Research & reports

Daniel Maxwell, Samuel Zziwa · Ecology of Food and Nutrition · Uganda (Kampala)

This study examines urban agriculture in Kampala, Uganda, as an adaptive response to economic hardships. It identifies significant constraints, including institutional obstacles to accessing underutilized urban land, municipal bylaws that suppress urban agriculture, and urban officials' indifferent to hostile views. The study found that these bylaws and views are based on misleading or false generalizations about urban agriculture.

L. J. A. Mougeot · PubMed · Global

A news account covering the satisfaction of urban food needs where retail costs are prohibitively high in developing countries, reporting that 50-80% of average income is spent on food in nearly half of developing countries' largest cities, a range of 60-80% confirmed by late-1980s surveys, with urban food costs 10-30% higher than for rural dwellers. Urban household food production is described as a practice dating to Aztec, Inca, and Mayan cities, with records of Javanese and Tigris-Euphrates city dwellers growing their own food; Asian policymakers promote urban food production as critical to urban survival, and its extent is shaped by factors including rapid urbanization, ineffective agricultural policies, inadequate food distribution, subsidy withdrawal, wage reduction, inflation, unemployment, lax urban regulation, civil strife, and drought, with government agencies sometimes acting as obstacles by outlawing the practice. Recent government support is reported in ten Asian, six African, and six Latin American countries; worldwide, 200 million people are reported as urban farm workers and 700 million as beneficiaries of urban agriculture, while 25% of US urban households engaged in urban food production during the 1980s. The account calls for better comparative and longitudinal research on urban poverty and its links to nutrition, income, employment, waste, and environmental issues, states that urban planners may need to incorporate city farming into conventional land-use planning if cost-benefit analysis finds a positive impact, and notes that street food vending is an important income source particularly for women, while urban farming requires efficient use of space and knowledge of relevant technology and planning.

· Food and Nutrition Bulletin · Global

Urban cultivation is an innovative response by the urban poor to insufficient real income, viewed as a form of long-term investment. This investment requires a minimum threshold of predictability of return, and most households need seven to eleven years of urban residence to gain access to land. Variations in cultivation patterns result from differences in land access and the need to maximize the return on domestic labor time. Policy implications include encouraging cultivation, providing legal land titles for land access, and increasing the productivity of rainy-season gardens.

Bernard Hourcade · Revue Géographique de l Est · Iran (Tehran)

This research investigates the origins and current economy of the Anti-Alborz region, an arid mountain east of Tehran, Iran. Due to military compounds and royal hunting grounds, the expansion of Tehran has been artificially limited, leaving the Anti-Alborz as a remote area. In this region, urban, agricultural, and pastoral economies are growing in conflictual ways, indicating governance challenges in managing land use and development.

· Nutrition & Food Science · Global

The Institute of Biology held a symposium to assess the value of vegetables for feeding people and livestock. The symposium considered the energy, labor, and monetary inputs required for vegetable production across various scales, from allotments to large market gardens. Discussions also included the role of traditional and unconventional animal species within vegetable growing systems.

Wilbur S. Jackman · The Elementary School Teacher and Course of Study · Global

The school garden is a useful accessory for nature study from aesthetic, economic, or botanical viewpoints. While aesthetics offer strong attractions, the most important aspect is understanding plant habits and their adaptations to soil, light, heat, air, and other plants, as a garden cannot grow beautifully without this knowledge.