Research & reports

Francisco Magalhães Araújo dos Santos, Eduardo Borges Chaves, Geane Andrade Carreiro, Marília S. Lima, Ewerton Gasparetto Silva, Cristovam Alves de Lima · · Brazil

This report describes a university extension activity at the community garden run by the Pastoral da Crianca (Children's Pastoral) in Uruçuí, Piauí state, Brazil — an organization active in the municipality for over 20 years, assisting more than 200 vulnerable children, with its garden managed by 14 members. Lacking a rational irrigation system and relying only on manual watering cans, the garden required heavy labor and imprecise water application and had not reached its maximum productive potential. After community sensitization and a topographic survey to size the system, a localized microsprinkler irrigation system was installed, with the executing team maintaining the garden through bed cleaning, weeding and irrigation management. Following installation, evaluation by the members managing the garden found reduced physical labor, decreased production losses during dry periods, and higher product quality that translated into increased earnings channeled back to those assisted by the Pastoral da Crianca, along with greater environmental awareness through more efficient water use.

Heather McIlvaine-Newsad, Rob Porter · Journal of Park and Recreation Administration · United States

This study describes how the creation of community gardens in four distinct communities in Puerto Rico led to a wide variety of socially just benefits, including recreation and food production, for participants. Ethnographic research conducted in Puerto Rico from 2016 to 2019 examined the role of community gardens before and after Hurricane Maria. The authors conclude that while these gardens may have been established for one purpose, that purpose evolved over time to meet the multiple needs and desires of participants. The main reason for creating the gardens was a desire to grow vegetables in a manner emulating the practices of Taino and Jibaro ancestors, with replicating a sustainable, environmentally friendly way of farming serving both as a statement about wanting to live in harmony with the land and a political statement about Puerto Rico's status in relation to the United States. Participants learned agroecology practices while creating spaces for leisure and social activities, and over time other forms of environmental and cultural education were incorporated; gardening together, people engaged in causes such as building renewable energy, strengthening intergenerational social bonds, and environmental and social activism. The bonds formed in these spaces prior to the hurricane produced knowledge, labor and infrastructure that helped these communities navigate the effects of Hurricane Maria.

Géraldine Brown, Nathan Kerrigan, Jana Fried · Pure (Coventry University) · United Kingdom

This report presents an evaluation, conducted by a team of Coventry University researchers, of Garden Organic's London Food Poverty Project (LFPP) in Southwark, London, UK, which adapts the organization's Master Gardener Programme. Prior independent evaluations of the Master Gardener Programme had identified positive outcomes for volunteers, communities, households, and substance-misusing prisoners across health and wellbeing, skills and employability, community life, food eating and buying, food recycling and composting, relationship building, and recovery support. Funded by the Hirschmann Foundation, the LFPP aimed to build resilience and knowledge in an urban locality identified as an area of deprivation, targeting individuals and families across Southwark communities at risk of or experiencing food poverty, using an approach that encourages participation in food growing and cooking on a low income. The report is organized into four sections: background context, the collaborative community research approach, key findings on community growing, cooking, and networks, and reflections and learning points.

Jake Mowrer, Jeremy Merrill, Don Conlee, Joseph Marble, Bruce Dvorak · Journal of Living Architecture · Global

Against the backdrop of urban agriculture's potential to benefit inner-city communities by reducing food transport distance, raising awareness of food production, and improving nutrition, health, and economic status, this study grew green beans, cantaloupe, eggplant, squash, and tomatoes in a rooftop garden. The results indicate that water source quality and rooftop climatic conditions (solar-induced temperature rise) can limit the success of untrained rooftop gardeners. The study concludes that outreach and educational materials on overcoming these obstacles will be necessary to help untrained urban agriculture farmers establish productive gardens in rooftop environments.

Adriana Rodrigues Moreira, Rodrigues, Ana Beatriz Nizer, Poiani, Jaqueline Oliveira, Santos, Luciana Beatriz dos, França, Maria Gabriela de Lima · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Brazil

This case study documents the introduction of a school garden at a municipal early childhood education center (CMEI) in São José dos Pinhais, Brazil, tracing the process from soil preparation and fertilizing, through measuring planting beds and selecting crops, to harvest by students and teachers. Data came from field research, literature review, interviews, photographic records, and site visits. The main result was construction of the garden, from site maintenance to seedling planting, carried out by staff with student help. The study concludes the garden raised environmental awareness and supplemented meals at the institution, but this is a descriptive case report without a comparison group or quantitative outcome measures.

Laura Beth Kelly, Virginia Ángeles-Wann, John Wann-Ángeles, Margarita Jimenez‐Silva · NABE Journal of Research and Practice · United States

This article describes an out-of-school STEA2M (science, technology, engineering, arts, agriculture, and math) program at the Orchard Community Learning Center, an urban farm in south Phoenix, Arizona. Run as a bilingual, project-based program, it draws on the community cultural wealth framework (aspirational, linguistic, familial, social, navigational, and resistant capital) to integrate students' and families' backgrounds into the curriculum through culturally sustaining pedagogy. The article presents the urban-farm setting as a context for hands-on STEA2M learning tailored to student interests, but reports no quantitative measurement of learning outcomes.

Haryati Haryati, Ameilia Zuliyanti Siregar, Suzanna Fitriany Sitepu, Jamilah Jamilah, Alida Lubis · ABDIMAS TALENTA Jurnal Pengabdian Kepada Masyarakat · Indonesia

A five-month training program (July–November 2019) at two elementary schools in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia—SD Model Al Azhar and SD Namira—taught students to convert used bottles, wood, cans, plastics, shoes, trousers, and oil packaging into vegetable-planting containers, run by the University of Sumatera Utara. The program covered problem identification, site preparation, training, hands-on practice, field guidance, and media dissemination. Reported outcomes were increased student knowledge and understanding of repurposing used materials into planting containers, which were then placed in a corner of the school garden.

Jair Fernando Castillo Yepes, Edward Reinaldo Pinto Ramírez · · Colombia (Bogotá)

Under an agreement between Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas and the Bogotá Botanical Garden (Jardín Botánico de Bogotá José Celestino Mutis), an internship project supported the city's urban agriculture program amid its rapid growth in Bogotá, Colombia. Using field notes, on-site observation, training sessions, and a checklist, the work identified deficiencies in the urban agriculture program and, based on these, developed an Agroecological Management Protocol for urban gardens addressing four areas derived from Good Agricultural Practices criteria: integrated crop management, good agricultural practices, environmental protection, and hazard control, aimed at diagnosing and improving conditions in gardens enrolled in the program.

Blakely Brown, Laura Dybdal, Curtis W. Noonan, Maja Pedersen, Martin Parker, Mary Corcoran · Health Promotion Practice · United States

On an American Indian reservation, a community-based participatory research approach applying a social-ecological model identified the factors that promote or hinder community gardens and the use of locally grown food, and tested the feasibility of a group gardening program for Native American adults. Interviews with nine key stakeholders identified knowledge/experience, self-efficacy, Elders, traditional ways, community values, generational gaps and local tribal policy as influencing factors. In a feasibility study with 20 Native American adults with prediabetes or diabetes, Profile of Mood States scores showed consistently more positive change among group gardening participants than among a comparison group.

Zatalini Putri Permatasari, Ninuk Herlina · Jurnal Produksi Tanaman · Indonesia

Conducted from April to June 2016 in Pandanrejo Village, Bumiaji District, Batu City, Indonesia, this study aimed to determine the appropriate planting-media composition and plant number to increase the growth and yield of kailan (Brassica oleracea var. Alboglabra) in a vertikultur (vertical cultivation) system. Using a randomized complete block design, the results showed that planting-media composition and plant-number treatments significantly affected plant height, leaf number, leaf area, total fresh weight per plant, fresh root weight per meter, and total and root dry weight per plant and per meter, but did not significantly affect total fresh weight per meter, fresh consumable weight per plant and per meter, or fresh root weight per plant.

Anna Maria Hipkiss, Sally Windsor, Dawn Sanders · Ethnography & Education · Global

An article that uses vignettes and photographs drawn from ethnographic research to reframe the methodological assumptions underlying school garden research. Applying Actor Network Theory and Social Semiotics to previous empirical school garden research, it develops a deeper understanding of the teaching and learning of ecoliteracy in these material contexts and highlights the affordances of school garden spaces. It also makes public the conversations of a small research group discussing a perceived ethnographic turn toward materiality, aesthetics, and agency.

Nancy Hoalst‐Pullen · Southeastern geographer · United States

This is a review of "The Community Food Forest Handbook: How to Plan, Organize and Nurture Edible Gathering Places," edited by Catherine Bukowski and John Munsell (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2018, 242 pp.). The book, based on observations, interviews and meetings from around twenty community food forest projects, is described as a scholarly guide explaining the social factors affecting the planning, installation and maintenance of community-scale food forests. The review notes the book's framework of "ingredients" — including function (purpose) and elements — for defining what does and does not constitute a community food forest.

Leonardo Lopes Rufino, Guillermo Gamarra-Rojas, Mary Anne Medeiros Bandeira, José Ribamar Furtado de Souza, José Newton Pires Reis · Extensão Rural · Brazil

A multi-case study based on content analysis examined the "Living Pharmacy" (Farmácia Viva, FV) initiative in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, characterizing its operating dynamics, social actors, and alignment with the state's medicinal plant policy. The FVs operate in areas marked by poverty and social marginality, handling production, consumption, and distribution of medicinal plants, with 30% also supplying phytotherapeutic demand for Brazil's public health system (SUS); the social actors envisioned by the policy were largely absent except at the FVs run by the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) and the Phytotherapeutics Center, where community members, academics, and patients partially substituted for them, acting simultaneously as producers, processing technicians, and beneficiaries.

Becky Griffin · Journal of Extension · United States

A report on the University of Georgia Extension's multitiered approach to supporting school gardens, developed to assist educators with no horticultural experience while making efficient use of Extension agents' time and resources. The approach combines a beginning-steps publication, hands-on garden training, and school garden associations, and is reported to have produced more sustainable school gardens with reduced frustration for both school gardeners and Extension agents.

Donald Gray, Laura Colucci‐Gray, R.A. Donald, Aristea Kyriacou, Daniel Wodah · Scottish Educational Review · United Kingdom

A study of a school garden project in three regeneration areas of a Scottish city, run in partnership among a teacher education institution, an NGO, a city council planning and infrastructure department, and three primary schools, used a semi-ethnographic approach to collect observation data, visual data, and teacher and pupil interviews. Analyzed through a socio-material lens, the findings articulate significant changes in the discourses and practices of learning associated with school gardening: beyond delivering curricular outcomes or practical skills, tending the gardens and growing food contributed to a learning aesthetics that foregrounds the centrality of the body in learning, acknowledges the living state of materials, and positions children's actions as ways of being and becoming in the world.

Reni Nurjasmi, Siti M. Sholihah, Suryani Suryani, Luluk Syahr Banu, Maria Aditia Wahyuningrum · Jurnal Pelayanan dan Pengabdian Masyarakat (Pamas) · Indonesia (Jakarta)

A community outreach program at RPTRA Bambu Petung in the Bambu Apus urban village, Cipayung district, East Jakarta, Indonesia, trained 20 members of the Bambu Apus Cipayung farmer group (Poktan) using pre- and post-tests alongside lectures, discussion and hands-on demonstration, covering hydroponic cultivation in basins, onion cultivation in polybags and polyculture vegetable cultivation in polybags. Before the activity, participants already had knowledge of urban farming and some already practiced polybag cultivation at home (growing ornamental plants, vegetables and family medicinal plants), though only in their spare time. Afterward, participants reported gaining more knowledge of urban farming techniques, including simple technologies, and expressed enthusiasm for applying them at home and sharing the results with neighbors.

Global Generation · Global Generation · United Kingdom

Global Generation's Skip Garden was a portable urban garden that operated for 10 years, from 2009 to 2019, within a 67-acre King's Cross construction site, relocating within the site as land was sold and developed. Food was grown in skips by young people and local business volunteers, using largely self-sustaining organic practices including composting, rainwater harvesting and beekeeping, with produce served at the on-site Skip Garden Kitchen.

Anderson C., Maher J., Wright H. · Cogent Social Sciences · Australia

Qualitative study of volunteers at a university-based community garden in Queensland, Australia, identifying enablers, barriers, and the social, educational, and career benefits relevant to sustaining institution-supported community gardens.

藤井 至, 稲葉 修武, 藤田 武弘 · 農業市場研究 27巻1号 pp.12- · Japan

Based on hearings with all Nerima experience-farm operators and user surveys, this paper analyzes how publicly subsidised experience farms support farm management and community exchange, empirically showing effects on profitability, successors and local understanding.

名古屋市 · 名古屋市 農業振興基本方針 · Japan

Nagoya's basic urban agriculture policy positioning publicly operated citizen farms — Nogomi, community and Minori gardens — and resident-farmer connections as core pillars of municipal support.

Pinilla K., Hoinle B., Mahecha-Groot A., Cepeda J. · International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics · Colombia (Bogotá)

This paper presents AgroEcoBogotá, an open counter-mapping platform that cartographically documented 47 urban agroecological initiatives in Bogotá to promote visibility of the local agroecology movement and foster solidarity networks between urban and peri-urban food producers.

Mwakiwa E., Maparara T., Tatsvarei S., Muzamhindo N. · Urban Forestry & Urban Greening · Zimbabwe (Gweru)

This study used econometric methods to analyze participation factors in NGO-introduced community gardens in Gweru, Zimbabwe, finding that food-insecure households with strong social capital were most likely to engage in community resource management, while tenure insecurity and water access were key barriers to sustained participation.

Leuven J.R.F.W., Rutenfrans A.H.M., Dolfing A.G., Leuven R.S.E.W. · Food Science & Nutrition · Netherlands (Nijmegen)

A 7-month (17-lesson) school gardening program for 150 primary students aged 10-12 in Nijmegen, Netherlands; pre/post surveys showed significant increases in knowledge of edible plants and preference for vegetables.

· BioScience · Global

Comprehensive analysis of urban agriculture's role in achieving secure, healthy, and sustainable food systems. Examines how citizen-driven agriculture can transform food systems.

Madeleine Bonow, Maria Normark · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · Sweden

Research on Stockholm community gardens. Analyzes participation mechanisms, driving forces, and municipal support role. Examines implementation mechanisms for sustainability improvement.