Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
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4122 results(59 / 165)
Kırklareli Kenti Örneğinde Kentsel Tarımın Sürdürülebilir Kentsel Gelişime Katkılarının İncelenmesi
2022Fürüzan Aslan, Yaşar Menteş, Oğuz ATEŞ · Turkish Journal of Agriculture - Food Science and Technology · Europe
This study examines strategies for integrating agriculture with the city of Kirklareli, Turkey, and its surrounding area to address problems arising from rapid population growth and irregular urbanization, using a four-stage method. Following a literature review, it collected and examined natural and socio-cultural data for the province, identified through field observation which neighborhoods were most suitable for applying an urban agriculture model, and set out implementation strategies and recommendations aimed at human health, environmental health, food safety, urban aesthetics, social integration and urban sustainability.
CommunityPolicyClimate changeEconomicsTowards a Post-Growth Food System
2022Beatriz Pineda Revilla, Sarah Essbai · · Europe
A chapter examines how community-led initiatives contribute to institutionalizing alternative food practices against a backdrop of urban-rural divide reinforcing growth-oriented food production and consumption. It analyzes two Amsterdam community-led food initiatives—a food co-op and a Community Supported Agriculture farm—in terms of their social, organizational, infrastructural, and institutional capacities, identifying two major organizational and institutional challenges, while arguing that the initiatives are increasing awareness of rural-urban interdependencies and laying groundwork for a shift toward a post-growth food system.
CommunityCSA & TeikeiPolicyPeri-urban agrifood systems and a landscape project in the southern Mediterranean. The case of the urban agglomeration of Sousse (Tunisia)
2022Abdelkarim Hamrita, Daniel Ferrer Jiménez, Hichem Rejeb · Frontiers in Sustainable Cities · Africa
A 2022 study analyzed the peri-urban agrifood system of the Sousse urban agglomeration, one of the most important in Tunisia, from a landscape perspective. It finds that clearly deficient regulations combined with uncontrolled urban development, together with intersecting political, environmental and economic factors, are threatening the survival of a traditional, largely family-based agricultural model built on mixed or polyculture production with predominant olive groves — a model the study describes as vital to the economic maintenance of many families and to food security. Using the Landscape Character Assessment methodology, the study proposes a landscape-project tool to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of peri-urban agriculture and prevent the loss of landscape heritage. It also points to the importance of integrating green infrastructure into land-use planning and to the need to promote Agricultural Parks, a protected status already recognized in Spain and other countries, putting forward specific proposals for the Sousse peri-urban agricultural landscape while insisting on the need to reform current forms of governance.
Governance failurePeri-urban agricultureFood sovereignty & justicePolicyClimate changeAgricultura Urbana, un camino para enfrentar nuevos retos: Estudio de caso de la ciudad de Palencia
2022Ana María Bartolomé Sualdea, Beatriz Urbano · Revista española de estudios agrosociales y pesqueros/Revista española de estudios agrosociales y pesqueros · Spain
A case study of Palencia, in Castilla y León, Spain, analyzes urban agriculture's potential to address new challenges facing cities. It examines the challenges set out in the city's Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development Strategy (EDUSI) and urban agriculture's possible contribution to them, calculates the potential from recovering abandoned horticultural land using geographic information system agricultural data, and conducts semi-structured surveys and site visits with managers of urban agriculture initiatives. Results show a drastic decline in horticultural land in Palencia city alongside large multifunctional recovery potential, but existing urban agriculture experiences indicate a need for dedicated managers, detailed analysis of usable agricultural land, resolution of land allocation, and greater support and regulation to develop urban farming models serving social, occupational, leisure, participatory and productive functions.
PolicyEconomicsCommunityReframing and Reinterpreting Policy: Participatory Institutions, Policy Implementation, and Mobilization around Urban Agriculture in Rio de Janeiro
2022Ezra Spira-Cohen · The Latin Americanist · Brazil
Using Brazil's Council on Food and Nutritional Security (Consea) as a case, this study examines how participatory institutions affect policy implementation. In Rio de Janeiro, a coalition of civil society actors mobilized around urban agriculture through the Municipal Consea, reframing and reinterpreting national directives originally oriented toward rural family farming, which resulted in the expansion and implementation of these programs and altered the relationship between urban farmers and institutional actors. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in 2015-2016 consisting of interviews and participatory observation, the research analyzes the role of this local participatory institution in fostering civil society collaboration, state-society relations, and institutional change.
PolicyCommunityFreeway Removal: From Cheonggyecheon to Seoullo 7017
2022Tony Robinson, Minsun Ji · Sustainable development goals series · South Korea
Between 2003 and 2005, Seoul removed its largest downtown expressway and restored the buried Cheonggyecheon stream, examined here as a case study within Seoul's "green growth" regime. Alongside other interventions — destruction of urban highways, expansion of urban forests, rooftop gardens, urban farming, and bike lanes — the city achieved a decoupling of urban growth from greenhouse gas emissions, continuing to grow while both toxic effluents and greenhouse gas emissions substantially declined.
PolicyClimate changeDie Stadt essbar regieren:Eine Analyse der Governance von Initiativen für eine Essbare Stadt mit besonderem Bezug auf Wien
2022Clive L. Spash, Andreas Exner, Stephanie Arzberger, Livia Cepoiu, Carla Weinzierl · WU Research · Europe
A study analyzing how edible city initiatives emerge, who creates, supports or impedes them, and how they develop, focusing on the relationships between city administration/government actors and civil society. Based on interviews with city administration, government and civil society actors and case comparisons drawing on media reports from Austria, Germany and France, it found that unlike community gardens, the City of Vienna does not yet substantially support the edible city idea. It concludes that edible city initiatives emerging from joint activity between city administrations/governments and civil society actors have the greatest potential to foster civic action and collective empowerment.
PolicyCommunityParticipatory Communication and Affecting Factors on Empowering Women Farmers in The Urban Farming Program at Bogor City and Bogor Regency
2022Selly Oktarina, Sumardjo Sumardjo, Ninuk Purnaningsih, Dwi Retno Hapsari · Nyimak Journal of Communication · Indonesia
An explanatory survey study analyzed participatory communication among women farmers in the urban farming program in Bogor City and Bogor Regency, Indonesia, and the factors affecting it. Using a quantitative approach supported by qualitative data, data were collected from 231 women farmer respondents via cluster sampling across urban, semi-urban and rural clusters, and analyzed using scoring, difference tests, and structural equation modelling (SEM). Results show that the level of participatory communication in the urban farming program was medium, as measured by dialogue atmosphere, dialogue participation, and degree of convergence. Factors significantly influencing participatory communication were respondent characteristics, champion/facilitator competence, exposure to media communication, and institutional support.
CommunityWelfarePolicyLUNTURNYA SEKTOR PERTANIAN DI PERKOTAAN
2022Ferdi Gultom, Sugeng P. Harianto · Jurnal Analisa Sosiologi · Indonesia
Using dependency theory, this literature study analyzes the decline of the agricultural sector in urban Indonesia, arguing that the government's focus on industrial-sector development, mediated through a central state-satellite relationship, has drawn in the modern sector at agriculture's expense, manifested in widespread conversion of urban agricultural land. Drawing on news sources and journals and analyzing data with the Miles and Huberman model, the study finds that the urban agricultural sector is fading as farmland is increasingly converted to industry, infrastructure and settlements, and that farmer regeneration has declined due to reduced interest in becoming a farmer.
Governance failurePolicyEconomicsA comprehensive conceptualisation framework for assessing metropolitan peri-urban agriculture
2022Ana Spataru, Robert Faggian, Victor A Sposito · International Journal of Agricultural Resources Governance and Ecology · Global
A paper proposing a comprehensive conceptual framework for assessing metropolitan peri-urban agriculture. It argues that peri-urban agriculture provides non-commodity benefits — food security, farm viability, environmental stewardship, and landscape and socio-cultural preservation — that free markets under-recognize, and that the double vulnerability created by urban pressure and systemic agricultural change has led to myopic policy interventions. The proposed framework integrates the concepts of multifunctional agriculture, resilience, climate-smart agriculture and alternative food networks into 21 enabling features across five dimensions.
Peri-urban agriculturePolicyFood sovereignty & justiceEconomicsCommunityDaya Saing Sektor Pertanian dalam Pembangunan Kota Tebing Tinggi Provinsi Sumatra Utara
2022LENI MARIA TARIGAN, I MADE SUDARMA, I Nyoman Gede Ustriyana · Jurnal Agribisnis dan Agrowisata (Journal of Agribusiness and Agritourism) · Indonesia
A study of the agricultural sector's role, leading sectors and competitiveness in Tebing Tinggi City, North Sumatra Province, Indonesia, over 2015–2019, using descriptive analysis, the Location Quotient (LQ) method and shift-share analysis, prompted by rapid conversion of agricultural land in the city. Results show agriculture is not the largest contributing sector, with food crops driving most of the sector's growth; the city has 12 leading and 5 non-leading sectors, with a projected future of 5 leading, 7 prospective, 5 lagging sectors and no mainstay sector. Wholesale/retail trade and vehicle repair, and health and social services, were the sectors with good competitiveness. The study recommends using household yards for community gardens, fish ponds and livestock, implementing a "Culinary Tourism City" concept, and strengthening support for lagging sectors to maintain food security.
Peri-urban agricultureEconomicsPolicyFood sovereignty & justiceAnalysis of Factors Affecting Community Participation Expectations on Sustainability Urban Farming in Jakarta City
2022M. Noor Salim, Edi Wibowo, Darwati Susilastuti, Tungga Buana Diana · International Journal of Science and Society · Indonesia
Based on a survey of 112 residents engaged in urban agriculture in Jakarta City, Indonesia, this study analyzed how economic, health, and environmental variables affect community expectations for participation in sustainable urban farming. All three variables, both individually and jointly, positively influenced participation expectations, with an adjusted R-squared of 0.704 — the study reports that 70.4% of variation in community participation expectations is explained by economic factors, with the remainder attributed to health and other environmental factors.
CommunityPolicyCommunity Readiness of Urban Farming Practices in Malaysia
2022Nur Bahiah Mohamed Haris, Nur Amanina Yunus, Jasmin Arif Shah · International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences · Malaysia
A structured questionnaire (via Google Form) using simple random sampling surveyed 353 participants across Peninsular Malaysia, applying the Community Readiness Model (CRM) framework and analyzing the data in IBM SPSS (version 26) to assess levels of the independent variables knowledge, attitude, and leadership alongside community readiness for urban farming practices. Levels of all three independent variables and of community readiness were high, and knowledge, attitude, and leadership each contributed significantly to community readiness.
CommunityPolicyFood educationEnhancing urban nature and place-making in social housing through community gardening
2022Son Truong, Tonia Gray, Kumara Ward · Urban forestry & urban greening · Australia
A study examining the Community Greening program run by the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, Australia, for the past two decades, at six new community gardens built in social housing communities in New South Wales. It used focus group interviews with residents and questionnaires with program staff. Participant narratives showed the gardens function as sites for knowledge generation and connection to nature, for building a sense of community, and for improving residents' sense of pride and public perceptions of public housing. The findings suggest community gardens enhance green infrastructure and support place-making in social housing estates and their surrounding areas, and the study concludes with recommendations for policies and practices addressing social and environmental sustainability priorities in social housing.
CommunityHealthPolicyPandemic gardening: Variant adaptations to COVID-19 disruptions by community gardens, school gardens, and urban farms
2022Yuki Kato, Caroline Boules · Journal of Urban Affairs · United States
The disruption of social and food systems during the COVID-19 pandemic presented a distinct set of opportunities and challenges for urban agriculture. Based on 79 in-depth interviews with managers of community gardens, school gardens, and urban farms in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, this study used post-disaster "social recovery" theory to explore how each type of urban agriculture responded differently to the pandemic's social, economic, and personal disruptions. Findings showed significant differences in immediate impacts across the types of urban agriculture, with community gardens being the least affected and urban farms implementing the most variant adaptation strategies. Notable differences also appeared within each type, especially among urban farms. The study attributes these variant adaptation trajectories to pre-disaster conditions, including autonomy over cultivation space, access to resources, and connections with other facets of city life, concluding by underscoring the importance of recognizing the heterogeneity of urban agriculture when assessing its transformational capacity and potential.
CommunityPolicyHealthWelfareRural-Urban Road Transportation Challenges on Food Security in Maroua, Far North Region of Cameroon
2022Tama Bawack Ako, Clarkson Mvo Wanie · Current Urban Studies · Cameroon
This study examined challenges in rural-urban road transportation and coping mechanisms for food security in Maroua municipality, Far North Region, Cameroon. Primary data came from field observation, interviews and 261 administered questionnaires, supplemented by published and unpublished secondary sources, with descriptive analysis conducted in SPSS version 20 and Microsoft Excel 2013. Results showed that rural-urban roads in Maroua are dilapidated and inadequate, making movement difficult especially during the rainy season, which negatively affects multiple dimensions of food security. Adaptation mechanisms identified included urban agriculture and rehabilitation of rural-urban road infrastructure, and the study concluded there is an urgent need for stakeholders to improve this infrastructure.
Food sovereignty & justiceCommunityPolicyThe Interaction and Its Evolution of the Urban Agricultural Multifunctionality and Carbon Effects in Guangzhou, China
2022Zuxuan Song, Yang Ren · Land · China
Using data on agricultural carbon emissions and carbon sequestration in Guangzhou, China from 2002 to 2020, Granger causality analysis and a grey association model examined the interaction and evolution between urban agricultural multifunctionality and carbon effects. Over this period, urban agricultural production function declined in Guangzhou while economic and social functions increased, and ecological function rose before declining. Carbon sequestration was approximately four times carbon emissions. Carbon emissions went through a pattern of decreasing, then increasing, then remaining constant, then decreasing, while carbon sequestration first decreased and then increased. Carbon emissions showed a Granger causal relationship with production, social and ecological functions, and were a Granger cause of the economic function but not the reverse. Carbon sequestration showed a Granger causal relationship with production and economic functions and was a Granger cause of the ecological function but not the reverse; no Granger causal relationship was found between carbon sequestration and the social function.
PolicyClimate changeModern Agriculture in Canada
2022Olga I. Soldatenkova · USA & Canada Economics – Politics – Culture · Canada
This article discusses the role of modern agriculture in Canada's food system, household food security and the expansion of agricultural exports. It describes the specialization and distribution of agricultural production across Canada's provinces and the territories of the country's Arctic zone, with particular attention to the development of urban agriculture, noting that in some cases it is treated as an element of action plans to combat climate change.
PolicyClimate changeStrategy for Implementation of Extension Methods and Agricultural Extension Materials on the New Normal Era in Serang Regency, Banten Province
2022Asep K. Supriatna · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Indonesia
This study examined strategies for implementing agricultural extension methods and materials suited to the "new normal era" during the COVID-19 pandemic in Serang Regency, Banten Province, Indonesia. It used a mixed method combining descriptive-exploratory analysis with the Analytical Hierarchy Process, involving 37 participants in Serang Regency. The analysis found technical aspects to be the top priority criterion, with material indicators ranked as the top priority and extension method indicators second. For the on-farm segment, suitable materials included cultivation techniques for food crops, ornamental plants, fruit plants, biopharmaceuticals, post-harvest handling, fish and livestock rearing, and use of yards and rice fields, with a strategy of continuing face-to-face methods — lectures, discussions, practice, technical guidance, field schools, pilot plots and field trips — under health protocols, alongside distributing learning videos, e-modules and e-leaflets via social media or virtual learning. For the off-farm segment, suitable materials included online product marketing, information technology use, entrepreneurship, farm business analysis, marketing and partnership growth, group planning and health protocol materials, with a strategy centered on virtual extension methods, some combined with face-to-face approaches.
PolicyFood educationDo sustainable food system innovations foster inclusiveness and social cohesion? A comparative study
2022Benjamin Hennchen, Martina Schäfer · Frontiers in Sustainability · Global
A comparative study of three food system innovations — citizen shareholder companies, community-supported agriculture, and food co-ops — examining their inclusiveness, degree of member involvement, and quality of experienced connectedness. It draws on quantitative and qualitative data from an online survey, two focus group discussions, and a broad literature search. All three food innovations were found to show a rather low level of inclusiveness, although efforts are being made to overcome barriers to access. The innovations were found to generate social cohesion between different actors along the value-added chain, constituted differently in a more service-oriented versus a community-oriented model. The study concludes these innovations provide momentum toward the dominant food regime by rewarding producers for sustainable practices, establishing stronger producer-consumer relationships, and motivating consumers to assume shared responsibility, and considers the three innovations complementary for food system transitions.
CommunityPolicyEconomicsCSA & TeikeiWelfareNew Urbanism and Brownfields Redevelopment: Complications and Public Health Benefits of Brownfield Reuse as a Community Garden
2022Julia N. M. Campbell · Digital Archive @ GSU · United States
This paper discusses how brownfield sites affect physical health (injury hazards, disease transmission, chemical exposure) and social health determinants such as neighborhood social capital, and argues that reusing brownfields as community gardens reduces environmental and associated health hazards while increasing nutrition access — especially for low-income populations — community aesthetics, social cohesion, and recreational or therapeutic opportunities. It states that special precautions are required to protect public health when converting a brownfield to a garden, including chemical sampling, soil cleanup, and protective garden design, and concludes that the community benefit is worth the initial investment required, without presenting site-specific measured outcomes.
CommunityPolicyHealthYOUTH FARMERS PREFERENCE TOWARDS URBAN FARMING IN TAROGONG KIDUL SUB-DISTRIC GARUT REGENCY
2022Dea Widyaningsih, Ait Maryani, Achmad Musyadar · Jurnal Penyuluhan Pertanian · Indonesia
A survey of 40 youth farmers aged 15-35 across three sub-districts of Tarogong Kidul, Garut Regency, West Java, Indonesia, examined preferences toward urban farming between April and June 2020. Using descriptive analysis, multiple linear regression, and Kendall's W concordance analysis, the study found that 65% of respondents favored urban farming, with location type and market orientation identified as the influencing factors.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justicePolicyDigitalization for transformative urbanization, climate change adaptation, and sustainable farming in Africa: trend, opportunities, and challenges
2022Abdul‐Lateef Balogun, Naheem Adebisi, Ismaila Rimi Abubakar, Umar Lawal Dano, Abdulwaheed Tella · Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences · Sub-Saharan Africa
Against a backdrop where sub-Saharan Africa's agriculture sector -- about 23% of GDP and employing over 60% of the population -- faces serious threats from rural-to-urban migration and climate change, this desk-research study examined the potential for digitalization to enable sustainable urban farming under climate constraints. It found that most existing digitalization research is based on data from Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania, with minimal documentation of applications and prospects specific to Africa, and drew on challenges seen in successful implementations in the Global North to propose pathways toward localized digitalization approaches for the region.
Climate changeDigital agriculturePolicyFood sovereignty & justiceUsing a Multimethod Approach to Define an Urban Farming Network to Oporto Metropolitan Area
2022Luís Loures, Ana Pereira, Rui Alexandre Castanho · WSEAS TRANSACTIONS ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT · Europe
Using urban agriculture in Porto (Oporto), Portugal, as a guiding case study, this article works to recover and re-establish a continuous productive urban landscape. It expands existing urban planning policy and proposes new policy for protecting and inserting this continuous productive landscape into urban design while accounting for the urban/agricultural dichotomy and its processes, flows, and systems. Drawing on research focused on recovering Oporto's ancient rural ring, the article defines urban agriculture as a method for reliably integrating it into urban space planning, concluding with a newly defined urban farming network for Oporto that connects rural areas within the city to rural areas outside it.
PolicyCommunityPeri-urban agricultureAbout “Landscapes of Care” and how contemporary photography can help to heal a broken planet
2022Pedro Neto · Sophia · Global
This editorial essay introduces the third thematic cycle, "Landscapes of Care," opening volume 7 of the journal Sophia, on contemporary photography and visual practices addressing how architecture, broadly conceived, can help heal a damaged planet. It draws on Elke Krasny's reframing of architecture as a form of caring labor and Wilfried Wang's argument that changes such as the renewal of urban farming, decentralized renewable energy harvesting, and smaller production facilities should reshape conventional zoning, and situates the "landscapes of care" concept — drawn from health geography, the arts, and architecture — as a lens for understanding architecture, city, and territory. The piece is an introductory editorial for the issue's theme and presents no empirical data or case findings.
PolicyCommunityFood sovereignty & justice