Research & reports

Femi Oladipo, Chinedu Nwankwo, Ifokwe复原了你的信息,这里是我按照要求生成的3个符合要求的全名, Tayo · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Nigeria (Lagos)

Urban farming initiatives are widespread in Lagos, Nigeria, aiming to address food security challenges for low-income residents. This research employed participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions with community leaders, farmers, and residents over a six-month period. Farmers reported that approximately 70% of their produce was consumed by the local community, indicating a direct impact on food security.

Dick Foeken, Samuel Owuor · Leiden Repository (Leiden University) · Kenya (Nakuru)

A survey was conducted in June 2006 among primary and secondary schools in Nakuru town, Kenya, to examine school farming and school feeding practices. Data on school characteristics, school farming activities, and school feeding practices were collected using a structured questionnaire. The study showed that school farming is very common in Nakuru town, with almost all schools engaged in flower gardening and tree growing, over half practicing crop cultivation, and some keeping livestock.

Zhao Wen-xiang · Urban Problems · China (Fuxin City)

Resource-exhausted cities in China face serious employment problems. Fuxin City in Liaoning Province, designated as the first experimental city for economic transformation by the State Council, employs urban agriculture to allocate unemployed miners. This paper summarizes this method of solving unemployment problems and explains its implications for other similar cities.

Fasil Desta, Kebede Mekonnen, Girma Abayor, Ayehu Alemayehu · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Ethiopia

Community garden adoption and economic empowerment in Ethiopian urban slums were analyzed using a mixed-methods approach incorporating surveys and focus group discussions. Community gardens were adopted by 45% of surveyed households, with higher adoption rates observed in areas with better access to water sources. The study highlights the potential for community gardens as an inclusive strategy for improving food security and economic conditions in Ethiopian slums.

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.

· · United States (Lawrence)

The JJAMM Food Network was launched in Lawrence, MA, in summer 2006 to address three community needs: health, education, and employment. The program enabled elders and teenagers to learn nutrition, fitness, gardening, and money management, grow crops in community gardens, and sell produce to local restaurants. Although initial funding was challenging, the U.S. Department of Agriculture granted funding for 2007, fostering intergenerational interaction and relationship building.

Jonathan Crush, Miriam Grant, Bruce Frayne, Southern African Migration · · Africa

This literature review examines the complex interactions between migration, HIV/AIDS, and urban food security in Southern and Eastern Africa, noting that these links are poorly researched and understood. It highlights that while past research focused on urban acquisition and production, less attention has been paid to rural-urban linkages and their embedment in migration systems. Recent studies indicate that strong rural-urban connections, including increasing direct food transfers from rural to urban households, are crucial for urban households' coping strategies.

N. Hooton, Diana Lee-Smith, Nasinyama, G., D.L. Romney, Gertrude Atukunda, Margaret Azuba, Maria Kaweesa, A. Lubowa, Muwanga, J., Mary Njenga, Young, J. · CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) · Uganda

This working paper analyzes the actors, events, and influences affecting policy changes on urban agriculture in Kampala, Uganda, from 1990 to 2006. It reviews how and why these policy and institutional changes occurred, utilizing a combined methodology of episode studies, case study analysis, and outcome mapping.

Ariana de Lena · Occidental College Scholar (Occidental College) · United States (Los Angeles)

This research provides an overview of the environmental justice movement in relation to community gardens and examines two community gardens in Los Angeles: the El Sereno Community Garden and Proyecto Jardín. While both gardens primarily consist of Latino participants, the El Sereno garden was found to have significantly lower rates of participation. The study analyzed how a community garden can best utilize its resources to most benefit its participants and its community.

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.

Christopher Davis · OhioLink ETD Center (Ohio Library and Information Network) · United States

A master's thesis addressing persistent socio-economic inequality and environmental destruction in the contemporary American city, particularly environmental injustice, decaying historic structures, poor health, weak community support systems and gentrification pressure in impoverished urban neighborhoods, proposes urban agriculture as a comprehensive, integrated solution spanning urban revitalization, environmentalism and historic preservation. The research culminates in a project adapting rooftops in impoverished urban neighborhoods into a network of public agricultural gardens intended to beautify and revitalize the area.

Alice J. Hovorka, Damell Smith, R. van Veenhuizen · · Global

This article argues that a gendered perspective on urban food security is essential to understand dynamics shaping food production and marketing in urban centers. It highlights that failing to explore women's distinct roles risks leaving gender inequities and food supply hindrances unaddressed, countering the invisibility of women's work often assumed as automatic domestic duties. The article emphasizes women's significant role in domestic food supply, even in societies with minimal household food production, citing examples like Latin American women organizing to address urban hunger.

Marcelo Salgado, Sabrina Cáceres, Marta Basuino, Nora Gancedo, Claudio Vizia, Sebastián Rodríguez, Laura Gurría · Revista INVI · Argentina (Rosario)

This paper focuses on social housing projects connected with productive undertakings for low-income sectors in Rosario, Argentina, developed through the articulation of various social actors. Productive initiatives, supported by municipal organisms, emerged to alleviate unemployment due to the past decade's crisis and poverty in slums. The research is oriented to formulate recommendations for the participating management of social housing and its articulation with productive undertakings.

M. García de Souza, J. Álvarez, J. P. Dieste, M. Rachetti · Agrociencia · Uruguay (Montevideo)

The first census of urban gardens in the Montevideo metropolitan area was conducted in early 2004, revealing that residents initiated gardens in response to economic and social crises. The findings indicated that most ventures were family-organized, triggered by the 2002 crisis, and primarily aimed at self-consumption. Community ventures by non-family groups were also identified, and while productive practices showed strengths like high biodiversity and self-produced seeds/organic fertilizer use, unresolved issues included poor equipment, precarious land tenure, and lack of irrigation water sources.

Shawn Teresa Flanigan, Roli Varma · Community Work & Family · United States (New Mexico)

This study investigated the effectiveness of methods used by nutrition educators to promote the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) community garden project in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. A survey of 257 clients from five clinics found that less than 30% of clients had been exposed to the project, and caseload was unrelated to the promotion methods used. However, clients exposed to any method of promotion were more likely to garden than those not exposed, and importantly, clients reported eating more vegetables after being exposed to the project.

Nyumbaiza Tambwe · African and Asian Studies · Democratic Republic of Congo (Lubumbashi)

Based on semi-structured interviews conducted in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, from November 2004 to March 2005, and documentary sources, factors driving engagement in urban agriculture were identified. Structural adjustment programs, declining world prices of primary commodities, economic crisis, low wages, unemployment, rapid population growth, war, and poverty push urban dwellers into agricultural activities, while urban agriculture also serves as a source of food, income, and employment.

Mubarik Ali, Hubert De Bon, Paule Moustier · Agritrop (Cirad) · Vietnam (Hanoi)

This paper discusses how multifunctional urban and peri-urban agriculture in Hanoi contributes to solving emerging problems in megacities. Beyond supplying fresh food to expanding cities, it can provide relief and income to migrant agricultural workers, especially when they struggle to find other employment during their initial migration phase.

Julie Guthman, Amy Wilson Morris, Patricia Allen · Rural Sociology · United States (California)

Survey and interview research conducted in California during 2004–2005 examined the extent to which CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and farmers' markets address food security. Managers of these institutions generally supported the idea of improving food affordability and most made efforts to do so, though these efforts varied with institutional capacity. Some managers tempered their interest in supporting food security goals with concerns such as the primary need to support farmers.

André Mfoukou-Ntsakala, Michel Bitémo, Niko Speybroeck, Guido Van Huylenbroeck, É. Thys · Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) · Congo (Brazzaville)

This study analyzed the technical and socio-economic specificities of urban agriculture and its role in household subsistence in a post-conflict region in Central Africa. It was based on a 2002 survey of 710 randomly selected households in Brazzaville, Congo. About one-third of Brazzaville households engage in urban agriculture, with 29.5% in crop production and 8.8% in animal production, predominantly aviculture. The 1997 conflict negatively impacted urban agricultural production, especially animal production, and urban agriculture is dominated by subsistence and poor households. While crop production is mainly for subsistence, animal production is more income-driven, and constraints like input provision, theft, and soil degradation limit productivity.

Thomas Cousins · The International Journal of African Historical Studies · Tanzania (Mwanza)

Karen Coen Flynn's ethnography of Mwanza, Tanzania, explores experiences of deprivation and survival strategies, including urban farming, in this rapidly expanding city. Using a large number of qualitative interviews, the study examines changing consumption patterns, household organization of labor and kinship regarding food, and the gendered character of household labor. It also considers how street children and adults secure survival, presenting a typology of survival strategies.

Patricia Allen, Julie Guthman, Amy Wilson Morris · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · United States (California)

A research brief examining whether alternative food initiatives (AFIs) such as community supported agriculture (CSA) and farmers' markets can meet the food security needs of low-income consumers, based on interviews and surveys of farmers' market and CSA managers throughout California. The authors conclude that AFIs are not, and cannot be, substitutes for state entitlements in meeting the food security needs of low-income people.

Ángela Borroto, Águeda C. Arencibia, J.L. López, Liliam J. Leyva, Carlos Mazorra, Gladys E. Dopico, R. Maurelo, A. Caraballoso · Redalyc (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México) · Cuba

A study in Primero de Enero municipality, Ciego de Ávila province, Cuba, surveyed 19 backyard livestock producers participating in the National Urban Agriculture Program across three local council districts over two years. Ninety percent of producers received family support as a supplementary rather than primary livelihood, and 60% combined this with fixed state-sector jobs. Only 22% were organized or linked to receive training or technology transfer; average rearing experience was three years and average age was 49, with 63% wage workers, 18% retirees and 12.5% housewives. Production results were described as favorable, but practical adoption of more efficient, sustainable rearing methods was not found.

Juliana Portela do Rego Monteiro, Maria do Socorro Lira Monteiro · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · Brazil

A study of 43 urban gardens in Teresina, Piauí state, Brazil, analyzed via primary data collection and field research whether the gardens function as a means of generating work and income and improving socioeconomic conditions without degrading the environment. Most gardeners were women over 45 with incomplete elementary education, earning up to one minimum wage, originally from the state's interior, who had worked in agriculture before joining the gardens and worked them as a family. Most had not participated in training since entering the program, used their own resources for production, concentrated 70.08% of output on cilantro, chives and lettuce, and sold produce mainly on-site; soil amendment relied mostly on manure with limited chemical fertilizer, and only 36.81% of gardeners used pesticides. The study concludes that low remuneration, stemming from limited crop diversity, poor organization and lack of financing, led some family members to seek alternative income.

Amy Cutter‐Mackenzie, Kate Eastwood · ePublications@SCU (Southern Cross University) · Australia

An evaluation of the Multicultural School Gardens project in Australia, covering its 2006 phase (the project ran through 2008). Six schools took part in 2006 — Rosewell Primary School, Dandenong North Primary School, Bayswater Secondary College, Laverton Primary School, Meadowbank Primary School and St Albans Heights Primary School — and the report draws on children's research plus progress and post-project surveys. It reports the project meeting most of its stated objectives, with key contributing factors including learning outside the classroom, curriculum enrichment, school enthusiasm, health and wellbeing, students' knowledge of plant physiology and development, and alignment with existing environmental education programs. It identifies engaging the community as the greatest challenge, to be a specific focus of future work.

The Nobel Foundation · NobelPrize.org (The Nobel Foundation) · Bangladesh

Grameen Bank, founded in 1976 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, shared the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize with Muhammad Yunus, half each, 'for their efforts to create economic and social development from below'. By establishing the bank in 1983 Yunus sought self-support for the very poorest through loans on easy terms. Where conventional banks avoided lending without security, Grameen assumes even the poorest can manage their own finances given suitable conditions. At the time of the prize more than seven million borrowers had received such microcredit, the average loan was $100, repayment was very high, and over 95 per cent of loans went to women or groups of women.