Research & reports

· International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management · Global

This publication presents a table of contents for multiple papers addressing interdisciplinary aspects of climate change. Topics include the impacts of climate change on electricity generation and consumption, the role of cross-disciplinary models in the Irish housing sector, urban agriculture as a way to adapt modern cities, experiences in climate change policy-making, a climate stabilization fund, social learning on climate change among regional agents, costs and effectiveness of mitigation policies, campaign strategies by environmental NGOs, the role of sustainable buildings, quantifying vulnerability and adaptability of natural ecosystems, farming community concerns, local government risk assessment, approaches to resolving climate change, impacts on flood events, municipal solid waste management's impact on greenhouse gas emissions in Estonia, conducting interdisciplinary workshops, public opinion on climate change, and innovative multi-stakeholder approaches.

Carlos Humberto Gómez Arciniegas · Revista M · Global

This article from 2009 investigates the primary features and opportunities of peri-urban agriculture, a practice at the transition between rural and urban areas. The study aims to identify 'agricultural strategies' from significant experiences to encourage future territorial planning practices in other peri-urban contexts. The research seeks to recognize recent experiences where peri-urban agriculture has coordinated economic and social activities and integrated with other activities aimed at valorizing local resources.

Shahzad Kouser, Mr. Abedullah, Abdus Samie · The Pakistan Development Review · Pakistan (Faisalabad)

This study, conducted in 2006 with 200 farmers in two peri-urban villages of Faisalabad, Pakistan, estimated the economic values of negative health externalities from wastewater use in cauliflower production. While wastewater use appeared profitable without considering externalities, factoring in health costs strongly discouraged its use. The health externalities for a three-month cauliflower crop on 741 acres amounted to Rs 3.2 million, and for 5,283 acres of vegetables cultivated with wastewater in Faisalabad, the annual total was Rs 90.7 million. The findings indicate a significant economic loss due to wastewater use, suggesting that installing a water treatment plant is a viable option to minimize these external effects.

Abena Boampongwa, Esi Amagatso, Efua Asarekwai · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Ghana

This study in urban Ghana used a mixed-methods approach, including surveys, focus groups, and observational studies over one year, to assess the impact of community gardens. It found that community gardens significantly increased (p<0.05) the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables among community members, improving dietary diversity and reducing reliance on processed foods. The findings suggest community gardens can enhance food security and public health outcomes in urban settings, especially with integrated educational programs.

S. Al-hassan · The IUP Journal of Agricultural Economics · Ghana

Using cross-sectional data from 196 urban agriculturalists (136 vegetable farmers and 56 non-vegetable farmers) in the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly, Northern Region, Ghana, a 2009 study examined the factors determining the decision to cultivate vegetables. Results showed vegetable production in the study area was influenced by extension services, use of inorganic fertilizer (manure), and availability of farmland. The study recommends training existing extension agents in modern vegetable production techniques so they can in turn train farmers, with emphasis on quality seed production, variety selection, diversification and quality control; directing extension services toward efficient manure application; encouraging vegetable farmers to form cooperatives to network with livestock producer associations; and having policymakers provide large, suitable irrigable land for vegetable production.

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.

Sue Wells · Western CEDAR (Western Washington University) · Tanzania

This paper examines the transferability of six Smart Growth concepts to Tanzanian cities (Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Mwanza, Dodoma, Zanzibar) given their extreme poverty and agrarian base. Primary research conducted in May-June 2007 and related publications were used. The study suggests that Smart Growth strategies from the Global North may be unsuitable for the Global South, indicating that urban agriculture in this context presents both a promise and a problem.

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.

María Amalia Lorda, Jezabel Franza, María Belén Kraser, Daniel Paoloni, Silvina Raitzin, Gabriel Oscar Reiter · Revista de Lengua y Literatura (National University of Comahue) · Argentina (Bahia Blanca)

This communication provides the foundations for implementing "Park-Gardens" in Bahia Blanca, Argentina, to recover urban and peri-urban spaces. Park-Gardens are described as multifunctional public spaces, participatively managed by the state and civil society using ecological cultivation techniques. They contribute to local development, strategic planning, improved sanitary conditions, strengthened biodiversity, and sustainable resource management, while enabling agrochemical-free food production.

Wei Xu · Chinese Journal of Population Resources and Environment · Global

This study examines the interaction between the sustainable development of urban agriculture and the increase in peasants' income, treating them as a combined system. It identifies a synergistic relationship between increased peasant income and urban agriculture development, but also a competitive relationship between maximizing short-term income and ecological sustainable development. The research suggests that a sustainable urban agricultural resource allocation mechanism can foster coordination and positive interaction, with urban circular agriculture economy being a basic strategy for this coordination.

Rui Chen · Chinese Agricultural Mechanization · Global

Urban agriculture is based on a combination of manufacture, life, and ecology, emphasizing urban and rural development in step, and the co-prosperity of economy, ecology, and society. This study adopted the analytic network process (ANP) to construct an evaluation index system of urban agriculture, based on domestic and international research. Theoretical foundations of ANP were discussed, and dependence and feedback among indexes were analyzed. The result of the ANP model for the index system was obtained with SD software.

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.

Graciela Arosemena Díaz · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Global

This thesis proposes a methodology for introducing urban agriculture into urban planning to achieve urban sustainability by closing nutrient cycles. It aims to integrate urban and agrarian systems by balancing urban waste production with vegetable needs and cultivated space output with nutrient restitution. The research develops formulas to define criteria for urban agriculture introduction, including required cultivated area and organic waste reuse, and analyzes historical and contemporary green systems in relation to agriculture.

Henrik Ernstson, Stephan Barthel, Erik Andersson, Sara Borgström · · Sweden (Stockholm)

This thesis investigates social-ecological features shaping the generation of ecosystem services (ES) in the urban landscape of Stockholm, Sweden. Through interdisciplinary case studies, it showed that informally managed allotment gardens have a higher abundance of pollinators, and voluntary actor groups motivated by a sense-of-place support ES generation. Social-ecological memory among allotment gardeners retains and transmits practices linked to ES, suggesting that sustaining urban ES requires considering historical property rights, diverse actor groups, and local communities of ecosystem practice.

Shujun Li · · Global

This article analyzes the economic nature and basic function of urban horticulture, based on market orientation and the aim of establishing a green regional economy and harmonious society. It discusses strategies for developing urban horticulture and provides countermeasures to enhance its function and establish a green regional economy.

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.

Luis L. Vázquez Moreno, Emilio Fernández Gonzálvez · · Cuba

A participatory research study conducted in 2003–2005 across municipalities and representative production systems of Havana's urban and peri-urban agriculture — where synthetic pesticides are prohibited in "organopónico" and other orchard systems — characterized farmers' pest management practices. Farmers were found to have adopted agroecological innovations including managing floristic diversity, crop rotations and associations, corn and other plant barriers, repellent plants, peripheral live fences, natural-enemy reservoirs, biopesticide applications, and botanical preparations.

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.

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.

Pallot J., Nefedova T. · Oxford University Press (Oxford Geographical and Environmental Studies Series) · Russia

A monograph based on four years of fieldwork across European Russia examining the scale, geography, and socioeconomic significance of household plot production in post-socialist rural Russia.

Jayakody P., Gunawardana I., Guneratne S., Clemett A., Dissanayake P. · IWMI Research Reports (WASPA Asia Project Report 8), International Water Management Institute · Sri Lanka (Kurunegala)

This IWMI report documents peri-urban paddy cultivation using diverted municipal wastewater around Kurunegala city, highlighting the practice as representative of urbanization impacts on Sri Lankan agriculture while identifying significant public health risks from untreated effluent irrigation.

Xiaolan Tang · Nanjing Linye Daxue xuebao · Global

This paper examines the sociological implications of urban gardens from an urban sociology perspective. It discusses traditional gardens as collective memory, modern gardens as urban development symbols, and new gardens as shared social spaces. The paper also explores the future urbanization trend of natural ecology and offers suggestions for addressing challenges in urban gardening development.

Bertha Camacho Tuckermann · Knowledge Management for Development Journal · Cuba

An action-research study within an Urban Agriculture project in Cuba identified challenges in integrating learning and change into the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of development projects. The main challenge was that the project team did not recognize M&E as a learning tool, believing results could be used against their work. A lack of time for learning and knowledge sharing was another observed challenge. To address these, resistance was overcome through dialogue, reflection, and action, leading to team empowerment, and the role of an external facilitator proved key in steering the learning process.

Huang Ying · · Global

This paper compares the origins and functions of urban agriculture (UA) in various countries. It notes that UA is flourishing globally, with its origins, evolution, and modalities differing across nations due to diverse natural, economic, and social conditions. The study aims to better develop UA by examining these characteristics in typical countries.

Susan Thompson, Linda Corkery, Bruce Judd · · Australia (Sydney)

This research investigated a community garden scheme within a large high-rise public housing estate in Sydney's inner west, Australia, as part of an urban renewal program. The study found that the project yielded a broad range of positive physical and psychological well-being outcomes for tenants, including opportunities for relaxation, physical activity, socialization, cultural exchange, learning horticulture, and access to low-cost fresh produce. The findings confirm that community gardens can significantly enhance physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being, contributing to healthy and socially sustainable communities.