Research & reports

Elizandra Flávia Araujo, Marcos Paulo Fuck · Cadernos de Ciência & Tecnologia · Brazil (Curitiba)

This study aimed to identify and characterize different categories of urban agriculture practitioners in Curitiba. A descriptive study using bibliographic and documentary analysis found that urban agriculture activities are concentrated in peripheral areas of the city, with most participants having a monthly family income of up to two minimum wages. Despite a wide range of actors engaging in these practices, their visibility and inclusion in the political agenda occur asymmetrically.

Doralice Sátyro Maia, Miriam Hermi Zaar · Revista Espaço e Geografia · Brazil

A study of João Pessoa (Paraíba) and Natal (Rio Grande do Norte), two cities on Brazil's northeastern coast, analysing the persistence of rural practices - small-scale cattle farms (vacarias) in João Pessoa and agricultural practices in Natal - as "islands of rurality" that resist real-estate speculation and urbanization mechanisms within areas classified as urban. Arguing that the spread of new technologies and communication networks, along with the homogenization of social and labour relations, has produced a multiscalar and complex territorial structure that calls for rethinking methods of distinguishing rural from urban, the study combines fieldwork (observation, photographic records, questionnaires, and informal conversations with those involved), findings from prior research, and data gathered from government institutions to examine what is now called "urban agriculture" alongside the persistence of small-scale cattle raising in both cities.

Bruno do Nascimento Macedo, Fernanda Nogueira Comas, Amarílis Lucia Casteli Figueiredo Gallardo · Journal of Urban Technology and Sustainability · Brazil (São Paulo)

This study discussed the main environmental services and disservices associated with urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in São Paulo, Brazil, using a systematic literature review and spatial analysis. It identified 12 environmental services and 5 disservices, mapping 197 UPA initiatives. The research concluded that UPA has the potential to offer environmental benefits, but can also exert negative pressures on the environment, including in areas that should be protected.

Gabriela de Azevedo Marques, Iara Rafaela Gomes · Boletim Goiano de Geografia · Brazil

This empirical study analyzed the socio-spatial development of Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (AUP) in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, examining both spontaneous agricultural activities and municipal institutional actions. While AUP holds significant relevance in the city, particularly in peripheral areas, governmental initiatives were found to be sporadic and discontinuous, lacking a broader institutional agenda. The study concluded that despite recent municipal efforts, legal and institutional support for AUP remains weak, leading to the rapid disappearance of productive spaces and indicating that institutional actions have not effectively fostered the socio-spatial development of spontaneous initiatives.

Christine Costello, Zeynab Oveysi, Bayram Dündar, Ronald G. McGarvey · Environmental Science & Technology · United States (Chicago)

This study used optimization techniques to assess the land area and radius needed around Chicago, Illinois, to meet nutritional needs. It found that no mix of food items could satisfy vitamin D, B12, and calcium needs within a 650 km radius. While urban agriculture reduced the required radius by 10-15 km, significant nutrient fortification or supplementation was still necessary to localize the food system.

Michael H. Carriere, David Schalliol · · United States

This chapter presents a case study of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, exploring a counter-history of placemaking rooted in the city's "Rust Belt" context. It argues that urban agriculture in Milwaukee has become a globally influential hub, demonstrating that for its practitioners, it is about fostering community and new forms of urban redevelopment, beyond just food production. The study highlights how this overlooked history informs a new approach to creative placemaking.

Michele Hunt · · United States (Cleveland)

Rid-All Green Partnership was founded by three childhood friends, Damien Forshe, Keymah Durden, and Randy McShepard, who grew up in Cleveland’s Lee-Miles neighborhood. They provide training in urban farming and environmental stewardship, and Rid-All serves as a regional training center for the Milwaukee-based urban farm “Growing Power.” Alongside its educational programs, Rid-All offers art, entertainment, sports, and community engagement initiatives, and created “The Brink City 'Green in the Ghetto'” comic book to communicate the importance of environmental justice to non-traditional and hard-to-reach audiences, including urban youth.

Mariana Portilho, Camila Rodrigues, Annelise Caetano Fraga Fernandez · Cidades, comunidades e território/Cidades comunidades e territórios · Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)

This study describes the formation of Arranjo Local da Penha, a community network created in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro's Penha favela complex, focused on urban agriculture and led by women. Through fieldwork and participant observation, the study analyzed themes of women and agroecology, health, and healthy eating. The network promoted women's empowerment and access to healthy food, but faced limits in the mobilization and development of urban agriculture.

Claudinei da Silva Pereira · GEOUSP Espaço e Tempo (Online) · Brazil (Presidente Prudente)

This paper analyzed agricultural production in Presidente Prudente, Brazil, from two essential dimensions: urban morphology and socioeconomic conditions. A typology for urban agriculture analysis was constructed by mapping the incidence of agriculture and applying questionnaires to commercial producers. The study demonstrated the different functions that agricultural practice performs for individuals and cities.

Kyla D. Scherr, Mary A. Jamieson · Basic and Applied Ecology · United States (Michigan)

This three-year study investigated environmental factors influencing strawberry productivity for two cultivars at ten farms across a rural-urban gradient in Michigan, USA. It found no direct effect of urbanization on strawberry production or fruit pathogen and pest damage, but temperature significantly influenced crop productivity, with cooler rural and warmer urban temperatures limiting fruit number. While no relationship was found between urbanization and overall arthropod pest, predator, or pollinator abundances, Vespidae abundance was positively associated with urbanization, and Araneae abundance was negatively associated.

Stephanie Buechler, Karina Guadalupe Martínez-Molina · Energy and Climate Change · United States

This study compared rural and urban populations living near or receiving energy from a large-scale solar-wind energy park in Arizona, Southwest U.S., using an energy justice framework. Small-scale renewable energy projects better served low-income groups, with more governmental and non-profit organization support for these projects in urban areas. Adverse effects of large-scale projects on communities and wildlife were not being addressed via benefits or profit sharing.

Celeste Ferreira, Janice Cindy Gaudet, Anthony Chum, Michael A. Robidoux · Food Culture & Society · Canada

This paper explores local food initiatives in Moose Cree First Nation, a remote northern community in Ontario, Canada, focusing on a community garden project. It documents steps taken to build local food capacity and understand the challenges and opportunities the community faces in regaining autonomy over its food system. The findings are based on community-based participatory action approaches.

Camila Garcia Fernandes de Souza Margem, Néliton Marques da Sílva · Cadernos Metrópole · Brazil (Manaus)

This article analyzed the feasibility of implementing urban agriculture (UA) on idle land within the Tarumã – Ponta Negra Environmental Protection Area in Manaus, Brazil, as a tool for territorial governance and urban planning. Semi-structured interviews and card sorting techniques were applied to the target population. The study found that the use of idle land for UA is not envisioned as a territorial governance instrument, a situation exacerbated by municipal authorities hindering the legitimization of bills for such land use.

Ricardo Theóphilo Folhes, Harley Silva, Raul da Silva Ventura Neto, Kevin Gabriel Leite Da Silva, Círia Cristiane Da Rosa, Aelton Dias Costa · Novos Cadernos NAEA · Brazil (Pará)

This article presents initial results from a bibliographic review on Urban Agriculture (UA) to support a research agenda in the metropolitan regions of Pará State, Brazilian Amazon. The review analyzed concepts, approaches, and challenges in national and international literature. It concludes that UA needs to be problematized within the phenomena of urban-regional space production, which cause socioeconomic and spatial inequalities, representing the greatest structural difficulties for urban agriculture.

Jonathan Hall, Isabel Shargo, Niya Khanjar, Jianna Howard, Laura Schmidt, Ashley Deng, Camryn Edwards, Isabelle Berman, Joseph Galarraga, Sacoby Wilson · Environmental Justice · United States

This study in Baltimore, Maryland, used GIS mapping and spatial analysis to assess the proximity of urban farms to environmental hazards, including those with heavy metal contamination. Analyses indicated that contamination of urban farms is a possibility due to proximity: more environmental hazards were found in census tracts with urban farms, and low-income communities of color had hazards near urban farms. Historically industrial areas showed a higher concentration of environmental hazards with heavy metal or unknown contamination.

Sara Nicholls, Special Collections, Fleet Library · Digital Commons - RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) · United States

"Silty Loam" is an informational pamphlet exploring various methods of food cultivation in urban environments and the motivations behind them. The pamphlet examines how city residents have challenged the separation of agriculture and urban life through initiatives like community gardens, community land trusts, and rooftop gardens. It is part of the "Brain Washing From Phone Towers" series, produced by hand using letterpress and relief printing to combine text and images.

Manuela Maluf Santos, Paulo Eduardo Moruzzi Marques · Estudos Avançados · Brazil (São Paulo)

This article conceptually explores the "locavorism" food activism movement, noting that its practical application can have diverse and even antagonistic effects. To analyze these contradictions, two farmer organizations in São Paulo involved in local consumption circuits were interviewed to understand the potential social and environmental effects of this purchasing model. The abstract does not present the findings of these interviews.

Tatiana Cotta Gonçalves Pereira · Revista Rural & Urbano · Brazil

Drawing on two concrete cases handled by NAJUP Marli Coragem, a legal aid clinic linked to the law program at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), this action-research article examines urban planning issues in the municipalities of Nova Iguacu and Japeri in the Baixada Fluminense region of Brazil, seeking to understand the legal problems facing two farming communities the clinic assisted. It reviews how specialized literature defines rural and urban, the legislation relevant to farmers and their spaces, and how Brazil's statistics agency IBGE has treated the issue. The city of Rio de Janeiro and its Master Plan were added to the analysis through graduate research on urban agriculture, giving three quite different municipalities with similar consequences: family farmers' ability to exercise their rights when municipal zoning makes no provision for a rural area. The article concludes that while the specialized literature has moved past the rural-urban dichotomy, institutions have not kept pace, and this non-institutionalized reality generates numerous debates and concrete legal problems.

Sasha Pesci, Catherine Brinkley · Food Culture & Society · United States (California)

A case study of Chez Panisse, the Berkeley, California restaurant founded by Alice Waters in 1971, examining the extent to which a farm-to-table restaurant prompted social and ecological change in the food system. Using archival document review, interviews, surveys, and social network mapping, the study traces how direct market connections between farmers and Chez Panisse grew over time and influenced farmers' growing practices. Chez Panisse was found to have inspired farmers toward more sustainable agriculture practices, but the restaurant was not the only influential actor in the network — local food hub managers and the restaurant's "foragers" served as key intermediaries. The study concludes that social embeddedness within Alternative Food Networks is pertinent to fostering sustainable agriculture, the long-term survival of network actors, and network growth.

Doralice Sátyro Maia, Miriam Hermi Zaar · · Brazil

Drawing on field observation, photographic records, questionnaires and informal conversations, alongside prior research and government data, this study analyzes the persistence of rural practices — small-scale cattle dairying (vacarias) in João Pessoa and agricultural practices in Natal, both coastal cities in Brazil's Northeast — within areas classified as urban, describing these as "islands of rurality" that resist real-estate speculation and urbanization pressures, and calling for methodologies better able to distinguish urban from rural attributes in such hybrid spaces.

Samantha Bowman, Ankur Choudhary, Alexandria Connell, Megan G. Davey, Katina Decoulos, Richard Duhamel, Brooklyn Feng, Ian Finn, Doreen Guan, Sophia Liquori, Connor Moloney, Claudia Namaroff, Emily J. Noonan, Hunter Proulx, Stephen Rezendes, Maura Robitaille, Vincent Shu, Jaques Skriletz · Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · United States (Springfield)

The Senior Urban Design Studio 2019 developed six proposals for a transformative urban district in Springfield, MA, focusing on enhancing aesthetic quality and resident well-being. The study analyzed district assets and engaged residents through site visits, interviews, and workshops. It aimed to create a framework for a strong identity and coherence in the Six Corners and Old Hill neighborhoods, which feature active urban agriculture.

Arione Porto da Silva · · Brazil (Maceió)

This research aims to analyze how the municipality of Maceió, Brazil, implements public policies to promote urban and peri-urban agricultural production, as stipulated in the city's Master Plan. It involves analyzing documents from the Municipal Secretariat for Sustainable Development (SEMDS) to identify programs and policies supporting urban farmers. The study is justified by agriculture's key role in compensating for job losses in Brazil before and after the pandemic.

Marcelo Gomes Justo · REVISTA NERA · Brazil (São Paulo)

This article presents data and analyses on organic and agroecological production in São Paulo city, Brazil, using secondary data surveys and interviews. It maps the combined action of socio-spatial and socio-territorial movements for agroecology in São Paulo and its Metropolitan Region. The study discusses concepts of agroecology, urban and peri-urban agriculture, and socio-spatial/socio-territorial movements as analytical tools, concluding that combined action is necessary for agroecology's expansion.

Cinthia de Oliveira Rodrigues, Maria Lúcia Bahia Lopes, Fabrício Khoury Rebello, Rosália do Socorro da Silva Corrêa · Research Society and Development · Brazil (Irituia, Pará)

A quantitative and qualitative study using 40 semi-structured questionnaires was conducted with urban and peri-urban farmers in Irituia, Pará, Brazil, to identify the socioeconomic profile and productive dynamics of Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (AUP) systems. The study identified three distinct categories of farmers: 42.5% for whom AUP is the main source of income, 32.5% who are public servants, and 25.0% who are small traders. Although no effective public policies for AUP promotion were evident in Irituia, spontaneous initiatives and significant growth potential were observed due to the municipality's rural nature.

Jeffrey Alan Hoffmann · · United States

Hoffmann examined oral histories and interviews (1995-1996, 2014, 2017) with elders of multiple ethnicities in a working-class urban agricultural neighborhood in the U.S. Southwest. The study found that while ecocultural memory fosters trust in shared water relationships, historical anxieties stemming from urban development violence can impede communities' ability to organize to protect and restore ancestral waterways.