Research & reports

Godfrey D. Mudimu, Shepherd Siziba, Benjamin Hanyani‐Mlambo · OpenDocs (Institute of Development Studies) · Zimbabwe (Harare)

This study in Harare, Zimbabwe, examined the socio-economics of urban crop production on municipal lands, cultivators' views, and land use conflicts. Urban agriculture, a widespread practice for subsistence maize and food security, is not supported by planners and conflicts with urban land use provisions. Findings revealed a serious lack of environmental concern among cultivators, with most ignoring stream bank regulations and lacking knowledge of environmental effects.

F.E. Trainer · International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy · Global

This paper presents the "limits to growth" perspective, arguing that current living standards in rich countries are globally unsustainable. It criticizes profit maximization and market forces as inappropriate for the needs of the world's poor, and explores how to reduce per capita resource use and environmental impact through small-scale, self-sufficient economies. It suggests that access to communal property and services should replace income as the means to a satisfying life, and mentions the role of community gardens and workers in saving towns.

安晓宁, 王全辉 · 调研世界 · Global

This study examines the scientific concept of "urban agriculture." Urban agriculture first emerged in developed countries and regions such as Europe, America, and Japan in the first half of the 20th century, then rapidly spread to other developed areas. Its English term (Agriculture in countryside) originally referred to agriculture within metropolitan areas, specifically certain agricultural practices in developed nations.

Hiroshi AIZAWA, Daisuke Watanabe, Yohtaro ARIMA, Naoko Suzuki · Journal of Architecture and Planning (Transactions of AIJ) · Global

This paper analyzed the relationship between farmhouse management conditions and land possession, and agricultural land use design problems for regional agricultural development. Findings indicate that nuclear farmhouses in suburban and plain areas tend to acquire concentrated land, while those in hilly and mountainous areas do not efficiently possess farmland. It is necessary to improve farmland possession and use by lending inferior farmland from small farmers to nuclear farmhouses. In suburban areas, farmers show little intention to lend land for allotment gardens, requiring eased regulations and support measures. In hilly and mountainous areas, farmers' intentions to lend land are linked to management conditions and possession forms, reconfirming the need for regional zoning planning.

Tripp R., Louwaars N. · Food Policy · Global

Analyzes how seed laws and regulatory systems shape farmers' freedom over their own seed and informal seed systems, presenting policy choices for reforming seed regulation in developing countries.

Godfrey D. Mudimu · Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography · Zimbabwe (Harare)

This study examines the role of women in urban agriculture and perceptions of urban space use for agriculture in Harare, Zimbabwe. Despite its utility in meeting household food needs, urban agriculture is not planned for or supported by urban planners and managers as a legitimate urban land use. The activities of women, who are the main participants in urban agriculture, directly conflict with planning provisions for urban space. The study offers empirical insight on perceptions of space use for agriculture in an urban tropical environment, where conflicts can arise from different perceptions and alternative uses.

Brush S. B. · Crop Science 35(2):346-354 · Global

A foundational paper presenting three cases of ongoing farmer maintenance of landraces—potatoes in the Peruvian Andes, maize in southern Mexico and wheat in western Turkey—and the rationale for in situ conservation.

Beacon Mbiba · · Zimbabwe (Harare)

This paper addresses the implications of urban agriculture for urban management and poverty in Zimbabwe, covering various aspects such as off-plot cultivation in Harare, urban cultivation at home, urban maize markets, and institutional responses to uncontrolled urban cultivation. Evidence from Harare suggests that urban agriculture can be a counterproductive activity, highlighting challenges and conflicts in urban management.

Emiel A. Wegelin, Karin M. Borgman · Environment and Urbanization · Global

This paper reviews the wide range of options available to municipalities in the Global South for alleviating or reducing poverty. These options include employment creation, improving low-income groups’ access to justice and protection from crime, and enhancing urban services such as water supply, sanitation, solid waste management, public transport, health care, and education. The paper also outlines how municipal action must encourage and support community-based organizations, NGOs, and the private sector, and how changes in regulatory frameworks for land management, urban agriculture, and housing can contribute to poverty alleviation.

Beacon Mbiba · Environment and Urbanization · Zimbabwe (Harare)

This review examines local government responses to uncontrolled urban cultivation in Harare, Zimbabwe, covering both the colonial period and post-independence since 1980. The study finds that local authorities struggle to manage urban agriculture effectively and sustainably. It suggests new directions for policy and research to address these difficulties.

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.

James W. Roberts, C Wood · · Global

This paper proposes a three-way study for 1992, building on previous case studies in Milton Keynes (UK) and Almere (NL) that noted substantial differences in travel behavior due to land use. The proposed study would cover Manchester, Berlin, and a low-density, car-dependent suburb in Melbourne, examining travel habits under diverse demographic and land use conditions. It suggests potential changes in travel modes and trip lengths following planned urban structural alterations, such as reduced car space in Manchester, S-Bahn and airport extensions in Berlin, and light rail near Melbourne.

Jeffrey E Ollswang · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · Global

This introduction to the International City Design Competition outlines a vision to humanize cities by implementing tools over time, including narrowing streets, introducing electric mini-buses or light rail, and bold civic gestures. It proposes using pre-industrial town building principles and strategically building on existing character, with a focus on densification, incremental small-scale infill, domestication of highways, and urban food production.

Johan Pottier · Africa · Rwanda

This article explores the themes of knowledge, ignorance, and power in the context of a Rwandan development project, demonstrating how ignorance is generated through agricultural extension. It argues that agronomic services rely on power structures reminiscent of social inequality, and assesses whether the project-induced creation of ignorance leads to the displacement of local knowledge and the adoption of new methods.

Michael S. Jamison · Sociological Quarterly · Global

This study assesses the organizational cultures of collectives and bureaucracies within the urban gardening movement, finding serious underlying differences despite government assistance. Although government agencies provided resources and established projects, collectives and bureaucracies interpreted the urban gardening experience differently. This divergence in understanding the benefits and structuring the experience reveals a source of potential bureaucratic/collectivist conflict.

Martine Berger, Jean-Pierre Frust, Françoise Plet, Marie‐Claire Robic · L’Espace géographique · Global

The concept of rurbanisation is ambiguous, referring either to population overspill into peripheral rural space or to processes affecting peri-urban rural space that lead to a slackening of urban functions. Studies on peri-urban space focus on land assignment changes, social change, land issues, and the specificity/future of peri-urban agriculture. Peri-urbanisation occurs within interacting systems, including socio-economic, state-specific, and urban region systems.

Sibo Chen · Stream Interdisciplinary Journal of Communication · Global

This record announces the MA thesis defense of Gonen Steinberg, titled "Cultivating Resistance? Urban Sustainability, Neoliberalism, and Community Gardens," which took place on March 25th, 2015. The abstract provided is the title of the thesis itself.

Aleksandr Filatov · Soviet Education · Russia (Moscow)

This text suggests that school garden areas in large industrial centers like Moscow should be integrated into the city's green spaces, functioning as well-planned squares within their district subdivisions. It asserts that this integration does not conflict with the garden's designated role as a living laboratory for the school.

Congreso Nacional de Chile · Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile (Ley Chile) · Chile

This Chilean law, signed by President Pedro Aguirre Cerda on February 5, 1941 and published in Official Gazette No. 18903 (Ministerio del Trabajo) on March 4, 1941, directs the Caja de la Habitación Popular to allocate 30% of its annual funds to establishing worker and family orchards/gardens (huertos/jardines obreros y familiares) and 5% to developing home industries (Article 1). It requires gardens to be established in groups of no fewer than 20, with an area no smaller than 5,000 square meters (Article 8), and prohibits transferring, mortgaging, or subdividing a garden without the Caja's authorization until its price is fully paid (Article 17).

Congreso Nacional de Chile · Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile (Ley Chile) · Chile

This Chilean law, signed on October 8, 1936 and published in Official Gazette No. 17589 (Ministerio del Trabajo) on October 10, 1936, creates the Caja de la Habitación Popular under the Ministry of Labor to promote the construction of low-cost, sanitary housing and worker/family gardens (huertos obreros y familiares), among other purposes (Article 1). Its capital includes 25 million pesos allocated annually by the State (Article 3). The law requires the Caja to devote at least 15% of its annual income to replacing conventillos (slum tenements) and at least 5% annually to promoting family gardens and home industry (Article 20).