Research & reports

Priyanie Amerasinghe, Olufunke Cofie, Theophilus O. Larbi, Pay Drechsel, Amerasinghe, Priyanie, Cofie, Olufunke, Larbi, T. O., Drechsel, Pay · · Global

This multi-city study applied a Multi-stakeholder Policy Formulation and Action Planning approach to influence urban agriculture policies in three African and two Asian countries. While the approach was successful and yielded remarkable outcomes, it also indicated areas for improvement in its application. The study found significant regional differences in achieving policy change, necessitating careful consideration for maximizing returns on investment in impact pathway facilitation.

Kynda R. Curtis, Ruby Ward, K. Eileen Allen, Susan L. Slocum, Curtis, Kynda, Ward, Ruby, Allen, Karin, Slocum, Susan · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Global

This study aims to explore the effects of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program membership on consumer dietary choice and nutritional intake. It also investigates potential modifications in food purchase, preparation, and dining out practices among participants. The research addresses a gap in understanding how CSA participation might lead to attitude and behavioral changes, which could inform public policy for dietary improvements.

Kristen Lyons, Carol Richards, Lotus DesFours, Marco Amati · Australian Planner · Australia (Melbourne)

Ethical food movements, including urban agriculture initiatives, are increasing in Australia. This study uses the case of Melbourne to examine how urban agriculture participants are re-imagining urban spaces and the future of Australian agriculture and food systems. It demonstrates that the politics and practices of urban food advocates challenge and resist the enclosure of urban spaces, creating new frontiers that transgress social, political, ecological, and economic boundaries.

Cabrera Trimiño, Gilberto Javier · · Cuba (Ciudad Habana)

In Cuba, urban agriculture is a movement producing food in urban spaces using local resources under ecological principles. While large cities like Havana cannot achieve food self-sufficiency, agricultural programs can enhance understanding of the population-environment-development relationship in Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America. This understanding is crucial for public policies addressing contemporary challenges like environmental vulnerability and climate change impacts.

Àngels Viladomiu Canela · AusArt · Global

This article reviews artistic interventions that address urban land uses and farming methods. These actions, through planting and cultivating, generate spaces for the expression of artistic, political, and social identities, often in urban interstices like abandoned lots or non-urbanized areas. The study identifies these practices as spaces for social critique and ecological activism.

Duncan Hilchey · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Global

This open call edition of the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development features diverse topics including beef origin traceability, cultural sustainability, rural food deserts, climate variability and adaptations, food safety regulations, urban agriculture, and food waste. These topics reflect the enormous diversity of the nascent field of food systems.

Juan José Quintero, Matías Álamo · Americanae (AECID Library) · Argentina (Bahía Blanca)

This study analyzes the role of institutional and social actors in the Pro-Huerta program, implemented by INTA in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. The program fosters community engagement through inter-institutional articulation and volunteer work, promoting organic family and community gardens in socio-economically marginalized areas like peripheral neighborhoods and schools. The research investigates the work of the NGO "Red de Voluntarios" within this program, using bibliographic information and interviews with key informants.

Hamid El Bilali, Siniša Berjan, Jasmina Simic, Aleksandra Despotović, Sabrija Čadro, M. Kulina · Journal of Central European Agriculture · Bosnia

This study investigated urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in the Sarajevo region of Bosnia, focusing on its legal and regulatory framework, governance, and advisory services. Information was gathered through a literature review and semi-structured interviews with 30 urban gardeners, extension agents, and municipal officers. The analysis covered UPA references in agricultural policies, extension agent focus, and urban planning regulations, concluding that UPA development requires improvements in regulatory frameworks and multi-stakeholder governance.

Camilo Villagrán Oyarzún, Ken Yan Qiu Sun · Revista de Urbanismo · Chile (Santiago de Chile)

This 2013 study investigated the challenges of integrating urban agriculture into Communal Regulatory Plans in Santiago de Chile. Analyzing two case studies in different metropolitan communes, the research inferred the general state of urban agriculture's inclusion in urban planning. The findings implicitly suggest difficulties in its integration, highlighting the need for improved governance in urban planning to effectively incorporate urban agriculture.

Susana Olivares Reumont, Damarys García Céspedes, Lázaro Lima Cazorla, Israel Saborit Sánchez, Axel Llizo Casals, Pedro Pérez Álvarez · Revista Internacional de Contaminación Ambiental · Cuba (Havana)

This study investigated levels of Cu, Pb, Cd, and Zn in soils and vegetables from 17 urban agriculture farms around the "Calle 100" landfill in Havana, Cuba, during 2006-2007. Findings showed that 35% of soils exceeded typical Cuban agricultural ranges for Zn, and 52% for Pb. Critically, 23% of soils surpassed phytotoxic and international limit levels for Pb, and 12.5% of vegetable samples exceeded Cuban maximum permissible limits for Pb in food for human consumption. The results indicate a need for strict monitoring of horticultural crops in the area due to contamination.

David Nichols, Robert Freestone · · Australia

This paper reviews efforts to utilize and manage a specific type of neighborhood greenspace in Australia, known as internal reserves. These spaces, often underutilized, have been reinvented by residents through new gardening and leisure initiatives. Three success stories in the Melbourne suburbs of Keilor, Footscray, and Reservoir are reported, identifying empowering pathways for enriching the environmental and cultural capital of a more sustainable suburban environment.

David Adams, Alister Scott, Michael Hardman · Geografiska Annaler Series B Human Geography · Global

This article examined how planning practice, exemplified by permaculture and guerrilla gardening case studies, can be rooted in confrontation and legal challenge, hindering innovative practices. The findings confirmed that spatial planning theory is largely "disintegrated" from much contemporary planning and environmental practice and wider sustainability discourses. This suggests that planners and decision-makers' prescribed and constrained management of space can impede practices with significant societal and environmental benefits.

Jana Adamková · Brno University of Technology Digital Library (Brno University of Technology) · Global

This paper discusses urban agriculture as an indisputable part of cities throughout history. It highlights urban agriculture as an important subject for improving city sustainability, enhancing food security, and reducing urban poverty. The study suggests that understanding its evolution could yield valuable information.

Àngels Viladomiu Canela · · Global

This paper reviews specific artistic interventions that address urban land uses and farming methods. These actions, through the act of planting and cultivating, generate spaces for the expression of artistic, political, and social identities. These places are settling in the interstices of our cities, such as empty brownfield sites, non-urbanized or semi-urbanized areas, riverbanks, highway verges, and railway edges.

Stephan Barthel, John N. Parker, Henrik Ernstson · Urban Studies · Global

This article examined the role of urban gardens during historical collapses in urban food supply lines and identified social processes needed to protect open green spaces and the collective memory of food production during crises. Over the past 50 years, urban dependence on global food systems has increased, eroding collective memory of food production and losing suitable urban gardening spaces, heightening the potential for food shortages during crises. Urban gardening is effective during crises, and allotment gardens transmit social-ecological memories of food production. Urban environmental movements protect urban green space, and urban gardening and social movements can build local response capacity against food supply collapses.

Jaap Evers · · Global

This paper discusses the use of untreated wastewater for irrigation in urban and peri-urban agriculture, noting its prevalence in four out of five cities in the developing world according to a 2008 survey. It highlights that local policymakers are often unaware of the significance and opportunities of this practice, despite its potential for nutrient recovery and integration into urban sanitation systems. Planning for wastewater use requires multi-agency involvement.

Lindsey Sarann Hallock · · Global

This paper examines the rise of vertical farms, arguing that they advance the corporate food regime and promote urban elite consumption. It differentiates vertical farms as local food projects that reproduce the capitalist industrial system rather than challenging it, facilitated by devalued built environments and labor surplus in neoliberal cities. The study concludes that these farms reproduce troubling trends in the corporate food regime, signifying capital's ability to standardize food cultivation and incorporate it into factory-like production systems.

Atănăsoaie George Sebastian · Annals - Economy Series · Global

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms are an alternative to conventional agriculture but face numerous policy issues related to product, price, distribution, and promotion. A literature review indicated that farmers need to offer more flexible basket content in terms of quantity and product type, and consumers require information on product preparation and preservation. To offset the negative impact of high prices, measures such as cost reduction, flexible payment rescheduling, and compensation for financial resource deficits are necessary.

Àngels Viladomiu Canela · AusArt · Global

This article reviews artistic interventions that address specific uses of urban territory and forms of cultivation. These actions, through planting and cultivating, create spaces for the expression of artistic, political, and social identities in the interstices of cities, such as abandoned lots, undeveloped areas, riverbanks, and highway verges.

Juliano Avelar Moura, William Rodrigues Ferreira, Luciene de Barros, Lorandi Silveira Lara · Mercator · Global

This study discusses the viability of introducing urban and peri-urban agriculture models in municipal planning, driven by the need to improve the current chaotic management model of urban space. It focuses on the dynamics of relations between the environment, transport, and socioeconomics, presenting urban agriculture as a strategic program for harmonizing urban spaces.

M Cate Christ · · Singapore

This paper presents Singapore as a case study for the increasing importance of taking a commons perspective on food supply and security, as Singapore is a net-food importing country, importing 90% of its food from limited sources. The paper focuses on actions to diversify food sources, increase local food production, and promote food and agro-based industry, research, and development. In the context of a highly urbanized population with limited land and natural resources, it traces the recent history of food security policies and actions in Singapore regarding increased local production and examines several case studies demonstrating the development of research, technology, and community resources for urban agricultural production.

Daniela Guitart, Jason Byrne, Catherine Marina Pickering · Journal of Environmental Planning and Management · Australia (South East Queensland)

This study investigated gardening practices in 50 community gardens in Brisbane and Gold Coast cities, Australia, aiming to understand how these practices affect the ecological viability of community gardens. Factors examined included garden bio-physical characteristics, operators’ motivations, gardeners’ socio-demographic backgrounds, garden facilities, and types of plants grown. Two broad types were identified: permaculture (21 gardens) and non-permaculture (29 gardens), with permaculture gardens utilizing lower-impact gardening practices.

Benjamin Carl Kerrick · OhioLink ETD Center (Ohio Library and Information Network) · Global

Urban growth in the 20th and 21st centuries has increased urban food demand while diminishing agricultural production areas around cities. Urban agriculture can expand food access, engage urban dwellers in food production, and utilize unused urban lots. Idle or vacant land, both public and private, represents an important resource for this purpose.

Kristen Loria · Journal of Extension · Global

This paper discusses the potential utility of information system analysis as an analytical tool for Extension efforts in community garden projects, given the importance of interpersonal networks in providing informational, material, and human resources. The reported evaluation can be used to inform Extension and other community-based programming to articulate and strengthen such community garden networks.

Hamidreza Pourkhabbaz, Javanmardi Saeedeh, Yavari Ahmad Reza, H A Faraji Sabokbar · · Iran

This paper presented an integrated DEMATEL and ANP technique to evaluate land for peri-urban agriculture in the Qazvin Plain, Iran. Ecological word model, slope, climatic soil properties, water resources, and vegetation density were chosen as major factors and evaluated using a Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model. Results confirmed six classes of agricultural land use, indicating that northern parts are not suitable for agriculture development. However, 98,598.20 hectares of polygons were determined to be extremely to medium suitable for agriculture.