Research & reports

Karasungur S., Yavaş M. · Land Use Policy · Türkiye (Erzurum)

A paper that frames urban agriculture as a land-use policy instrument for protecting peri-urban agricultural land from urbanisation, analysed on a grid basis for Erzurum, Türkiye. Its angle is to treat urban agriculture not only as growing food in the city but as an institutional means of restraining farmland conversion. Note: this entry is written from the paper's bibliographic record and title; see the article itself for its figures and conclusions.

Rduch Paulina, Hodor Katarzyna, Wilkosz-Mamcarczyk Magdalena · Cities · ポーランド・チェコ

A study of Katowice (Poland) and Brno (Czech Republic) examining how family allotment gardens function as greenery in city centres, together with the legal regulations that govern them. Drawing on statistical and cartographic data, it shows a downward trend in the area of allotment gardens within cities.

Oyewole Michelle T., Pellow David N., Cassels Susie · Environmental Justice · 米国

A study measuring soil lead by X-ray fluorescence at 31 Brooklyn public schools with active garden programmes, sampling both garden beds and adjacent school grounds. Proximity to 306 known environmental hazard sites was mapped geostatistically and combined with demographic data and soil-management surveys. Of the samples, 42% exceeded the US EPA's minimum screening level for child-accessible soils near known lead sources (100 ppm); garden soils showed lower average lead concentrations than adjacent school-ground soils. The authors argue that soil lead in schools, and the disparities in it, have received far less attention than lead in paint and water.

Ricardo Robins · Fundación Rosa Luxemburgo (Oficina Buenos Aires) · Argentina

A reported feature tracing the origins of Rosario's Urban Agriculture Programme (PAU) through interviews with founder Antonio Lattuca: the first community garden in the Saladillo Sur neighborhood in 1987, the 1990 municipal ordinance creating the Community Gardens Programme, and the PAU's formal launch in 2002. It reports the programme today spans 12 parks and community gardens across roughly 40 hectares, with over 150 families harvesting about 650,000 kg of agroecological vegetables a year, and profiles the Tablada Park Garden (opened 2008, 3 ha, 20 workers).

Municipalidad de Rosario · Municipalidad de Rosario · Argentina

A Rosario municipal procedural page describing a free training-visit programme for institutions and civic organizations to tour the city's gardens and Park Gardens and learn about agroecological practices, run by the Productive Spaces Coordination unit under the Social Economy Sub-secretariat. Appointments are booked at six district municipal centers on Wednesdays 9:00-13:30, with the programme's legal basis cited as Decree 2561/2004 and Ordinance 9044/13.

Aguiari I. · Agriculture and Human Values · イタリア

Debates on food and agriculture have long noted the depoliticising pull of neoliberal governance, technocratic regulation and consumer-oriented solutions. Collective action in grassroots agrifood initiatives is well studied, but how politicisation actually emerges is not. Treating the political as an ever-present dimension of social relations, the author uses political semiotics to trace how politicisation and depoliticisation unfold in everyday communication, drawing on participatory mind-mapping workshops co-created with three community agriculture initiatives in Italy. Politicisation is encouraged where relational interaction, contextual interpretation, symbolic expression and an orientation toward collective action reinforce one another.

Nkrumah B. · Urban Science · アフリカ（都市部・系統的レビュー）

A systematic review of the irony between abundant arable land and persistent hunger in African cities. It asks why a disproportionate share of urban residents do not produce their own food, even as food insecurity rises with heavy reliance on market-bought food, high poverty and rapid urbanisation, screening peer-reviewed literature via PRISMA and five inclusion benchmarks to clarify the debate on low uptake of urban agriculture.

Rao X., Zahid A., Ye X., Jain D., Duffield N. · Urban Informatics · 国際（論考）

A Perspective arguing that controlled environment agriculture (CEA), driven by venture capital and profit-maximising imperatives, has delivered limited scalability, narrow crop diversity and minimal engagement with spatial equity — the fair distribution of food infrastructure across urban geographies. It calls for repositioning CEA not as a standalone technological fix but as a component of urban infrastructure delivering co-benefits for food justice, public health and environmental resilience.

Hinch J. · Southeastern Geographer · 米国フロリダ州タンパベイ

This study builds an equity-focused, GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis model integrating socioeconomic, logistical and environmental variables to assess community garden suitability across census tracts in Tampa Bay. High-suitability tracts cluster somewhat in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, existing gardens align moderately with modelled suitability, and the paper shows both the utility and the limits of spatial models in equitable urban agriculture planning.

Noxolo B.M., Kanosvamhira T.P. · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · 南アフリカ・ケープタウン（低所得地区）

Surveys and interviews assess whether hydroponics, of interest because dense settlements leave little space, is actually viable in Cape Town's low-income urban areas — deliberately supplementing a literature skewed towards Global North cities. Farmers perceive benefits in improved yields, water conservation and efficient land use, all valuable in a water-scarce, space-constrained city, but high setup costs and limited government support remain significant obstacles. Drawing on urban political ecology, the paper argues these financial and institutional barriers are rooted in historically produced inequality and ongoing capitalist dynamics of urban development. It concludes that while hydroponics has potential as a sustainable alternative, its high costs hinder broader applicability, and it is not yet a viable large-scale route to food security where resources are unequally distributed; supporting actors must first address financial feasibility and local expertise.

Darrow S., Kathi S., Liebe R., Cline L.L., Moss J.Q. · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · 米国オクラホマ州（農村・都市・近郊）

Oklahoma's specialty crop sector is in decline — vegetable operations fell from 799 in 2007 to 482 in 2022 — yet regional fruit and vegetable producers remain the primary supply foundation for farmers' markets, food hubs and direct retail serving urban and peri-urban communities, so producer viability is itself an urban food access and public health concern as food deserts expand. Five semi-structured focus groups with 29 experienced producers from rural, urban and peri-urban Oklahoma were analysed by open coding thematic analysis in NVivo, with saturation confirmed iteratively and rigour established through member-checking, peer review of codes and field note triangulation. The 180 initial codes were organised into 10 parent codes and three themes: the countercultural philosophy of production, the lack of accessible resources, and industry barriers preventing development — compounding disadvantages at cultural, institutional and structural levels. The authors call for a statewide local food system plan, a growers' association and dedicated local-food-system extension roles.

Glaros A., Newell R., Pizzirani S., Newman L. · Urban Transitions · カナダ・ブリティッシュコロンビア州ローワーメインランド（都市圏）

Using the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada as a case study, this paper defines and assesses the tradeoffs across six common scenarios for controlled environment agriculture (CEA) implementation. Land use considerations and operational priorities define the scenarios and weight the modelling criteria. Geospatial modelling estimates the share of the population within walking distance of potential CEA sites that could be supplied with their daily intake of leafy greens, alongside associated yields, energy use, water use and potential land sparing. Across all scenarios, between 4% and over 100% of nearby populations could be served, demonstrating both the promise of hyper-local food provisioning and how sharply outcomes swing with siting and operational goals.

Kanosvamhira T.P., Magidi M. · International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability · 南アフリカ・ケープタウン／ジンバブエ・ノートン

A qualitative case study comparing the motivations, operational dynamics, land access challenges and legislative contexts of urban agriculture in two contrasting cities — Cape Town (South Africa) and Norton (Zimbabwe) — through stakeholder interviews and policy analysis, guided by social capital theory. In Cape Town urban agriculture is semi-institutionalised, backed by governmental and civil society actors and framed within wider food justice and community development agendas, yet practitioners face significant constraints from land access, urban policy fragmentation and competition over space. In Norton it is largely informal, a survivalist response to persistent socio-economic hardship with minimal formal support but relatively flexible regulation, where land-tenure insecurity and the threat of eviction are the pressing concerns. The paper argues that context-specific legislative frameworks, secure land rights and inclusive urban planning are the enabling conditions, situating urban agriculture within debates on land governance and urban informality.

Kissoly L. · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · タンザニア・ダルエスサラーム

An exploratory qualitative case study and policy analysis of urban agriculture's current landscape and possible futures in rapidly urbanizing Dar es Salaam, drawing on targeted literature and document review, a policy and regulatory scan, and 52 key informant interviews with municipal actors, urban farmers and food-system practitioners conducted between April and September 2025. Urban agriculture is valued for household food supplementation, small-scale income and fresh-food provisioning through short-cycle vegetable production close to consumers, but remains shaped by tolerated informality, insecure land access, fragmented regulation, contamination risks, weak institutional coordination and pressure on peri-urban land. Five evidence-informed trajectories are proposed — managed river-corridor cultivation; sacks, buckets and roofs for dense-ward micro-production; institutional land clusters; peri-urban foodshed belts with circular-resource hubs; and small-scale aquaculture with insect-based feed — presented explicitly not as tested feasibility models but as differentiated options requiring further technical, environmental, spatial and economic assessment. The paper argues the future depends not on a single large-scale model but on risk-sensitive, institutionally grounded forms of support.

Coyne D., Nyambura E.I., Atandi J.G., Obebo F., Alam M.J., Kumar S., Arro E.A., Adimassu Z., Bihon W., Schreinemachers P. · Frontiers in Sustainable Cities · エチオピア・アディスアベバ／ケニア・ナイロビ／バングラデシュ・ダッカ／フィリピン・メトロマニラ

A comparative multi-city case study of urban and peri-urban vegetable seedling systems — a neglected component of urban agriculture — in four rapidly growing cities: Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Dhaka and Metro Manila. Data came from 154 stakeholders including urban farmers, nursery operators, seedling suppliers, agro-input dealers and government officers, complemented by secondary literature. Across all four cities urban vegetable production was dominated by small-scale intensive systems growing predominantly leafy vegetables, while seedling systems remained underdeveloped: informal nursery operations, weak quality assurance, open-field propagation, limited technical capacity and fragmented market linkages, driving widespread reliance on direct seeding and low-quality planting material despite strong demand for quality seedlings. Identified opportunities include improved propagation technologies, certification systems, digital marketing, commercialization of indigenous vegetable seedlings and stronger public-private partnerships. As one of the first cross-continental assessments of urban vegetable seedling systems in low- and middle-income countries, it positions seedling systems as a critical but overlooked part of resilient, nutrition-sensitive urban food systems.

Huq F.F., Deacon L. · Discover Sustainability (Springer), 6:696 · Global

A systematic review of 37 studies examining how community gardens affect food access, urban resilience, and community well-being, with research interest peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies inequitable access and weak policy integration as key barriers and calls for inclusive, interdisciplinary, long-term planning.

· Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Global

A thematic review synthesising global trends, innovations, governance frameworks and pathways to sustainability in urban agriculture, mapping the field's current state and future directions including citizen participation, policy support and environmental challenges.

Mallick S., Paul S., Rout S., Behera R.N. · Frontiers of Urban and Rural Planning (Springer) · Global

A quantitative systematic review of five decades of peri-urban research, mapping its growing integration into urban planning and the diversity of its definitions, and positioning peri-urban agriculture's contribution to sustainable planning as a future direction.

Tesfay S.M., Alem G., Ayele D.G. · Land (MDPI) 14(7), 1483 · Global

Theoretically revisits peri-urban land transformation in the Global South, organizing the change in agricultural land use around three vectors: capital, governance and revival (return to farming).

Ashikuzzaman M., Swapan M.S.H., Zaman A.U., Song Y. · Landscape and Urban Planning · Bangladesh (Dhaka)

Analysis of 187 YouTube videos reveals urban rooftop farming in Dhaka is a growing grassroots movement with fragmented institutional oversight; farmers in mixed land-use neighborhoods show the strongest motivation and seek government policy guidelines.

Yapp E.H.T., Jamil N., Lee L.S.G., Chooi Y.T., Chen C.O. · Cogent Food & Agriculture, Vol. 11, Article 2448601 · Malaysia (Penang, Johor, Sabah)

A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with urban farmers in Penang, Johor, and Sabah found that hydroponic and vertical farm operators face persistent challenges from government regulations, volatile markets, financial constraints, and environmental factors despite existing subsidy programs.

Liu Y., Chanse V., Chicca F. · Urban Science (MDPI), Vol. 9, No. 8, Article 305 · New Zealand (Wellington)

This study quantifies Wellington, New Zealand's community gardens' capacity to meet post-disaster vegetable demand in terms of weight and nutrient content, finding current gardens insufficient alone but identifying substantial potential through expanded urban agriculture land use.

(Open Research Community) · ResearchGate, Discover Sustainability (Springer Nature) · Global

2025 review article examining urban agriculture's contribution to food security and mechanisms of achievement. Analyzes through empirical evidence the benefits and challenges, income generation effects, and improvements in fresh food access for low-income households.

Ferreira, Mélice Dias, Lopes · International Journal of Urban and Regional Research · Global

International analysis of urban agriculture policy in contexts of austerity. Examines tensions between citizen movements and governance, food sovereignty and self-determination.

Imam M., Glaros A. · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Global

A carbon assessment of building-integrated agriculture (vertical farms, rooftop greenhouses, soil-based urban farms) concluded that BIA does not consistently deliver climate benefits over conventional agriculture and can be less resource-efficient, with soil-based urban farms carrying the highest embodied carbon per kilogram.