Research & reports

Sinan Koont · Monthly Review · Cuba

An article describes the development, over roughly fifteen years since the 1990s, of urban agriculture in Havana, Cuba, a capital city of more than two million people. It notes that the term "urban agriculture" in Cuba is used more inclusively than typical usage, encompassing urban fringe and suburban lands — the entire cultivated area of the Province of the City of Havana is classified as urban agriculture. The article provides no specific yield or participation figures.

Sophie Graefe, Eva Schlecht, Andreas Buerkert · Outlook on Agriculture · Niger (Niamey)

Semi-structured interviews with 130 households in Niamey, Niger, characterized urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) and assessed resource use. The study found high use of livestock manure and indiscriminate use of nutrient-loaded wastewater for irrigation, leading to significant nutrient surpluses in UPA gardens. Initial calculations suggested large gaseous emissions of nitrogenous compounds and and leaching of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to groundwater.

Richard W. Reynolds · · Global

This 2008 global handbook, "On Guerrilla Gardening," explores the motivations and methods of guerrilla gardening, a movement involving illicit cultivation of public land. The book compiles advice from guerrilla gardeners in thirty countries on topics such as plant selection, coping with environmental conditions, seed bombing, and propaganda. It also traces the historical development of the movement from the 17th century to the 1970s.

Masud Aziz Rauf · School for International Training Digital Collections (School for International Training) · Ghana (Tamale)

This research, conducted in the Tamale metropolitan area of Ghana's northern region, investigated the efforts of URBANET, a local NGO, to educate and involve indigenous farmers in advocacy as part of Ghana's broader trade justice movement. URBANET advocated for farmers facing challenges like falling prices due to imported products under unfair trade policies, providing workshops, radio programs, and mobilizing farmers. The advocacy raised awareness among indigenous farmers and contributed to policy changes, such as the Ghanaian government's 2005 statement requiring state institutions to buy Ghanaian rice.

Consuelo Montes Rojas, Víctor Felipe Terán Gómez, Diego Fernando Ortiz Tovar · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Colombia (Popayán)

This research aimed to design a hydro-organic system for vegetable production in small areas to contribute to urban food security and solid waste utilization in Popayán, Colombia. An alternative system was designed using recycled materials and evaluated with three nutritional treatments using cilantro as a biological indicator. The system achieved productions of up to 627 g m-2, surpassing traditional agriculture (227 g), and the common nutritional solution was identified as the best nutritional source.

Pay Drechsel · CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) · Global

This paper discusses the global food crisis, which has caused skyrocketing food prices and riots in some countries. Underlying the food crisis is the deeper issue of the looming water crisis.

Chris Hillbruner, Rebecca Egan · Food and Nutrition Bulletin · Bangladesh (Dinajpur)

A study in Dinajpur, Bangladesh, from 2002 to 2003, investigated the impact of seasonality on food security and nutritional status in approximately 600 low-income urban households. Data collected through surveys and child measurements revealed significantly higher rates of food insecurity, wasting, and inadequate growth during the monsoon season compared to the dry season. While dietary diversity and lost work due to weather were identified as pathways affecting food security, child illness was not found to be a significant mechanism contributing to seasonal nutritional declines.

Alberto Zezza, Luca Tasciotti, Zezza, Alberto, Tasciotti, Luca · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Global

This paper investigates the importance of urban agriculture (UA) for poor and food-insecure households in urban areas, using survey data from 15 developing or transition countries. It aims to fill research gaps by analyzing, from a comparative perspective, UA's potential role in addressing urban food insecurity problems. The paper defines UA as crop and livestock production within city boundaries.

Consuelo Montes Rojas, Víctor Felipe Terán Gómez, Diego Fernando Ortiz Tovar · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Colombia

This research aimed to design a hydro-organic vegetable production system for small areas in Popayán, Colombia, utilizing recycled materials and urban solid waste. The system was evaluated using three nutritional treatments (organic leachate, supplemented organic leachate, common nutrient solution) with cilantro as a biological indicator. The urban vegetable production system achieved yields of up to 627 g m-2, surpassing traditional agriculture (227 g), with the commercial nutrient solution identified as the best nutritional source.

Helen M. Byamugisha, Robert Ikoja-Odongo, George William Nasinyama, Shuaib Lwasa · · Uganda

In Kampala, Uganda, urban farmers lack access to adequate information on innovative agricultural technologies, inputs, and balancing productivity with environmental requirements. This information deficit results in low urban farming production despite supportive legal frameworks. This paper presents preliminary findings on information search and acquisition mechanisms among urban farmers in Kampala District, exploring their contribution to reducing or exacerbating urban food insecurity, and plans to design an information seeking and use model for them.

何秀荣 · 蔬菜 · Global

This article discusses the rapid development of urban agriculture in China and globally, covering its origins, characteristics, and current status. It aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of urban agriculture, from theory to modern sightseeing vegetable cultivation techniques, with insights from agricultural economic experts and grassroots agricultural staff.

Camillus J. Sawio · · Global

This paper, based on existing literature, discusses the increasing international, regional, and local recognition of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) over the past three decades. It highlights UPA's contributions to feeding urban populations, poverty alleviation, food security, and sustainable urban management, attributing this recognition to efforts by various international organizations and resulting municipal declarations.

Bernard Keraita, Pay Drechsel, Flemming Konradsen · Water Science & Technology · Ghana (Kumasi)

A study in Kumasi, Ghana, assessed the use of on-farm ponds to reduce microbial contamination in wastewater-contaminated irrigation water, analyzing over 300 samples. It found that while ponds are common, their potential for pathogen removal via sedimentation is not fully optimized. Helminth eggs reduced by about 70% with careful water collection, but thermotolerant coliforms took six days in the dry season to meet WHO guidelines, indicating suboptimal performance for some pathogens.

Cristin B. Forbes, Alison H. Harmon · Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition · Global

This article examines strategies employed by Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms to help limited-resource consumers overcome income barriers to membership. Due to the typical lump sum membership fee, CSA can be inaccessible. Identified strategies include accepting government food assistance, offering payment plans, working shares, subsidized or low-cost shares, transportation assistance, bartering, outreach, and connections to emergency food assistance.

Christine King · Systems Research and Behavioral Science · Global

This paper explores how agri-ecological systems such as Organic Agriculture, Biodynamics, CSA, Permaculture, Farmers Markets, and Community Gardens contribute to agri-ecological and community resilience. These systems contribute to more sustainable and resilient communities through community development processes like relationship building, genuine participation, inclusiveness, resource mobilization, and creating space for knowledge sharing. The paper compares ecological systems models to agri-ecological systems and suggests how ecological systems theories might contribute to the future of community-based agri-ecological resilience.

R. Machiridza, Emmanuel Manzungu · University of Zimbabwe Institutional Repository (University of Zimbabwe) · Zimbabwe (Harare)

Perceptions of urban agriculture in Harare, Zimbabwe, shifted from prohibition before 1980 due to environmental concerns to de facto government policy after independence due to increasing urban poverty. Land was initially allocated to co-operatives primarily for political support, creating tension between political patronage and environmental protection. Critics argue that authorities only accepted urban agriculture's reality two decades post-independence, driven by its potential for poverty reduction and economic development.

Camillus J. Sawio · Journal of Building and Land Development · Global

A largely literature-review paper on the growing international, regional and local recognition of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) compared with three decades earlier. It frames UPA as increasingly understood to contribute to feeding poor urban populations especially in developing countries, alleviating poverty, and addressing hunger, food security and sustainable urban and environmental management, and credits organizations including the Support Group on Urban Agriculture (SGUA), The Urban Agriculture Network (TUAN), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Netherlands-based RUAF network, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNDP, and CGIAR with systematically organizing regional consultative seminars and workshops that produced municipal declarations supporting UPA. The paper states the impact of these declarations on policy review still remains to be seen.

Olufunke Cofie, Larbi, Theophilus Otchere, George Danso, Ernest Mensah Abraham, S.K. Kufogbe, N. Obiri-Opareh · CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) · Ghana

A book chapter addressing urban agriculture in the Accra metropolitan area, Ghana, included in Parrot et al. (eds.), "Agriculture and Urban Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Environment and Health Issues" (Paris: L'Harmattan). The available abstract consists only of this bibliographic citation; no study methods or findings are given.

Larry Harrington, E. M. L. Humphreys, Annette Huber‐Lee, Sophie Nguyen-Khoa, Simón Cook, Gichuki, Francis N., Nancy L. Johnson, Claudia Ringler, K. Geheb, Jonathan Woolley · CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) · Global

A synthesis report summarizing activities and achievements of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) through the end of 2007, an initiative addressing global water scarcity and food security across nine benchmark river basins organized around five themes. Achievements in rainfed environments include advances in no-till conservation agriculture, "slash and mulch" replacing "slash and burn" in hillside farming, dryland water-harvesting systems, understanding of livelihood vulnerability and farmers' coping strategies, and distribution of drought-tolerant sorghum and wheat through participatory varietal selection and seed schemes. In irrigated and salt-affected environments, progress included development and testing of salt-tolerant rice germplasm, understanding of how wastewater can be used in irrigated peri-urban agriculture to grow safe, nutritious vegetables, and development of aerobic rice germplasm and management practices that use less water.

Anna Eklund, Camilla Björk · · Nicaragua (Managua)

This diploma work, a case study in Managua, Nicaragua, explored how urban agriculture can improve the life situation of urban populations. The study found evidence that urban agriculture can be a key strategy for the urban poor, securing food access, improving public health and the environment, increasing income possibilities, and strengthening social belonging.

Craig J. Thompson, Gökçen Coskuner-Balli · Journal of Consumer Research · Global

This paper argues that the corporatization of the organic food movement, typically seen as co-optation, can instead generate a countervailing market response. This response actively promotes the oppositional aspects of a counterculture that are attenuated by commercial mainstreaming. The study analyzes community-supported agriculture (CSA) as an example of this response to corporate co-optation.

Hussein Sharafat, Ahmed El-Sayed, Abdelaziz Ahmed Abdelhafez · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Egypt

A quantitative study surveyed farmers in urban agriculture innovation hubs (UAHs) across Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Said, Egypt. It found that vegetable production in UAHs was 25% more efficient than traditional methods, with advanced irrigation and community management enhancing yields and market access. The study suggests government policies should incentivize UAH development through subsidies and training.

Mariama Diop, Toumani Sène · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Senegal (Dakar)

This study evaluated the impact of community gardens on food security and sustainable agricultural practices in urban Dakar. Participant surveys indicated a significant shift towards more sustainable agricultural practices, with over 70% of participants adopting at least one new gardening technique. The study highlights the potential for community gardens to improve food security and foster environmental stewardship among urban dwellers.

Toure Sylla Mamadou, Mamoudou Diop · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Senegal (Dakar)

This three-year study in Dakar, Senegal, investigated urban food security systems through surveys and interviews with community garden participants. It found that 75% of participants reported increased engagement in urban agriculture, driven by government subsidies for materials and equipment. The study validates previous findings on community garden participation, noting a significant increase due to subsidized resources, and highlights the effectiveness of targeted interventions.

Fiona Yeudall, Renée Sebastian, Donald C. Cole, Selahadin Ibrahim, A. Lubowa, Joyce K. Kikafunda · Food and Nutrition Bulletin · Uganda (Kampala)

A cross-sectional survey of 296 households in Kampala, Uganda, examined the impact of sociodemographic and farming variables on household food security and nutritional security of children aged 2-5 years. Household food security score was significantly positively correlated with the number of tropical livestock units, dietary diversity, percentage of energy from animal-source foods, and weight-for-age z-score. Consumption of animal-source food was negatively associated with C-reactive protein level, which was negatively associated with hemoglobin level, and hemoglobin was positively associated with weight-for-age z-score.