Research & reports

Retno Wulandari, Alvira Indriani · Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology) · Indonesia

A study of the "vegetable alley" system—cultivating food crops, ornamentals, and medicinal plants in narrow residential pathways—in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia (2025) surveyed 80 respondents selected by simple random sampling, using descriptive analysis and Spearman rank correlation. Vegetable alley management in Yogyakarta was rated "good" across planning, organizing, mobilizing, and controlling activities. Farming experience, the role of extension workers, the role of group leaders, member participation, and knowledge were significantly correlated with management quality, while education level showed no significant relationship. The study states that vegetable alley implementation contributes to climate change mitigation by increasing green cover, enhancing carbon sequestration, and reducing the carbon footprint from food transportation.

Marlina Marlina, Muhammad Hafizh, Putra Jaya Gea, Yovi Avianto · Abdimas Galuh · Indonesia

A community outreach program at the KWT Sumber Rejeki women farmers' group production garden in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, held on November 26, 2024 (Abdimas Galuh, 2025), delivered counseling and hands-on training on preparing and applying a natural bactericide made from aloe vera waste to address bacterial wilt disease in chili cultivation. Reported outcomes were increased member knowledge and skill regarding bactericide definitions, benefits, natural ingredients, production technique, and application method, with high participant engagement. The program's authors note that the effectiveness of the aloe vera bactericide in actually suppressing Ralstonia solanacearum growth had not yet been evaluated and recommend this, along with testing on other horticultural crops, as follow-up work.

William D. Schanbacher, Joe Bohn, Erica Hall · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

A reflective essay (2025) recounts a pilot, public-facing virtual course, "Introduction to Food Policy," delivered in summer 2022 by the University of South Florida Food Sovereignty Initiative and the Florida Food Policy Council, building on prior Florida work in urban agriculture, agroecology, and food sovereignty. Over six weeks, the course featured weekly presentations from food-system specialists on: understanding food policy, researching food policy, environmental food policy, food policy advocacy, civic engagement in food policy formulation, and regional food policy, and was open to students, community members, and policymakers. The authors, drawn from Florida Food Policy Council leadership and Food Sovereignty Initiative faculty, share observations on developing and delivering the course along with participant comments from a post-course survey and an outside evaluation by the North American Food Systems Network.

Ermias Debie · City and Environment Interactions · Ethiopia

A study in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia examined the integration of urban agriculture (UA) and green infrastructure (GI) through surveys and interviews with 99 stakeholders, supplemented by participatory observation. The main barriers to integration, based on multiple-response data, were a lack of supportive policies and regulatory frameworks (87%), limited awareness (57%), and space constraints (51%). Multicriteria decision analysis ranked integrated practices as the most effective strategy (score 16.81), followed by edible tree planting at garden centers (16.18), small gardens (13.83), and fence-edge greening (11.46). Structural equation modeling identified thermal regulation and access to fresh food as critical factors for planning sustainable urban systems.

Monika Onyszkiewicz, Marta Sylla · Sustainability · Poland

This study surveys the current state of active Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) groups in Poland, identifying active CSA farms and analyzing their offers, reach, and member characteristics, motivation, and involvement. As of when the study was conducted in 2023/2024, 13 food-producing farmers were inventoried across 35 groups, reaching an estimated 1,200 people. Drawing on the experience of CSA communities elsewhere in Europe, the study concludes that an umbrella organization is needed to network Poland's CSA community and support active farmers through advocacy, education, and coordination of CSA development at the national level.

Małgorzata SIEMIONEK-RUSKAŃ, Małgorzata Siemionek · Journal of Environmental Management and Tourism · Europe

This study examines the integration of environmental priorities into participatory budgeting (PB) processes in selected European cities in Poland, Spain, and Portugal, using a qualitative case-study approach supported by literature review and document analysis. Case studies from Warsaw and Gdańsk (Poland), Barcelona and Valencia (Spain), and Lisbon and Porto (Portugal) were analyzed, drawing on academic sources, municipal budget reports, and environmental planning documents to examine how PB in each city has funded projects addressing green infrastructure, waste management, energy efficiency, sustainable transport, and climate adaptation. The study finds that participatory budgeting in these cities has funded projects including community gardens, green roofs, riverbank restoration, and bicycle infrastructure.

Hyeyung Yoon, N. Lee · · Global

Community activities in which citizens create needed activities in their own region span fields such as welfare, care, urban agriculture, autonomy, and environment, alongside activities organized by groups such as women and youth. This study focuses on the culture, arts, and media field within these community activities, investigating and analyzing cases to build "cultural communities" that activate citizens' cultural engagement and enhance sustainability, categorizing the cases and organizing the characteristics of each type, and proposing specific strategies. It categorizes cultural communities into three types — network-centered, subject-centered, and regional-asset-centered — and proposes measures for revitalization and sustainability: activating networks through weak ties, expanding participants and strengthening solidarity through multi-membership, and diversifying the use of and participation in regional cultural and artistic assets.

Christos Ioannides, Alexandra Tsatsou, Daniel Mamais, Simos Malamis, Georgios Tsimiklis, Dimitra Tsiakou, Z. Tsiropoulos, Mariarina Michailidou, Apostolos Tzourtziotis, Christina Karaberi, Orestis Raptis, Constantinos Noutsopoulos · Urban Water Journal · Europe

This study presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a city-wide pilot of circular urban agriculture across 31 locations in Trikala, Greece. The pilots included rainwater harvesting, precision irrigation, composting, and an online monitoring platform. Assessed through a mixed-methods approach using 20 environmental, economic, and social indicators, the system showed stable technical performance and effectiveness in reducing resource consumption.

Gaynell M. Simpson, Wendy Lustbader · Innovation in Aging · Global

This symposium overview highlights cultural assets long relied upon by African American and Latina communities, focused on the formal and informal mutual aid of grandparent caregivers, which it describes as often overlooked or underutilized despite being a vital source of support. It states that historically, underserved grandparents have drawn on mutual aid practices such as neighbors relying on one another, sharing produce from community gardens, exchanging skills and abilities, and standing together with extended families when other societal resources were inaccessible. Four presenters address these themes: Carole Cox presents a virtual empowerment program on skill building, social connection, and empowerment; Nancy Mendoza offers recommendations on how the cultural assets of Latino grandparent caregivers can support their caregiving; Tina Peterson examines mutual aid among African American grandmothers raising grandchildren and how support networks compensate for gaps in formal and informal services; and Gaynell Simpson addresses the need for intergenerational programs and macro-level advocacy to address structural inequalities affecting grandparent caregivers and their families.

Paola Andrea Sánchez Castañeda · City & Society · Colombia (Bogotá)

Focusing on the Indigenous Muysca community of Suba in Bogotá, Colombia, this ethnographic study, framed within Participatory Action Research methodology, examines the unique and enduring forms of colonialism that Indigenous communities experience in urban environments. Having had their traditional territories abruptly urbanized, the Muysca experience urban coloniality through mechanisms such as displacement, environmental degradation and epistemicide, while engaging in embodied practices of contestation including language revitalization, urban gardening, and occupation of sacred sites that have become urbanized. The study explores dwelling as an embodied, place-rooted everyday experience to show how the Muysca produce alternative socioecological lifeworlds within the city, and argues that these embodied practices unsettle the logic of urban coloniality of nature that continues to drive Indigenous dispossession.

Natalia Gerodetti · Visual Studies · South Korea (Seoul)

Focusing on the Muak-dong neighborhood at the foot of Ingwansan mountain in downtown Seoul, South Korea, this piece examines human-plant relationships in a dense urban environment where edible plants inhabit various growing spaces alongside residents. Building on the recognition that growing food locally can be part of socio-environmental justice pathways through walkable urban environments, urban agriculture and food waste recycling, it argues that these spatial practices also constitute social infrastructure, providing places and means for interaction, exchange and sharing. While many cities have fragmented growing activities and scattered edible plants, the Muak-dong network and its diverse modes of food cultivation are described as extraordinary, forming a literal pathway — exemplified by a map for an urban vegetable walk — that binds together urban green space, edible plants, a fertiliser station and people. The contribution focuses on the visual presence of plants in this cityscape, specifically lettuce, to demonstrate the possibilities food cultivation affords in one of the most dense and contested environments.

Chanatporn Limprapoowiwattana, Carl Middleton, Orapan Pratomlek, Marvin Joseph F. Montefrio · Journal of Urban Affairs · Asia

This paper examines the multiple urban imaginaries produced through five types of urban agriculture (UA) in Bangkok, Thailand, drawing on a co-production-of-urban-imaginaries lens to analyze how the material and immaterial dimensions of UA — through practices, knowledge production, networking and values — contribute to reimagining the future of a livable city. It identifies compatibilities and tensions among UA network imaginaries for a livable city and how these shape urban design and planning, arguing that addressing these tensions to advance equality and justice requires more ambitious, multilayered UA policy achieved through deepened participatory and critical anticipatory governance.

Jeremias Pineda, Armando M. Guidote · International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education · Global

A quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest study tested whether agriCHEMture, a home-based, urban-gardening-themed e-learning laboratory material, improved General Chemistry achievement among remote-learning high school students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fifty-one senior high school General Chemistry students received the agriCHEMture intervention between a pretest and posttest, and paired-samples t-tests (p < 0.001) showed post-test scores significantly higher than pretest scores, indicating a significant increase in chemistry achievement.

Takashi Shimofuji, Motoi Kusadokoro, Atsushi Chitose · Journal of Rural Problems · Japan

A case study of Welsh onion cultivation in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, used interview surveys of farm management and marketing channels in urban and remote areas to clarify how a farmer's choice of shipping destination in urban agriculture relates to cultivation size and post-harvest working hours. Urban farmers chose different marketing channels depending on cultivation size, and this flexibility produced differences in post-harvest work systems and in work efficiency measured as shipping quantity per work hour, whereas in remote areas cooperative shipping dominated, leaving fewer shipping options and smaller efficiency disparities among farmers. Urban agriculture's access to diverse shipping destinations let farmers select options based on production scale, which raised work efficiency for large-scale farmers in particular.

Mona ANGGIANI, Rr Diana AYUDYA, Nadia R. CHRISTANTIA, Endah MUSTIKOWATI, Annizar BACHRI, Andhi Seto PRASETYO, Gentina P. PUTRA, Asri A. SUNOTO, Ikhyandini G. ATRISYANTI · ICCD · Indonesia

In Kampung Kunir, a vertical urban kampong in Indonesia, an initiative introduced edible gardens through vegetable planting into underused, functionless common spaces to revive them as sites for residents' daily social interaction. The community engagement effort, driven by interdisciplinary collaboration between architecture and economic management, is reported as aiming to improve spatial use and strengthen social ties among residents.

Ratna Suminar, Nyang Vania Ayuningtyas Harini, Gian Sapta Andrialin · Journal of Agriculture and Animal Science · Indonesia

Against a backdrop of low vegetable consumption in Indonesia and rising demand for environmentally friendly urban farming solutions, a systematic literature review of sources published between 2016 and 2024 — accredited journals, reference books and research reports — examined the nutrient and bioactive-compound content of microgreens, their health benefits, and their potential for cultivation at scales including the household. It found that microgreens are high in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, have a short harvest period and low land requirements, that technologies such as LED lighting, growing media and seed quality strongly affect cultivation success, and that challenges remain in distribution and product shelf life.

Zandra Anciano Quirante, Eric Randy R. Politud · International Journal of Multidisciplinary Applied Business and Education Research · Philippines

A mixed-methods study assessed the viability of a low-cost hydroponic system using locally sourced Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ) as an organic input for lettuce production aimed at food security in the Zamboanga Peninsula, Philippines, examining acceptability, growth performance and economic feasibility. Estrosa and Olmetie lettuce varieties showed the best growth performance; nitrate was undetectable in Estrosa and Green Wave, while Olmetie and Invicta absorbed more nitrate with FPJ use, though all levels stayed within international safety limits and cadmium was not detected, while limited technical knowledge, material access and capital were identified as barriers to adoption.

Cassandra Tytler · · Global

A book chapter examines the intersection of place-based art practices, ecological attunement and relational wellbeing through Think Like a Worm, a project using multisensory, embodied approaches that transformed a community garden into a sensory art space. Drawing on feminist and anti-colonial scholarship, it argues for a "politics of location" that acknowledges inequities in environmental impacts and knowledge production.

TAMTIAL Ngariban, Nguinambaye Mberdoum Memti, Alhadj Markhous Nazal, Mansour Hassane, Touroumgaye Goalbaye · Journal of Experimental Agriculture International · Africa

In Sarh, Chad, a questionnaire-based survey using semi-structured interviews of 147 urban market gardeners was conducted from February to April 2025, the favorable period for market gardening, to document the practice of urban agriculture and its role in the city's sustainable development. Of the gardeners surveyed, 84.35% were men and 15.65% women with an average age of 33; the roughly 122,640 m² devoted to market gardening across three sites was worked mostly in small plots, with 63.6% of gardeners farming less than 500 m², and land was accessed mainly through inheritance (51.02%) or occupation of public land (22.45%), with 15 vegetable species across 13 genera and 8 families grown, dominated by leafy vegetables, particularly lettuce at 47% of total production. Market gardening in Sarh continues to face constraints including land insecurity, gardeners' low level of technical expertise, and difficulty obtaining agricultural inputs.

Sarah Corcoran, Rachael Condley, Rachel A Liebe, Tuba Khan, Jillian Joyce, Deana Hildebrand, Ashlea Braun · Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition · United States (California)

At a hybrid food and resource center with an attached community garden in California, USA, a longitudinal, sequential explanatory mixed-methods study of 30 patrons (mean age 45.9, 73.3% women) combined quantitative measures (survey and skin carotenoids) with qualitative semi-structured interviews to examine barriers to and facilitators of fruit and vegetable intake. Skin carotenoid levels, a biomarker of fruit and vegetable intake, were largely unchanged before and after (P = .51); among the 26 participants interviewed, facilitators cited included perceptions of quality and alignment with health goals, while barriers included mental health and competing priorities, leading to the conclusion that programs aiming to improve fruit and vegetable intake should prioritize non-diet determinants.

Ioana Florea · · Global

This chapter finds that while collective urban gardening projects represent forms of resistance against market-based food systems, the precarization of urban natures, and real-estate dominance, their everyday practices often fail to deliver on these ideals and intentions, generating incomplete, contradictory, or temporary results. It proposes a heuristic frame linking space, time, and class to review prior urban-gardening research from a political-ecology perspective, tracing how space's materiality, time embedded in plant growth, and class differences conditioning gardeners' access to space and time produce these contradictions.

Yago Evangelista Tavares de Souza, Heloísa Soares de Moura Costa · Coleção Estudos Cariocas · Brazil

This article examines the evolution of urban-planning policy regarding nature and urban agriculture, from federal legislative texts to Rio de Janeiro's municipal master plans, analyzing documents including the 1976 draft Urban Development Law and the 1979 Federal Land Subdivision Law No. 6766. It traces decades of changes and revisions to show how legislation and public policy shaped the urban environment in relation to nature and agriculture, and it discusses the challenges small farmers face amid urbanization along with environmental approaches within the master plans.

Zahara Abdul Manaf, Louise Tee, Nurul Mirza Mohamad Shah, Siti Hajar Mohammad, Abdul Arieffarid Abdul Wahid · Journal of Health Population and Nutrition · Malaysia

This quasi-experimental study involved 72 ten-year-old children at a primary school in the Klang Valley, Malaysia, recruited by convenience sampling. The intervention group received a two-month program combining a talk on fruits and vegetables, educational gardening, cooking activities, and an educational board game, while the control group received only a dietitian's talk on fruits and vegetables. Height and weight were measured to calculate BMI, and changes in knowledge, attitudes, and practices around fruit and vegetable consumption were measured with a self-administered structured questionnaire. Knowledge and awareness improved significantly among girls in the intervention group (p = 0.010) but not among boys (p = 0.272), and knowledge improved significantly among overweight and obese participants (p = 0.033) but not among those with normal or underweight BMI (p = 0.215). Attitude (p = 0.980) and practice (p = 0.233) toward fruit and vegetable consumption showed no statistically significant improvement after the intervention.

Nurulanis Ahmad, Zarita Ahmad Baharum, Yasmin Mohd Adnan, Nor Nazihah Chuweni · PLANNING MALAYSIA · Malaysia

This study qualitatively explored stakeholders' perspectives on urban agriculture (UA) toward sustainable urban development in Malaysia, using semi-structured interviews grounded in stakeholder theory. It drew on 15 stakeholders selected from different authority levels -- the Department of Agriculture Malaysia and PLANMalaysia at the federal level, the Department of Agriculture Perak at the state level, Subang Jaya City Council at the local level, private property managers, and academicians -- who were top management, practitioners, and officers with relevant background in urban agriculture, urban planning, and real estate. The findings produced a framework of action plans centred on social, economic, environmental, policy, and technological-innovation dimensions, intended to guide policymakers and urban planners in developing action plans for advancing UA toward sustainable urban development.

Getinet, Abate · National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia · Ethiopia

A mixed-methods, cross-sectional descriptive study of urban agriculture in Gulele sub-city, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, examining perceptions, opportunities, and challenges. It combined a survey of employees and farmers, in-depth interviews with farmers, key informants, and experts, and a focus group discussion with civil service employees. The study identified scarcity of urban farmland, scarcity of water for irrigating vegetables, and constraints on various agricultural inputs as core problems, alongside market accessibility issues for selling produce and limited transportation availability, even as vegetable consumption and demand among urban dwellers were rising and government policy treated urban agriculture as a current priority. It also found a negative social attitude among urban dwellers toward urban agriculture, who regard it as old-fashioned work and view urban farmers as backward and uneducated. The study concludes that the Addis Ababa City Administration's urban agriculture development sector needs to work with research institutions to address pest and insect problems and to improve vegetable yield per unit of land.