrialization, population aging and decline (as in Japan and Germany), and emigration (in some African mid-sized cities) creates new opportunities for urban agriculture — citing Detroit, where thousands of hectares of urban land have been given to unemployed workers for food growing, and Britain, where councils in 20 cities have promoted urban agriculture on wasteland. It notes urban agriculture is gradually becoming a planning-policy option, integrated into land-use planning documents in Delft and protected within an inclusive local land development plan in Paris.

Mashaallah Nabi · · Global

A theoretical discussion, focused on Iran, of rural-to-urban migration under conditions the author frames as globalized capitalism, arguing that such migration drives rapid urban growth and marginalization and that peripheral rural landscapes — farmland, orchards and wasteland near cities — come under pressure of devaluation as urban development demand rises. It emphasizes maintaining ecological systems and diversity, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions with limited natural resources, and argues for a participatory, locally grounded approach to redesigning these peri-urban areas. The text presents an argument rather than an empirical study, with no site data, sample or measured outcomes given.

Dewey Thorbeck · · Global

An essay on land use and food security amid global urbanization describes how the growth of larger farms has strained small rural towns, while small specialty farms near large cities have emerged as a lifestyle choice, providing fresh food through community supported agriculture (CSA) arrangements in which urban residents contract directly with CSA farmers. It also describes community gardens being established on vacant public land in existing urban neighborhoods as part of this fresh-food movement. No empirical study data are presented.

Alice Pozzati · PORTO Publications Open Repository TOrino (Politecnico di Torino) · Italy

A case study of Turin, Italy's agricultural history examines the now-vanished farmstead "La Grangia" as a way to recover the city's largely forgotten agricultural past, distinct from its better-known industrial image. More than six centuries after its construction, the site's agricultural past has been revived through the activity of the "Movimento per la Decrescita Felice" (Happy Degrowth Movement), which obtained management of part of the Giardino Morbillo — built on the former farmstead's grounds — from the Turin municipality, for a shared urban garden project. The piece notes that such remaining traces of the past are often not recognized as historic-architectural heritage worth preserving.

国土交通省都市局 · 国土交通省 都市局 · Japan

This MLIT Urban Bureau document explains 2016-era amendments to the Productive Green Zone Act following the May 2016 cabinet decision on the Basic Plan for Promoting Urban Agriculture. It lowered the minimum area requirement for designating a Productive Green Zone from 500 m² to as low as 300 m² by municipal ordinance, allowed multiple adjacent parcels (each at least 100 m²) to be treated as one contiguous zone, and eased building restrictions within zones to permit processing facilities, direct-sale stands, and restaurants using produce grown on site.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 · Japan

This implementation manual from Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries sets out procedures and eligible expenses for programs supporting urban agriculture's functions, including welfare farms and a program for disaster-collaboration farmland. To qualify as disaster-collaboration farmland, a plot must be roughly 500 square meters or larger and located within a densely inhabited district as defined by the most recent census; the program also funds 'disaster-dual-use agricultural facilities' meant to protect residents' safety and livelihoods during emergencies such as earthquakes.

European Environment Agency · Climate-ADAPT (European Environment Agency) · Switzerland

Basel mandated green roofs on new and renovated flat roofs via a 2002 amendment to its building law, reinforced in 2010. By 2006 the city had 1,711 extensive and 218 intensive green roofs, with about 100 new roofs covering 80,000 m2 installed each year since; by 2019 Basel had 5.71 m2 of green roof per inhabitant, among the highest per-capita green roof coverage in the world. The roofs are reported to cut stormwater runoff by 17-20% and lower indoor temperatures by up to 5°C.

· Wikipédia (français) · France

This French Wikipedia article on urban agriculture (agriculture urbaine) describes the Parisculteurs program, launched by the City of Paris in 2016, which inventories greenable spaces (walls, basements, rooftops, flat land) and runs annual project calls (appels à projets) to accelerate urban farming installations. The article does not give detailed statistics such as budget figures or the number of selected projects.

Ville de Paris · Ville de Paris (Parisculteurs) · France

This official overview page for Paris's Parisculteurs urban-agriculture program states it launched in 2016 with a charter targeting 100 hectares of urban farming; the program has since realized nearly 36 hectares across more than 70 projects (with a similar number in development). A 2013 study by APUR (the Paris urban planning agency) confirmed rooftop agriculture potential, and by 2014 about 11 hectares were already used for urban agriculture, only 0.3 of which were on building structures. Around thirty public and private partners and 14 local authorities currently participate.

Sakurai Shin · Nippon.com · Japan

A feature on the Ginza Honey Bee Project ('Ginpachi'), a nonprofit founded in March 2006 by Tanaka Atsuo, which installed beehives on the roof of the Kami Parupu Kaikan building in central Tokyo, drawing nectar from Hibiya Park and the Imperial Palace grounds within roughly a 3km radius. A decade on, the project has grown to 150 members, supplies honey products sold at the Matsuya Ginza department store and honey cocktails at nearby bars, and has inspired more than 100 urban beekeeping projects nationwide as well as projects in South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia.

Ina Opitz, Regine Berges, Annette Piorr, Thomas Krikser · Agriculture and Human Values · Global

An extensive literature review systematically analyzed urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North, comparing their spatial, ecological, and socio-economic characteristics. The study found that urban and peri-urban agriculture differ in most characteristics and in their ability to meet urban food needs. Urban agriculture primarily meets household-level food needs, while peri-urban agriculture provides larger quantities and broader distribution pathways, indicating distinct roles in food security. Both forms of agriculture face similar threats from urbanization pressures.