Research & reports

Zhenshan Yang · 自然资源学报 · China (Beijing)

A study modeling city food footprint using supply-and-demand data, applied to Beijing over time. Beijing's food footprint grew from 11,800 km2 in 1993 to 29,400 km2 in 2010, about 1.8 times the city's territorial area, while per-capita food footprint stayed roughly stable at 0.127 hectares. The paper concludes that continuing population growth and shrinking arable land will force Beijing's food footprint further outward, and argues the city needs a different development strategy that strengthens local food supply through urban and peri-urban agriculture.

김희수, 강현경, 백승준 · · South Korea

Against the backdrop of expanding rooftop greening projects amid Seoul's rapid urban development, this study examined usage patterns and customer satisfaction and preferences at rooftop gardens of three hotels in Seoul and Incheon, South Korea. Satisfaction analysis found that C Hotel and P Hotel, both located in downtown Seoul, scored lower than H Hotel in Incheon on the number and variety of plants. Preference analysis showed that an ideal green space was expected to host cultural and community events, provide space and opportunities for physical exercise, and serve multiple other purposes.

QI Airon · · China

A study of Xi'an, China, built indicators for urbanization and urban agriculture development and applied principal component analysis and correlation analysis to examine their interaction mechanism and quantitative coupling relationship. Urbanization was found to promote urban agriculture's commercialization and scale through market effects and information diffusion, but rapid urbanization's rising population and industrial land use also strained land and water resources and degraded soil and the urban ecological environment, constraining urban agricultural development.

Fan Zi-wen · 地理科学进展 · China (Beijing)

This study analyzed typologies of vegetable production in peri-urban Beijing in pursuit of food security driven by urban agriculture development. It analyzed fresh vegetable supply sources in Beijing, identified disadvantages of longer-distance supply, and summarized five typical urban agricultural development models in peri-urban Beijing's vegetable production, including their background, operation, and management characteristics.

Kai Zhang · Journal of Changjiang Vegetables · China

This paper analyzes the Netherlands' experience in developing modernized, specialized, and marketized urban horticulture, and discusses development goals for the horticulture industry in China's metropolitan suburbs on that basis. Drawing on the concept of modern agricultural development, it proposes strategies including developing advanced technology and equipment, innovating greenhouse production technology, optimizing the organizational forms of agriculture, improving industrial systems, increasing overall benefit, and achieving agricultural modernization.

Wang You-hui · Hubei nongye kexue · China

Land-use issues in urban agriculture in Changsha City, China, were examined by analyzing and comparing the city's annual statistical data alongside data from related government departments, given the close relationship between land use and the healthy development of urban agriculture. The results indicate that Changsha's urban agriculture land-use planning needs to be formulated and completed, the land-use system needs to be completed, the land-use structure needs to be optimized, and land-use functions need to be expanded, with corresponding countermeasures proposed for these issues.

孟兴 · 中国乡镇企业 · China

A news report describes the Binhai Eco-Agriculture Science Park in the Tanggu new town of Tianjin's Binhai New Area, China, where a large glass roof had been completed and interior fitting and climate-control testing were underway ahead of its planned opening for the October 1, 2012 National Day holiday as a 100,000-square-meter urban agriculture park. The park is described as offering dining amid tropical plants, water play in what is called the world's largest indoor hot spring, and organic fruit and vegetable picking and agricultural learning in large greenhouses.

Annelies De Nijs, Pei-Chun Wen, Di Wu · TERRITORIO · China

In contemporary China, where the evolution of productive land relates to specific government policies and the nation's changing spatial conditions, a paper describes urban agriculture — particularly developed in the friction zone between the ever-growing urban and threatened rural territories — through three cases in Beijing's peri-urban periphery: Liuminying, Xiedao, and Taihu. The first two, Liuminying and Xiedao, show a major concern for sustainable production and agro-tourism but a weaker embedding in their local contexts, while the Taihu project is more rooted in its locale and provides a stronger response to the site's ecological sensitivity. The paper argues the Taihu case exemplifies an alternative to China's ever-booming and seemingly randomly placed agro-tourism sites.

Zhou Pei · Acta Scientiae Circumstantiae · China (Shanghai)

This study analyzed surface soil samples (0-20 cm depth) from a peach orchard in Nanhui, Shanghai, to understand the spatial distribution of soil nitrogen (TN, NO3-N, NH4-N). It found that NH4-N content varied more than NO3-N and TN, with TN and NH4-N variations being higher than NO3-N. Spatial correlation for these elements was moderately interdependent up to approximately 740 meters, with NO3-N and NH4-N showing patchy distributions and higher concentrations near the village, while TN had distinct high concentration areas in the east.

杨丽红 · 时代金融 · China (Kunming)

The Xishan Sub-branch of the People's Bank of China provided guidance for financial institutions in Xishan District, Kunming City, to support "agriculture, rural areas, and farmers" (三農) in 2011. Key priorities included vigorously developing urban agriculture, specifically through the creation of Yongjing Green Vegetable Park, Longtan Four Seasons Specialty Fruit Park, and Xiaocun Ecological Leisure Tourism Park. These initiatives aimed to promote green vegetable cultivation, ornamental and processed flower development, attract suburban leisure tourism, and foster the growth of rural service industries like "agritourism."

Chenggu Li · Journal of Northeast Normal University · China

A study of Xixin, Changchun, China, examining the planning, protection and control of non-constructive land (land not designated for building) at the rural-urban fringe. After analyzing problems stemming from the rapid expansion of construction land at the fringe, it proposes land-use planning approaches - integrating land space, developing urban agriculture, building landscape corridors and ecological barriers, and reserving constructive land - along with three control methods: policy guidance, classification-based regulation, and constraints on the expansion of constructive land.

Senthot Sudirman, Irham Irham, Slamet Hartono, Azwar Maas · · Indonesia (Yogyakarta)

This study analyzed agricultural land use changes in peri-urban Yogyakarta from 1996-2007, covering 922.17 ha in Sleman, 1,888.60 ha in Bantul, and 1,082.79 ha across 47 villages. Factors like agricultural production exchange value, irrigated land, built area percentage, population density, education, and land price significantly influenced land change rates, which negatively correlated with distance from the city. However, agricultural land percentage to village area, land tax, and dummy variables for Bantul and Kulon Progo did not significantly influence these rates, and the changes negatively impacted regional food loss, availability, and farming sustainability prospects.

Deng Qing-nan · Economic Research Guide · China

This paper explores the transformation of traditional ecological agriculture tourism to urban agriculture tourism in Pi County, China. It suggests that Pi County, a birthplace of "Farm Fun" tourism, needs to upgrade its traditional ecological agriculture tourism to urban agriculture to ensure sustainable development and compete in the Chengdu suburban leisure agriculture tourism market. The paper presents initial thoughts based on the county's agricultural tourism development practices.

Huang Jun · Nongye xiandaihua yanjiu · China (Wuhan)

This study analyzed the gap in urban and rural economic development in Wuhan. This disparity is reflected in differences in personal capital income, property, living standards, and the Engel coefficient of household expenditure. Unresolved past problems, an enlarging gap between industry and agriculture, a decreasing proportion of agricultural output, and an increasing contrast coefficient of industrial and agricultural sectors are identified as main causes of the gap.

Paule Moustier, Nguyễn Thị Tân Lộc · Agritrop (Cirad) · Vietnam

In Vietnam, urban agriculture significantly contributes to food supply and employment. In 2002, it supplied an estimated 44% of Hanoi's food needs, with over 70% of leafy vegetables originating within a 30 km radius of the city. Approximately 30% of the population in Hanoi Province and Ho Chi Minh City's peri-urban districts are engaged in agriculture.

FU Li-hua · 自然资源学报 · China (Shanghai)

A study of Shanghai, China, building an evaluation index system reflecting the characteristics of sustainable urban agricultural development, using a combination of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the information entropy method to determine index weights, and applying it to time-series data from 1993 onward to produce a quantitative, comprehensive appraisal. The results comprise three findings. First, the population subsystem progressively became a main obstructive factor for sustainable urban agricultural development, the economic subsystem gradually became a main contributing factor, and the social subsystem grew more important in raising development capability, while cultivated land resources became increasingly scarce and continued to decrease, constraining improvement, and the heavy burden of agricultural production's self-pollution had a negative effect on the overall upgrade of development capability. Second, the resource (R-D) composite index was not high and declined significantly, averaging 1.9090 over 1993-2006 and falling 6.00% per year from 2.5336 in 1993 to 0.5541 in 2006, indicating growing resource pressure; the environmental (E-D) composite index was smaller and changed little, remaining around 1.0000 in most years, with environmental pressure staying high but stable. Third, after earlier wave-like fluctuations, the overall composite evaluation index entered a sustained, steady climb, with a significant increasing trend in development capability.

Zhigang Wei · Journal of Qingdao Agricultural University · China

A comprehensive survey of agricultural structure and layout in Qingdao, China. It states the sector has achieved transformation and upgrading, with growing agricultural industrialization and increasingly optimized layout of agricultural areas approaching cluster-scale planting and breeding industries. However, it reports that further adjustment of planting structure faces major bottlenecks due to limits on arable land and food security: the traditional small-scale fish-farming model seriously restricts further development of animal husbandry and aquaculture, and fluctuating agricultural product markets combined with a lack of competitiveness are affecting the agricultural industry's layout. It concludes that crop structure needs further adjustment, that production should be scaled up, specialized and standardized, and that urban agriculture should be emphasized to expand agricultural functions.

Xueming Li · Journal of University of Science and Technology Liaoning · China

Using statistical analysis, a study of Ganjingzi District in Dalian, China, examined the features and problems of construction land during rapid urbanization. It found that both urban and rural construction land scales are expanding simultaneously, that rural residential land use has serious problems, that current traffic land use results in low efficiency of the traffic network, and that profits from urban construction land need to increase. The study proposes an optimized design for the structure and layout of urban construction land.

Chandra Sen · Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics · India

This study estimated the impact of air pollution on crop yields in peri-urban areas of Varanasi, India. Phytotoxic gases are known to cause major yield reductions in important crops in developing countries, and in this study all major crops grown in peri-urban Varanasi — paddy, pigeon pea, maize, wheat, and potato — showed yield reductions attributable to air pollution. Air pollution was found to reduce both the yield and the nutritional quality of the produce, and the study calls for similar validation studies in other cities and for efforts to reduce air pollution in the city to improve crop yield and quality.

邓清南, 许虹 · Acta Scientiarum Naturalium Universitatis Sunyatseni · China

Pixian County in Sichuan, China — regarded as the birthplace of China's "farmhouse leisure" (nongjiale) tourism — is described as having successfully completed the initial stage of ecological agritourism development. Facing intensifying market competition from leisure agritourism in suburban Chengdu and the challenge of sustaining farmhouse leisure tourism, this discussion piece argues that upgrading Pixian's traditional ecological agritourism into urban-type agricultural tourism is a promising direction to explore, offering some preliminary reflections based on the actual state of agritourism development in Pixian County.

Sébastien Gadal · RURAL DEVELOPMENT 2019 · India (Jaipur)

To evaluate the impact of urbanization on rural territories around Jaipur, urban sprawl was monitored by remote sensing from the 1990s until 2008. Using Landsat 5, Landsat 7, Spot 3, and Kompsat-2 satellite images, land cover changes and land use transformations in rural areas were analyzed. This analysis identified the territorial transformation of rural space towards becoming part of the Jaipur metropolitan area, indicating that surrounding rural areas are transitioning into geographical areas of urban agriculture.

Dionys Forster · DORA Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag)) · Vietnam (Hanoi)

This work aims to develop a methodology for determining nutrient flows and budgets in peri-urban agricultural systems in Hanoi, Vietnam. The methodology will assess nutrient status at farm, village, and communal levels, considering the spatial and temporal variability of crop and nutrient management. This is intended to support the recycling and reuse of solid and liquid organic waste in peri-urban agriculture.

Wang Wen-zhen · Journal of Huangshi Institute of Technology · China (Huangshi)

Due to economic development, Huangshi, China, located along the Yangtze River, has shifted its agriculture from a production-centered peri-urban pattern to a multi-functional urban pattern encompassing production, ecology, and landscape. Integrating urban agriculture with Huangshi's notable location along the Yangtze River is believed to give its modern agriculture distinct features and a promising future.

Zhen Zhong · Ecological Economy · China (Beijing)

This article analyzes the mechanism by which tourism agriculture influences farmers' income in Beijing suburbs, China. It examines the macro-level urban and rural economic processes and micro-level farmers' livelihoods, concluding that tourism agriculture directs income streams to rural areas and farmers. This process also fosters rural product innovation, maximizes family labor utilization, enhances rural capital yield, and improves market integration, leading to increased peasant income.

Zhao Shu-jie · Journal of Hebei Agricultural Sciences · China

A 2009 paper on coastal urban modern agriculture in Tianjin analyzes the essential conditions for its development and discusses basic approaches based on Tianjin's natural and economic characteristics. It proposes countermeasures spanning government support, coordination across sectors, improving farmers' overall competencies, and combining multiple development models, intended as a reference for coastal urban agriculture development.