Research & reports

Mariana Ponce, R. Terrile, Marielle Dubbeling, Femke Hoekstra, R. van Veenhuizen · Urban Agriculture Magazine · Argentina (Rosario)

This article describes the Urban Agriculture Programme in Rosario, Argentina, which has been in place since 2002. Implemented by the Municipality of Rosario's Secretary of Social Outreach in cooperation with NGO CEPAR and Pro-Huerta INTA, the program aims to create an economy that integrates people and generates inclusive spaces for production, commercialization, organization, participation, and political advocacy alongside urban farmers. The program is currently in the process of consolidation as public policy.

Luo Yu-wei · Journal of Jinling Institute of Technology · Global

This paper discusses the role of entrepreneurial horticultural talent training in urban agriculture, asserting that urban agricultural development depends on such talents. It outlines steps for training entrepreneurial gardening talents, including developing entrepreneurial awareness, providing entrepreneurship education, and strengthening practical teaching. The paper concludes that the horticulture education system for training entrepreneurial talents should be improved in accordance with urban agricultural development.

J. Mittchel, Henri Leturque, Marielle Dubbeling, Femke Hoekstra, R. van Veenhuizen · Urban Agriculture Magazine · Global

A scoping study for the International Development Research Centre aimed to re-appraise the role of urban agriculture in poverty reduction in developing countries. The research, conducted by a team at the Overseas Development Institute, was based on an extensive literature review, key informant discussions, and field visits to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Ferne Edwards, Dave Mercer · Local Environment · Australia (Melbourne)

This paper discusses the use of food mapping in the "Meals in Metropolis" undergraduate course at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. The course introduced Industrial Design and Landscape Architecture students to critical issues of food security and sustainability in urban design. Students produced food chain maps, neighborhood food maps, and redesign posters, which are concluded to reveal an emerging landscape of innovative food production in Melbourne, potentially leading to a more resilient, distributed urban food system.

André Viljoen, Katrin Bohn · · Global

This paper reviews the role of productive landscapes within the Continuous Productive Urban Landscape (CPUL) City design concept, focusing on urban agriculture. The CPUL concept proposes integrating interlinked productive landscapes into cities to create sustainable urban infrastructure and redefine open urban space usage. While urban agriculture is gaining attention, the paper concludes that developing the theory and policy for productive landscapes requires sophisticated cross-disciplinary work to realize CPUL's full potential in future sustainable cities.

Hamid El Bilali, Biljana Panın, Siniša Berjan · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Serbia (Novi Sad)

This review paper presents the state-of-the-art on urban agriculture, specifically its benefits, constraints and risks, production sites, systems, techniques and strategies, and some socio-economic and gender aspects. Conducive land use and allocation policies that can be designed and implemented to promote urban agriculture in Novi Sad were discussed. Extension services should develop new advisory and communication approaches to meet urban producers' specific needs.

É. Thys, André Mfoukou-Ntsakala, G. Nkouika-Dinghani-Nkita, Guido Van Huylenbroeck, Niko Speybroeck · Outlook on Agriculture · Republic of Congo (Brazzaville)

This paper analyzed the impact of armed conflicts on urban livestock keeping, particularly small ruminant keeping, in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. Two surveys, one before 1993 and one after 2002, indicated that the 1997 conflict had a negative impact on livestock keeping, as most livestock keepers lost their animals. Financial resources were an important factor in rebuilding the flock after 1997.

Alec Thornton, Etienne Nel, Godfrey Hampwaye · Development Southern Africa · Zambia

A review of urban agriculture in Zambia's four largest cities revealed that despite attempts by the Kaunda government in the 1960s–1970s to create supportive policies, there is currently a near absence of institutional support, constraining farmers' activities. A survey of 400 farmers confirmed the value of urban agriculture as a survival strategy but also highlighted the lack of necessary support measures.

Radojica Sarić, Vladana Hamović, Svetlana Roljević Nikolić, Radojica Sarić, Vladana Hamović, Svetlana Roljevic · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Serbia

This paper analyzes urban agriculture in Serbia, focusing on its role in configuring urban open spaces and its effects on sustainable development and environmental protection. The study aims to understand the economic, social, and ecological impacts of urban agricultural production on improving city life quality, especially given Serbia's dynamic urbanization and agricultural land transformation post-World War II.

A. C. Egun · Journal of Agricultural Sciences · Global

This paper examined the competencies needed by Agricultural Science teachers in urban areas for effective institutional preparation. Teachers identified 24 competencies for urban agriculture teaching but expressed deficiency in 19 competencies (79.17%). The curricular implication is to include basic Humanities subjects like Geography, Economics, and Commerce in Agricultural Science teacher programs and to effectively implement field trips to strengthen the relationship between theory and practice.

Chris Carlsson, Francesca Manning · Antipode · Global

Nowtopia identifies a new basis for a shared experience of class, characterized by an exodus from wage labor and the embrace of meaningful, freely chosen, unpaid work. Nowtopian communities are largely grounded in unpaid practical work, such as urban gardening/agriculture, which gradually reverses the extreme atomization of modern life. These practices represent a decentralized, uncoordinated collective research and development effort exploring a potentially post-capitalist, post-petroleum future.

Kwasi Appeaning Addo · Remote Sensing · Ghana (Accra)

This paper discusses the need for sustainable management of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Accra, Ghana. A lack of reliable data on the extent of urban/peri-urban areas used for farming has hindered the development of sustainable policies to manage urban farming in Accra. Ground-based survey methods are problematic and prohibitively expensive, making accurate assessment of urban farming's future role difficult.

C.J.M. van der Lans · Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling · Global

This study analyzes the sustainability of international horticulture initiatives, including those by Dutch businesses and Wageningen UR, particularly questioning their continuity if foreign support withdraws and their viability given limited foreign currency in developing countries. Using the Multi-Level Perspective framework, two cases were examined: an Integrated Pest Management project in Ethiopia's floriculture sector and the transition to large-scale urban agriculture in Detroit, USA. The report raises concerns about the long-term economic viability and self-sufficiency of these initiatives.

Ephraim Kigozi Nabakwa, Patrick Kizza Kagyi, David Sserunkuuma Masereka, Grace Nakimbugwe Otim · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Uganda (Kampala)

This qualitative research, conducted through interviews and focus groups with residents and leaders in Kampala's slums, examines urban agriculture as a resilience strategy. Urban agriculture projects demonstrated an average 30% increase in household food security and a 50% reduction in reliance on informal income sources. The study's development framework enhances the resilience capacity of these initiatives, offering policy recommendations for integration into formal programs and infrastructure support.

Jovana Čikić, Marica Petrović · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Serbia

This paper analyzes the female labor force on family farms as a factor in urban agriculture development in the urban and peri-urban area of Novi Sad, Serbia. The study examines socio-demographic indicators of female labor, specifically economic activity and education level, as a development potential. The analysis aims to highlight the main characteristics of female economic activity and education level that contribute to urban agriculture development.

Amy Linzie · School for International Training Digital Collections (School for International Training) · Cuba (Havana)

This paper explores how urban agriculture (UA) addresses urban food security and re-establishes food sovereignty in Havana, Cuba, and Mexico City, Mexico. Havana has developed sustainable UA methods addressing organic food access, while Mexico City's D.F. struggles to establish UA's relevance amidst poverty, resource shortages, and pollution. The study examines UA development in these two societies and its relevance to regaining food sovereignty.

Felipe de Jesús Cruz Celis, Héctor Montiel Campos · · Global

This study aimed to propose sustainability in urban agriculture through the use of hydroponic technology for agricultural production. Through documentary research and expert interviews, diagnostic criteria and sustainability indicators were determined, making hydroponics an option for producing food in reduced spaces. The results indicate that urban agriculture, due to its spatial scope, has limited possibilities for scaling up to the formal market, but can respond to family self-consumption needs and improve nutritional and higher quality foods.

John Merson, Roger Attwater, Peter Ampt, Howard G. Wildman, Rosalie Chapple · International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability · Australia

This paper presents an overview of a four-year project examining the western edge of the Sydney basin in Australia — historically a major source of fruit and vegetables for Sydney markets — where rapid urban development expansion has caused a significant reduction in the number of small farms and market gardens. Urban and peri-urban agriculture in the region also serves as an important buffer between urban development and the neighboring Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, with urban expansion and economies of scale identified as contributing to the decline of urban agriculture. The project explored options for supporting these vulnerable farming communities in terms of regulatory factors and economic and environmental sustainability, and investigated the role of agri-industries as landscape buffers to the neighboring World Heritage Area in relation to resilience, communities of practice, and ecosystem services. Working with targeted representative landholders, the study developed tools including an integrated bio-system approach using organic waste conversion and landscape function analysis to help address erosion, nutrient loss, and inefficient water management.

Adam Shiloh Moates · · Uruguay

This 2010 dissertation is a comparative ethnographic study of agricultural and livestock production strategies in peri-urban Montevideo, Uruguay. It examined the factors shaping urban and peri-urban agricultural and livestock enterprises, the conditions under which growers organize collective action, and how municipal politics and institutional linkages affect production practices. The study focused on three populations: displaced urban working-class residents known as neo-pobres, waste-collector communities called clasificadores, and family-run organic grower organizations. The analysis found that all three groups strategically form organizations and collective-action strategies to raise their institutional visibility, secure and improve access to urban resources, and contest or resist municipal land-use policies and the push to "regularize" informal settlements. The research also points to the effects of large-scale political and economic forces on the urban margin and the difficulty of implementing policy there.

Suhrit K. Dey, Chanchal Pramanik, Charlie Dey · Intellectual Economics · Global

A mathematical model built from three interacting ordinary differential equations links population growth, urbanization and food production, with population assumed to grow independently while urbanization and food production both depend on it. Solving the system shows that without an added food-supply term — representing sources such as food substitutes, urban gardening or imports — uncontrolled population growth and urbanization lead to a catastrophic food shortage; the authors note that food affordability, not just availability, remains a separate, unresolved issue.

Zhifeng Chen, Guohua Lin, Liu Rongzhang, Lin Shu-wen · Nongye xiandaihua yanjiu · Global

This paper analyzes the significance of low-carbon patterns in urban agriculture development from economic, aesthetic, ecological, and philosophical perspectives, examining low-carbon patterns characterized by high-value industry structures, high resource efficiency, ecological safety, and mechanism innovation. Based on a city's natural resources, agricultural resources, and low-carbon technology, it summarizes low-carbon patterns of urban agriculture spanning multiple regions, scenic areas, and types, and proposes that local governments should actively create conditions to support and develop low-carbon industrial patterns of urban agriculture.

SP Jayasooriya · Journal of humanities and social sciences · Global

Using FAOSTAT data from 2000 to 2005, this panel data analysis examines the impact of the food production index (FPI) on the food consumer price index (CPI), the agricultural labor force (ALF), and rural-urban and agricultural-nonagricultural populations in South Asia. While food production in the region increased, food prices also rose sharply, producing an undesirable dual impact in countries where net consumers outweigh net producers: consumers lose while producers gain. A random effects model was found more appropriate, and results indicate consumer protection, CPI, and ALF are country-specific determinants of food production.

Adam Shiloh Moates · Culture & Agriculture · Colombia

A case study of clasificadores (urban waste sorters) in Montevideo, Uruguay, focusing on the subset known as clasificadores criadores de cerdos (CCdCs) who raise hogs alongside recycling. CCdCs do not fit the standard urban agriculture model since they do not garden but instead feed collected organic refuse to hogs. Raising hogs in the irregular settlements where CCdCs live is illegal, and very little of the hog meat they produce is consumed by the CCdCs themselves; out-of-town hog farmers transport their "bootleg," trash-fed hogs to legitimate markets to close the legal loop for what remains a clandestine production system. Although clasificadores have recently organized cooperatives and a labor union, the hog-raising activity itself remains illegal and dependent on this informal, off-book market channel.

Marie Hélène Dabat, Romaine Ramananarivo, Evelyne Ravoniarisoa Faramalala, Tovohery Ramahaimandimbisoa, Christine Aubry · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · Madagascar

Little was known about the quantitative importance of urban agriculture in Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital, but recent studies on supply chains for commodities including rice, tomato, cauliflower, and leafy vegetables provide insight into agriculture's contribution to the capital's food supply and the comparative advantage that urban locations offer for these chains.

Cantor, Kelly-M · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Colombia (Bogotá)

This study analyzed urban agriculture practiced by forcibly displaced residents and by vulnerable populations living in poverty in southern Bogotá and the Soacha locality, Colombia, using a livelihoods approach and drawing on 20 local actors and public/private institutions that had run urban agriculture programs as its information source. It found that urban agriculture carries symbolic value as a livelihood and occupational alternative, framed around collective wellbeing beyond monetary value, and reflects a struggle by peasant identity to survive within city life—but concluded that it is not an integrally sustainable activity.