Research & reports

Franklin Wagner, Lindsey Payne · Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement · United States (Lafayette)

In summer 2016, Purdue University researchers collaborated with Lafayette's GrowLocal Urban Gardens Network in Lafayette, Indiana, to conduct a baseline analysis of current community gardening initiatives. Using qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, they identified motivations and barriers to participation through stakeholder interviews and focus groups. The study indicated that urban gardens as community spaces may serve a greater purpose than providing fresh food, and its results informed a planning document for GrowLocal with strategic recommendations for governance, communication, event integration, and collaborative grants.

Mohd Hamezan, Intan Syafiqah · · Malaysia

This project, conducted in the Plan B area of Ipoh, Malaysia, investigated urbanized residents' interest in urban gardening and their perception of an ergonomic bamboo seating structure design. A questionnaire survey revealed that 59% of respondents lacked awareness of urban gardening. Among the proposed bamboo seating structure designs, Design 2 was the most selected by 57.8% of respondents, and younger respondents showed the most interest in urban gardens.

Karla L. Hanson, Leah C. Volpe, Jane Kolodinsky, Grace Hwang, Weiwei Wang, Stephanie Jilcott Pitts, Marilyn Sitaker, Alice S. Ammerman, Rebecca A. Seguin‐Fowler · Nutrients · United States

A cross-sectional study in August 2017 surveyed cost-offset Community Supported Agriculture (CO-CSA) applicants (purchasers n=46, non-purchasers n=18) and a comparison sample (n=105) of low-income adults with children. CO-CSA applicants reported better knowledge, self-efficacy, home habits, and diet than the comparison sample. Among applicants, purchasers and non-purchasers had equivalent knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs, but children in purchaser households consumed significantly more fruits and vegetables (4.14 vs. 1.83 cups, p = 0.001).

Yvonne Black · Management Learning · Global

This article explores a non-traditional qualitative research project that used a creative approach, specifically collaborative performance ethnography, to investigate lived experiences in an urban community garden. Working with a playwright and garden staff/volunteers, the study explored connections between people and nature and their impact on well-being. The creative method, incorporating arts-based inquiry and performance, facilitated relaxed communication with participants and provided new perspectives on data collection and analysis, stimulating discourse on community gardens' role in social and environmental change.

Victoria Holmes · Proceedings of Student Research and Creative Inquiry Day · Global

This literature review analyzed research data from 2002-2018 to investigate the effects of school garden programs on students' fruit and vegetable intake and the impact of increased intake on academic performance. Findings support the claim that school garden programs promote an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption among participating students. In one study, nutrition education and garden-based activities doubled daily fruit and vegetable servings among sixth graders. A positive relationship was shown between academic performance and fruit and vegetable consumption, but more studies are needed to understand long-term effects.

Pierluigi Nicolin · IGI Global eBooks · Global

This article describes the urban farming movement as a global phenomenon, emerging in cities worldwide from Mumbai to Tokyo, where cultivated areas produce food distributed locally. Driven largely by the poor and women on small farms, this politico-cultural movement integrates with urban ecosystems through food production, educational aims, and sustainability. It creates new landscapes that warrant aesthetic analysis and could influence urban visual conventions and lifestyles if scaled up.

A. Hegazy · Scientific Journal of Flowers and Ornamental Plants /Scientific Journal of Flowers and Ornamental Plants · Egypt

This landscaping study, conducted from 2017-2018, investigated eight school gardens in Mansoura City and Talkha District, Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt. The study revealed that most school gardens contained toxic plants like weeds and cacti, and that utilized areas were not correctly used with poor maintenance. Roof gardens and improved irrigation systems were suggested.

Nizzatul Amaliyah, Sarwititi Sarwoprasodjo · Jurnal Komunikasi Pembangunan · Indonesia

This study of the Indonesian women's farming groups KWT Dahlia Indah and KWT Nusa Indah Lestari combined a quantitative questionnaire with qualitative in-depth interviews to analyze the relationship between individual characteristics, communication climate, and participation level in an urban farming program, and between participation level and program success. Individual characteristics were not related to participation level, but the communication climate within the groups was supportive and related to participation level, and participation level had a significant relationship with the program's success rate.

Rudy Dunlap, Justin Harmon, Bradley H. Camp · Annals of Leisure Research · United States

An ethnographic study of volunteer participation in an urban farm in Austin, Texas, United States, in which researchers spent three years documenting participants' activities through participant observation and interviewing. Guided by the concept of "civil leisure," the study analyzed voluntary participation as a leisure practice oriented toward civic issues, finding that participation functioned as a means of (1) fostering self-reliance through peer education, (2) establishing and strengthening place-based social networks, and (3) addressing civic concerns related to infrastructure and food security. These findings are interpreted through Zygmunt Bauman's concepts of liquid modernity and liquid fear, and the study offers recommendations for how municipalities might cultivate residents' civic impulses through urban agriculture.

최지원, 오충현 · 한국환경생태학회 학술발표논문집 · South Korea

A study of urban agriculture in Gangdong-gu, Seoul, South Korea, reviewing about ten years of activity from the district's 2010 enactment of Korea's first eco-friendly urban agriculture support ordinance through its 2019 comprehensive plan, assessed across economic, environmental-ecological and social dimensions using Lee Chang-woo's (2016) functional classification and a resident satisfaction survey, to derive directions for the next urban agriculture master plan. On the economic side, following the district's first urban garden plots opened in the Gangil-dong area in 2009, by January 2019 there were 39 sites totaling 145,806 square meters across 6,873 plots, and in 2018 the Gangdong Urban Agriculture Support Center ("Ssingssing Dream") recorded produce sales of 348,218,000 KRW and donated 3,204 kg of produce to low-income households. On the environmental side, urban beekeeping begun in 2013 had grown to roughly 40 hives by 2018, alongside 25,923 box gardens and 121 rooftop gardens (totaling 1,828 square meters) established by 2018; on the social side, rooftop gardens at eight welfare facilities hosted a total of 107 horticultural therapy sessions by 2018.

Inés Melón Izco · · Spain

"Madrid To Go" is an architectural design proposal for an intermodal transit station in Madrid, Spain, positioned above existing rail platforms to connect two neighborhoods historically divided by the rail yard, combining a covered, climate-controlled station with a food market and a strip of urban gardens intended primarily for cultural, educational, leisure and awareness purposes, with the roof shape referencing the profile of the Sierra de Madrid visible from Chamartín.

Renate M. Winkels, Rick Artrip, Maegan Tupinio, Susan Veldheer, Smita Dandekar, Daniel R. George · Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology · United States

The feasibility of a mentored gardening intervention for adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors in a hospital-based community garden was evaluated as a way to improve diet and physical activity. Over the 2018 growing season, AYA cancer survivors tended a garden plot under the mentorship of an experienced (master) gardener and were successful in planting and harvesting vegetables in partnership with their mentors, with qualitative data used to assess challenges, facilitators, and areas for future programmatic improvement and replication.

Marco Picone, Filippo Schilleci · Nova Science Publishers (Nova Science Publishers, Inc.) · Italy

A critical essay examining an urban-garden participatory process underway as part of Palermo, Italy's "Laboratorio Palermo città educativa," launched by the municipality in 2015 to convert abandoned or degraded public green areas into urban gardens for educational activities across all ages, in the name of neighborhood community reappropriation. The paper argues that in a context of austerity urbanism, it is easy for the municipality to exploit the absence of public investment to mobilize active citizens as protagonists of urban change, and that the idea of creating urban community gardens—like other recent slogans such as smart cities and creative cities—tends to become a universally praised, virtuous development model without scrutiny. It further notes that the lack of an effective regulation governing the use of public green spaces in the city continues to create obstacles to the solutions proposed by the thematic working table. The author concludes that field-based qualitative research is still needed to determine whether these reappropriation processes conceal neoliberal dynamics that delegate a false decision-making power to citizens while using them to fill current political vacuums.

M. Mar Santiago Arca · Revista galega de educación · Spain

A report on a garden created by pupils of the 4th B class of Infant Education at CEIP Emilia Pardo Bazán school in A Coruña, Spain, during the 2016-17 school year, in their plot of the school garden. Although aesthetic aspects were part of the project, Philosophy for Children and the development of thinking skills served as the basis underpinning the entire process.

Athena K. Ramos, Natalia Trinidad, Sonja Bickford, Nate Bickford, Julia Torquati, Maria Mushi · Collaborations A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice · United States

A study conducted a bilingual online survey to gauge public support for a planned community garden in South Omaha, Nebraska, and to prioritize messaging strategies about its potential benefits. Assessing interest, perceived benefits, purposes, and desired co-located functions, the study identified the value of developing local data, the importance of an asset-based framework, the need to understand community perceptions of potential benefits, the challenge of balancing community research efforts, and the need for partnerships to expand a project's reach.

Tanushree Chakrabarti · Economic Affairs · India

A 2019 study examined the development and problems of urban agriculture in wards 28, 29 and 30 of the Chandernagore Municipal Corporation (CMC), Hooghly district, West Bengal, India. These three wards were rural before 1995, when they were added to the CMC as part of the town's expansion. A significant portion of the population remains dependent on agriculture, with fruit and vegetable crops in particular helping ensure food security for urban consumers.

Devin C O'Mara · Fordham Research Commons (Fordham University) · United States (New York City)

This 2019 paper examines the potential of urban agriculture to increase food security and education for underprivileged children in New York City, United States. Chapter 1 addresses the issue of food insecurity among children, considering information on the number of children lacking access to healthy, fresh food. Chapter 2 traces the history of urban agriculture in New York City, from one person's rooftop to a broader sustainability movement. Chapter 3 examines the potential outcomes of integrating urban agriculture into social justice efforts for underprivileged children, covering food security, education, and physical and mental health. Chapter 4 analyzes how incorporating urban agriculture into future sustainable infrastructure could benefit everyone, not only children. Drawing on the preceding chapters, Chapter 5 offers recommendations for creating greater access to urban agriculture for children.

Shawna Holmes · Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l alimentation · Canada

Interviews with school food environment staff across Canada examined how provincial nutrition regulation changes affected food procurement. While the regulations opened opportunities to improve nutrient content and involve local producers or school gardens, some schools struggled to procure nutritionally compliant food because of higher costs of transporting produce to rural, remote or northern communities and logistical problems such as spoilage. Regulations improved food environments in some schools, but others still require more support.

富子 中下, 大子 佐藤, 真紀 小澤, 徹子 藤田, 結加里 石山, 美智子 長濱, 洋子 大山 · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · Japan

A self-administered questionnaire covering 27 items of daily lifestyle habits — sleep, diet, exercise, media-related habits, and family/community involvement — was given to a total of 885 children and students across the kindergarten, elementary, junior high, and special-support schools attached to a Japanese university, with results tabulated by school type and compared by grade for elementary and junior high students. More favorable habits around breakfast intake and leftover food were found at higher grade levels overall, but third-grade elementary students showed less favorable eating, sleeping, and exercise habits. Among media-related habits, internet and mobile-email use time was highest in junior high school. Habits related to family and community involvement were highest in kindergarten and declined through elementary and junior high grades, but rose with grade level in the special-support schools. The findings suggest that health education for lifestyle formation should be designed with developmental stage in mind, and that its relationship to mental health and self-esteem warrants further study.

Defira Suci Gusfarina, Irham Irham · Jurnal Kawistara · Indonesia

A descriptive, qualitative study in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia, surveyed 113 households using a Likert-scale questionnaire to measure motivation for using home yards to grow vegetables and fruit. Motivation for yard-based farming ranked, from highest to lowest, health motivation, environmental motivation, social/community motivation and economic motivation.

YOUSIF ALI ABDULRAHMAN YOUSIF ALI ABDULRAHMAN · The Journal of The University of Duhok · Global

A study conducted in 2012 in Duhok city, the center of Duhok governorate, Iraq, analyzed the reality of gardens and open spaces at 10 selected high schools — the distribution of classroom, construction, concrete-square, path and allocated green space — comparing them against local and international standards through architectural plan analysis, observations and personal interviews. It found that the high schools in Duhok fail to achieve the fundamental objective of school gardens, and none had an ideal garden model. Gardens represented only 27.66% of the total site area across the ten selected schools, of which only about 52.88% was effectively utilized, leaving 47.12% unexploited without activity or vitality. Ninety percent of these schools' open spaces failed to meet international standards, and 60% remained subject only to local standards. The gardens also lacked gardening craft, with plant types, numbers and distribution left randomized.

Marjanca Kos, Janez Jerman · Problems of Education in the 21st Century · Global

A quasi-experiment with one control and one experimental group, each comprising 15 children aged 6-7, examined the effect of school gardening activities on children's knowledge of and attitude toward eating garden vegetables. Individual interviews established prior knowledge and attitudes; the experimental group then carried out activities in a school garden built in cooperation with a nearby organic farm, after which interviews were repeated in both groups. Results showed that both groups had poor general knowledge of garden vegetables at the outset, but after the garden activities the experimental group's knowledge improved to a statistically significant degree and their attitude toward eating vegetables became more positive.

Julfi Restu Amelia, Ira Mulyawati, Lisa Ratnasari · Agrokreatif Jurnal Ilmiah Pengabdian kepada Masyarakat · Indonesia

This community-outreach report describes an activity in Kelurahan Tengah, Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, Indonesia, combining training in verticulture (vertical cultivation suited to narrow land) with development of processed food products from the harvested vegetables — spinach/carrot/pineapple drink ("Batelnas"), okra/honey/ginger drink ("The Kraduu"), ginger/sesame dodol ("Dojawi"), and ginger/carrot dodol ("Dojawo") — plus training in online marketing. The technology transfer and mentoring increased participants' interest and participation in greening activities and produced new processed-food products with added economic value, which the report states could raise household income if continued.

Alfred Tsikati, Sanele Motsa · Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education · Africa

Based on external agriculture examination results in Eswatini, this comparative study analyzed 27 schools — 15 high-performing and 12 low-performing (with 38 and 26 teachers participating, respectively) — using a questionnaire validated by three experts and two agriculture teachers and tested for reliability with a Cronbach's alpha of .82. High-performing schools were found to differ from low-performing ones in learner motivation to excel academically, practicing farming in the school garden, students consulting teachers, provision of extra lessons, monitoring of class attendance and absenteeism, and teachers attending classes regularly, with the Ministry of Education and Training, headteachers, agriculture teachers, and parents also more involved in high-performing schools.

Hans Schildermans, Joke Vandenabeele, Joris Vlieghe · Teoría de la Educación Revista Interuniversitaria · Global

This theoretical article proposes "study practices" as a response to Bruno Latour's question of "where to land" amid socio-ecological transformation. It analyzes the urban farming initiative Torekes as a study practice, identifying educational dynamics of composition, problematization, and attention, and contrasts this reading with sociological and political analyses that frame the initiative as aimed at social cohesion or political subjectification. The piece is a conceptual/theoretical discussion rather than an empirical study, arguing that study practices, by enabling the creation of a common world, may offer a way of living together on a damaged planet.