Research & reports

Yu Hang · Cities & Health · China

Because the widespread adoption and upkeep of edible campus landscapes remains limited in Chinese higher education, this case study at South China Agricultural University examined the factors shaping users' willingness to take part in such landscapes. Using a mixed-method approach grounded in an Extended Combination Technology Acceptance Model and the Theory of Planned Behavior, it tested how subjective awareness, perceived benefits and costs, external support, and resource availability affect participation. A structural equation model based on 408 survey responses found that perceived benefits, external support, and awareness were key enablers of engagement, while maintenance costs, time burden, and limited institutional support remained critical barriers.

Robert C. Brears · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Global

A book chapter on circular urban agriculture, discussing strategies for sustainable food production in rapidly growing cities. It surveys urban farming methods including rooftop gardens, vertical farming, hydroponics and community gardens, framing resource efficiency — using waste streams, conserving water, and minimizing inputs like soil and fertilizer — as the core of the circular approach, and describes water conservation and recycling (drip irrigation, greywater reuse, rainwater harvesting) and nutrient recycling through biosolids as key components for improving soil quality and productivity.

Marc T. Sager, Anthony Petrosino · Discover Cities · United States

A perspective piece arguing for research-practice partnerships (RPPs) between researchers and urban farms, particularly in underserved urban areas in the United States, to address food insecurity, environmental sustainability and community empowerment. It contends RPPs provide a structured framework for long-term collaboration, giving urban farms access to resources, policy advocacy and evidence-based practices while giving researchers community-based knowledge, and positions such partnerships as essential for overcoming structural barriers such as gentrification, racial inequities and environmental degradation.

Samuel Oliveira Cunha, Diógenes José Gusmão Coutinho · Revista fisio&terapia. · Brazil

A qualitative, exploratory study of environmental education in Mato Grosso, Brazil combined literature review, document analysis and study of practices in municipal and state schools. Practices such as school gardens, recycling workshops, selective waste collection and digital tools were found effective for instilling socio-environmental values when integrated into the curriculum with community participation. The study also reports that insufficient teacher training, infrastructure limitations and project discontinuity still undermine the effectiveness of these actions.

Agung Gustiawan, Ade Cahya Kurniawan · Prospect Jurnal Pemberdayaan Masyarakat · Indonesia

This participatory action research study describes PT Pupuk Kujang's corporate social and environmental responsibility program in Indonesia through four initiatives: Kuwatan Sadesa, which raised coffee productivity from 1.2 toward a potential 3 tons/ha while conserving forest land; Kujang Wanita Tangguh (KUWAT), which had women produce at least two products from garment waste; Asa Warga Ternak Mandiri (Asatama), which developed a communal system of at least 16 sheep funded by crowdfunding and fed partly on pineapple waste; and Kujang Urban Farming (KURFA), which established one greenhouse, engaged at least 10 residents and generated derivative food products. The study reports these programs enhanced community welfare and social solidarity and promoted environmental sustainability.

Widowati Widowati, Cahyo Budiman, Meiny Suzery, Jafron Wasiq Hidayat, Sutrisno Sutrisno, Eka Triyana, Taleb Gaber · International Journal of Community Engagement and Development · Indonesia

An article reports on a community activity strengthening local food security through sustainable, integrated urban farming in Rowosari Village, Tembalang District, Indonesia. It combines hydroponic cultivation with catfish aquaculture in limited spaces such as home yards, rooftops and vertical surfaces, and integrates waste management and plant nutrition. The activity involved lectures and discussions plus hands-on training on vertical hydroponic installations and catfish pond cultivation in the village, followed by monitoring and evaluation.

Brenda B. Lin, Peter Bichier, Heidi Liere, Shalene Jha, Edith Gonzalez, Stacy M. Philpott · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · United States (California)

An online survey across 21 community gardens in Central California asked gardeners about their aesthetic and management preferences using paired images representing common garden styles, with open-ended explanations. For the first image pair, 85% of respondents preferred a tidy and organized image, citing easier movement, better plot access and weed control from managed pathways, a preference correlated with participation in the University of California's Master Gardener program; for the second pair, preferences were not strong and 20% of gardeners declined to choose because they valued aspects of both, food-producing crops and pollinator-supporting flowering plants.

Anthony Steven, Iriani Atrika, Doris Febriyanti, Siti Zubaidah · Government & Resilience · Indonesia (Palembang)

This case study examines collaborative governance between local authorities and community stakeholders in Palembang, Indonesia, a low-lying delta city on the Musi River facing recurrent flooding, food insecurity and disrupted supply chains driven by urban expansion, poor drainage infrastructure and climate-related rainfall variability. It analyzes local policy responses, community-led initiatives such as floating vegetable gardens, and urban farming on flood-resilient land, finding that while municipal disaster agencies provide early warning and evacuation support, food access and distribution during floods are primarily sustained by grassroots networks and community-organized food banks.

Ika Oktaviani, Agusmidah Agusmidah, Affila Affila · Jurnal Kajian Konstitusi · Indonesia

This normative-juridical legal study examines the North Labuhanbatu Regency Government's authority over plasma (community garden) development, a legal obligation for plantation companies renewing their Right to Cultivate, in the context of a land dispute with PTPN IV Regional 1 in South Merbau. It finds that the regency government, through its Agriculture Office, has not imposed administrative sanctions on the plantation company that failed to develop plasma gardens for the South Merbau community, and concludes the government appears to have failed to exercise its authority to secure community welfare.

Kelsey Ryan-Simkins · Local Environment · United States (Ohio)

This study used multilevel negative binomial regression to examine the relationship between urban agriculture site locations and sociodemographic and neighbourhood environmental characteristics at the census tract level in Ohio, USA. Findings challenge the idea that urban agriculture is placed in areas with low food access, raising questions about the food-access rhetoric used to promote urban agriculture, a movement critiqued for often being led by upper-class, urban elites, and contribute to debates about the roles of race and gentrification in urban agriculture.

Vitória Ângela Paim, Denise Wildner Theves · Quaestio revista de estudos em educação · Brazil

This paper reports on a Final Course Project (TCC) practice in which a group of early-elementary children from a school in Canoas, in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, created a collective experiential map of a neighborhood community garden after visiting it. Aiming to understand how school-geography-mediated didactic proposals mobilize children's experience and authorship, the ethnographic study emphasized children's protagonism and authorship, finding that children's spatiality extends beyond the classroom, giving multiple meanings to geographic knowledge, and that the collective map-making translated their spatial experiences into their own geographic expression.

Aregawi Beyene, Azeb Gebreegziabher, Zenebe Abraha, Tsahaynesh Hagos, Yohansu Girmay · European Journal of Horticultural Science · Africa

This study examined factors affecting urban households' participation in home gardening in Mekelle city, Tigray Region, Ethiopia, where home gardens served as a means of survival, particularly in urban areas, during the region's war and siege. Structured questionnaires and focus group discussions with 264 multistage-sampled households (171 users, 93 non-users) were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a probit model, showing government motivation and access to land, income, education, extension services and inputs significantly influence home gardening participation. Users were significantly older, had larger families, and had higher incomes and education than non-users, with markedly greater access to land and agricultural inputs, underscoring the role of socioeconomic factors in participation.

Stefano Follesa, Leila Farahbakhsh, Xinxin Song · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global

A paper examines urban agriculture as a process capable of promoting environmental sustainability, social inclusion and the circular economy, proposing ways to use and develop it. Through an interdisciplinary approach based on "demand maps," it presents an implementation model aligning users' needs with design solutions. Critical analysis of case studies identifies benefits including reducing urban heat islands, supporting biodiversity, enhancing food security, fostering social cohesion, and aiding the development of vulnerable communities. The guidelines presented aim to encourage the use of demand maps in urban decision-making processes to support participatory, inclusive and sustainable strategies.

Rafitri Novitasari, Agustina Shinta Hartati Wahyuningtyas, Heptari Elita Dewi, Riyanti Isaskar · JOURNAL ON SOCIAL ECONOMIC OF AGRICULTURE AND AGRIBUSINESS · Indonesia

A study in Malang City, Indonesia, where population growth has reduced agricultural land even as unused agricultural land is being converted to urban farming, analyzed factors (knowledge, attitude, perception) influencing interest in farming. Using purposive sampling, data were collected from 70 respondents via interviews and documentation and processed with descriptive statistical analysis and SEM-PLS. The results showed that knowledge of and attitude toward urban agriculture did not have a significant effect on people's interest in urban farming, while perception of urban agriculture had a positive influence on interest, associated with residents' recognition of its economic, social and environmental benefits.

Valentine Opanga · Urban Political Ecology · Kenya

A study examines how green urbanism is imagined, politicised and contested in two informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, Korogocho and Pumwani-Majengo, using a mixed-methods approach combining Feminist Urban Political Ecology, Postcolonial Urbanism and Travelling Models, drawing on 45 semi-structured interviews, six focus group discussions and a review of policy documents. It shows that international greening agendas are selectively interpreted, reworked or resisted rather than adopted as a unified global sustainability narrative. Findings reveal that state-led greening initiatives, even when aligned with global frameworks, can reinforce spatial inequality, displace low-income residents and obscure colonial-era land injustices. At the same time, grassroots actors engage in context-specific greening practices such as urban farming and dumpsite reclamation driven by survival and care, representing forms of environmental agency that challenge dominant models.

Byamungu Lincoln Zabuloni, Maxwell Mudhara, Joyce Chitja · Food and Energy Security · South Africa

A study assessing the impact of home- and community-garden programs on household food security status in uMzumbe Local Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, using random and purposive sampling to survey 223 respondents with a structured questionnaire and a Tobit regression model to examine determinants. Total income (p<0.001), extension services (p<0.01), credit access (p<0.05), age, farm size (p<0.01) and education level (p<0.05) positively affected food security status, while household size (p<0.001), home gardens (p<0.01) and community gardens (p<0.01) negatively affected it. The study concludes that implementing home and community garden programs alone was not enough to improve households' food security status in uMzumbe Municipality.

Zuzana Strculová · Revue of Social Sevices / Revue sociálnych služieb · Europe

An article framing community gardens as spaces where people from different social groups meet to co-create and share space, arguing they function not only as ecological or urban projects but as effective tools for social work — particularly in community building, social inclusion and strengthening intergenerational ties. While community gardens often emerge as grassroots civic initiatives, their operation involves a range of actors: local residents, social workers, educators, non-profit organizations, city governments and even businesses — a diversity that, the article argues, is why gardens can be understood as "microworlds of collaboration." Drawing on foreign examples of good practice, it illustrates how community gardens can serve as effective tools in inclusive, environmental and participatory social work.

Tatenda Sukulao, Ansley Nonsikelelo Tshugulu, Noel Garikai Muridzo, Mziwandile Sobantu · Discover Food · Africa

A study analyzing food-insecurity coping strategies among community members in Ward 10, Mudzi District, a rural area of north-eastern Zimbabwe. Using an African Centred Research Methodology, data were collected from a purposive sample of 10 participants and analyzed through advanced manual analysis. The study found that planting drought-resistant crops, community gardens, seeking piece jobs, selling valuable assets, and borrowing money and food were the coping strategies employed by community members.

Laura Patricia Mulazzi, Francisco Jose Pescio, María Amalia Lorda, Christophe Albaladejo, María Amalia Lorda, Laura Jiménez, Gastón D. Godoy · El Servicio de Difusión de la Creación Intelectual (National University of La Plata) · Argentina

This essay surveys urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) as it has developed across Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Africa. It argues that in South American, Asian, and African countries, UPA is oriented mainly toward meeting the food and income-generation needs of poor and economically excluded populations, who use food production to reduce their socioeconomic vulnerability, whereas UPA in European and North American countries serves different ends tied more to leisure, quality of life, and recreation in public spaces.

Shikha Patel, Deepthi John, Ahmad Mohammad Ahmad, Raffaello Furlan, Rima J. Isaifan · Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy (The) · Global

A 2025 study in the Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy used Onaiza, a low-rise mixed-use residential neighbourhood on Qatar's western coast representative of suburban Doha, as a case study to examine how urban agriculture could be integrated into land use policy as a climate-change mitigation strategy in Doha Municipality. Drawing on a literature review, examination of successful case studies, and expert interviews, it identified challenges and potential for permitting urban agriculture as a land use, then produced a design proposal amending land use policy through urban planning simulations, subsidies and other incentives. It starts from the premise that food systems, food security and urban agriculture are not yet well positioned within Qatar's existing land use policy, despite the country's vulnerability to food imports and to climate change.

Manuel Ignacio Manríquez, Verónica Gil-Costa, Mauricio Marı́n · Future Internet · Global

A technical paper presenting a parallel agent-based framework for analyzing vegetable trade dynamics within a metropolitan area. It combines agent-based and discrete-event techniques to model interactions among farmers (who select crops based on market trends and environmental risk) and vendors and consumers (who adapt purchasing behavior to seasonality, prices and availability). To handle the computational demands of large-scale scenarios, it employs an optimistic approximate parallel execution strategy and a credit-based load-balancing mechanism to improve scalability. The framework is presented as enabling detailed analysis of urban food distribution systems relevant to smart cities and digital agriculture.

Fetty Dwi Rahmayanti, Andi Gunawan, Anas Miftah Fauzi, Edi Santosa · Jurnal Agronomi Indonesia (Indonesian Journal of Agronomy) · Indonesia (Jakarta)

A mixed-methods study assessing biodiversity risk from urban agriculture activities in East Jakarta, Indonesia, combining a literature review with a field survey of questionnaires on respondents' perceptions of biodiversity risk to flora and fauna. The results showed the p-value exceeded the alpha level (0.05), indicating that urban agriculture in East Jakarta does not significantly affect biodiversity risks to flora and fauna.

Md. Maruf Billah, Al Muzahid, Md. Nasrul Millat, Mohammad Mahmudur Rahman‬ · Journal of Environmental Science Health & Sustainability · Bangladesh

A structured face-to-face survey of 200 randomly selected residents in Bangladesh, conducted in 2024 and analyzed with SPSS version 29, examined perceptions of urban agriculture. 34.5% of respondents fell into the early-adopter category; rooftop gardening was the most widely adopted practice (93.5%), followed by homestead gardens (80%) and container gardens (66.5%). 94.5% perceived urban agriculture as contributing medium to high to environmental sustainability, and 92.5% saw reduced cost of living as its main benefit. Innovativeness, training exposure, extension access, media contact, education, group membership and market access were identified as adoption factors, while 89% of respondents reported facing medium to high constraints to adoption.

Aili Yang, Yiwei Ma, Jia Chen, Haiyan Yang, Zhenji Wang, Qingqing Shen, Huajie Yin, Yuyan Wang · Indian Journal of Horticulture · India

In India, cultivation methods for optimizing lettuce production on household balconies were compared: circulating hydroponics, static hydroponics, and substrate cultivation against soil cultivation as a control, evaluating growth, yield, and quality. Hydroponic systems significantly outperformed soil cultivation. Static hydroponics produced the highest biomass, with fresh and dry weights increasing by 10.53% and 55.29% over the control. Circulating hydroponics had slightly lower yield but increased vitamin C content by 6.57% and sensory quality by 41%, ranking second overall. Substrate cultivation showed moderate gains, with vitamin C up 5.14% and taste rating up 19.66% versus the control. Considering growth performance, space efficiency, ease of management, and cost, static and circulating hydroponics were identified as the most suitable systems for balcony-based lettuce cultivation.

Isabelle van der Zanden, Gelieke G.T. Steeghs, Lieke Moereels, G. F. Veen · Agroforestry Systems · Global

This study examined litter decomposition dynamics in food forests, perennial multi-layered food production systems gaining popularity as alternatives to intensive, input-dependent agriculture that rely on nutrient recycling via litter decomposition. Litter from Alnus glutinosa (black alder), Corylus avellana (common hazel), and Castanea sativa (sweet chestnut), ranging from high to low litter quality, was decomposed in food forests planted on former grasslands and compared with neighboring grasslands. Litter bags of varying mesh size were used to assess the relative contribution of microbes and micro-, meso-, and macrofauna to short-term litter mass loss, and abundance and biomass of key decomposer groups were quantified. Decomposer communities differed between land use types: food forests harbored a higher abundance of oribatid mites but a lower abundance and biomass of earthworms and lower arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi biomass than grasslands. Overall litter mass loss differed little between the systems, except that high-quality litter accessible to the full decomposer community lost more mass in grasslands. The lowest-quality litter (sweet chestnut) decomposed slowest, with its rate unaffected by mesh size or land use. High-quality leaf litter generally decomposed faster in grasslands than in food forests, and the distinct decomposer communities in young food forests did not favor breakdown of recalcitrant litter.