Research & reports

Sri Adiningsih, Siti Rahayu Nadhiroh, Farapti · Acta Scientifci Nutritional Health · Indonesia

This 2021 study examines Indonesia's Home Gardening Zone (HGZ) program, launched by the Ministry of Agriculture to increase dietary diversity and food security, with the aim of assessing why community gardeners participate in the program and exploring its potential impacts on community and household food security.

Gerelene Jagganath · The Oriental Anthropologist A Bi-annual International Journal of the Science of Man · Africa

Against a backdrop of rising poverty and food insecurity in African cities, this paper offers an overview of urban agriculture's evolving presence in two smart cities, Cape Town, South Africa, and Arusha, Tanzania. The first part sets out conceptual background on smart cities and urban agriculture in the African context, and the second provides an overview of the smart-city development of Cape Town and Arusha specifically.

Gusti Nur Asla Shabia · BHUMI Jurnal Agraria dan Pertanahan · Indonesia

Drawing on an ethnographic study of Garten Coop, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group in Freiburg, Germany, and comparing it with CSA studies in other countries, this paper examines how CSA could contribute to Indonesia's agrarian movement. It finds that CSA reorganizes management of production resources in a more democratic, autonomous and equal way, provides farmers income certainty through consumer commitment and a solidarity economy, and fosters independence through sustainable agriculture principles — thereby indirectly supporting the agrarian movement by helping farmers maintain their land and farming operations and by creating a forum for organizing farmers and consumers.

Luciana Francisco de Abreu Ronconi, Bernadete de Lourdes Bittencourt, Gabriel Bertimes Di Bernardi Lopes · Revista Ibero-Americana de Ciências Ambientais · Brazil

This qualitative study analyses social innovation in urban agriculture in Florianópolis, Brazil, using the Centro de Estudos e Promoção da Agricultura de Grupo (Cepagro) as its case. It finds that Cepagro, through networks of diverse actors, has placed urban agriculture on the public agenda and produced significant social innovations linking urban agriculture, food security and community development, contributing to the drafting and implementation of public policy and participating in the city's public policy councils.

Cristina Visconti · TECHNE - Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment · Global

A paper examines how the circular economy applied to urban contexts, within a growth-oriented neoliberal paradigm, tends to focus on environmental performance while overlooking socio-political implications. Analyzing three socio-technical assemblages—Transition Towns, Repair Cafes, and Community Gardens—as cases, it develops a counter-perspective grounded in degrowth debates and identifies the effectiveness of urban practices where circularity extends beyond purely economic interactions or eco-efficiency parameters, outlining the potential for a 'degrowing circular city' based on inclusiveness, social justice, and reciprocity.

Nur Surayya Mohd Saudi, Mohd Nor Yahaya, Muzafar Shah Habibullah, Baharom Abdul Hamid, Muhammad Amirul Azlan, Mohd Haizam Mohd Saudi · Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry · Malaysia

A study on Malaysia's Movement Control Order (MCO) noted the extension may effectively contain the pandemic's spread but is expected to have a devastating impact on food security, and proposed urban farming as a means of generating household income and food security for the low-income B40 group. Econometric modeling of the effect of lockdown measures and COVID-19 on selected vegetable prices found that not all vegetables reacted uniformly to lockdown measures; price increases were associated with reduced household purchases and income, denying people access to food security. While the substitutability of vegetables allowed some switching to cheaper options, the study states that higher food prices themselves deny people access to food security.

Mosen Farhangi, Sara Farhangi, Paulien C. H. van de Vlasakker, G.J. Carsjens · Land · Iran

An exploratory case study of Rafsanjan county, Kerman province, Iran—where agriculture, one of the sectors most vulnerable to water scarcity and climate change, is losing pistachio orchards to water shortages—analyzed the actor network behind the rise of high-tech urban agriculture and examined the role of technology in supporting citizen participation in local urban planning. Against a backdrop where modernizing irrigation and transferring water from other regions had failed to succeed, data gathered through observation, document study, and in-depth interviews with farmers, planners, researchers, and policymakers showed that governmental planning bodies such as the Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO) and the 10-year greenhouse development plan were the most influential actors in the transition, reconfiguring relationships with the private sector, knowledge institutes, and farmers in ways that strengthened participatory decision-making in local urban planning.

Bethan R. Mead, Jessica Davies, Natalia Falagán, Sofia Kourmpetli, Lingxuan Liu, Charlotte A. Hardman · Emerald Open Research · United Kingdom

A cross-sectional online survey conducted during the UK national lockdown in March–April 2020 measured home food growing, perceived food insecurity, well-being and opinions of urban agriculture (UA). Participants were 477 UK-based adults (369 female, mean age 39.57 ± 13.36 years), of whom 152 had been engaged in home food growing before the pandemic; responses were compared with a separate sample collected before the pandemic (N=583). Participants who engaged in home food growing had lower food insecurity (U=19894.50, z=−3.649, p<0.001, r=−0.167) and higher well-being (U=19566.50, z=−3.666, p<0.001, r=−0.168) than those who did not grow food at home. Perceived food insecurity partially mediated the relationship between home food growing and well-being. Opinions of UA showed no difference compared with the pre-pandemic sample. Home food growing may have had a protective effect on perceived food security and well-being in the early stages of the pandemic, and opinions of UA remained positive and unchanged relative to pre-pandemic levels.

Elia Apostolopoulou · · Europe (Greece)

Focusing on the two largest Greek cities, Athens and Thessaloniki, this study examines why urban community gardening surged after the 2008 financial crash, drawing on urban political ecology, radical social and urban geography, and qualitative social research. Greece is treated as a distinctive case: it saw this post-2008 increase in community gardening without having a prior long history of the practice, unlike parts of the Global South. The author concludes that the creation of community gardens is tied to rising inequality in European cities in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, functioning both as an act of disobedience against the grabbing of public land and as a demand for reclaiming the urban commons.

Santiago Restrepo Vélez, Jairo Mauricio Velásquez Posada · Revista de la Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas · Global

A paper presenting the experiences and results of a research project titled "Design and creation of urban agricultural garden practices and systems." It frames urban agriculture as a tool for institutional and non-governmental political actors, and concludes by analyzing the role gardens have played during the COVID-19 period.

N. R. Madeira, Valdely Ferreira Kinupp, Lídio Coradin · · Brazil

This book chapter brings together reflections on neglected and underutilized species (NUS) in Brazil — plants popularly known today as "non-conventional edible plants" (PANC in Portuguese) — discussing the historical context of their use in this continental country with enormous biodiversity and cultural diversity. It highlights significant efforts undertaken to spread knowledge of and rescue and promote the use and conservation of NUS, and addresses related issues of agroecology, climate change, urban agriculture, local production, nutrition, gastronomy and food sovereignty.

Farida Rahmawati, Ana Chusniatul Hidayah, Aida Nur Faizah, Ahmad Falahuddin, Muhammad Adryan Okuputra · Journal of Social Development Studies · Indonesia

This study examined the actions and innovations of Gelar Gulung, a citizen movement in Tegalweru Village, Tegalrejo District, Yogyakarta City, Indonesia, aimed at meeting residents' food needs independently during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a descriptive method with qualitative data gathered through observation, interviews, and literature review, the study identified five categories of action: (a) participatory mapping of self-reliant residents, (b) food emergency response, (c) social action for economic independence, (d) livelihood network building, and (e) urban farming (food-stock gardening). The report states these activities received a positive response from stakeholders, having increased food security during the pandemic and supported long-term economic independence.

Kathryn Jackson · Environmental Justice · United States

Drawing on growing spaces in Camden, NJ, and Philadelphia, PA, this study applies a Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ) framework to examine how radical urban growing spaces contribute to the struggle for Black liberation amid state-sanctioned racial violence, environmental racism, and COVID-19-related health disparities and food apartheid. It identifies two findings: (1) growers create space that confronts and rectifies the violence of antiblack racism, and (2) redevelopment and white space act as a form of violence that undercuts the work of Black liberation.

Samuel Ziem Bonye, Gordon Yenglier Yiridomoh, Emmanuel Kanchebe Derbile · International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development · Africa

A mixed-methods study in Wa Municipality, Ghana, examined how peri-urban agricultural land use change affected farmers' food security, surveying 235 smallholder farmers with questionnaires, interviews and GIS-based historical data. Over the past three decades, peri-urban agricultural land was drastically lost to residential and infrastructural development, and this land use change resulted in food insecurity, with most smallholder farmers unable to meet their food needs over the past decade.

Deni Irfayanti, Putri Wahyu Ningsih · Jurnal Pembelajaran Pemberdayaan Masyarakat (JP2M) · Indonesia

A report on a community-service program (KKN-PPM) run by Universitas Islam Malang (UNISMA) as part of its COVID-19 response in Telanaipura District, Jambi City, Indonesia. To secure protein intake for middle-class households during the pandemic, participants used small plots of land around homes to raise catfish and grow vegetables such as water spinach through "budikdamber" (bucket-based fish farming). The output was used to meet household food needs and support local household economics; the report states this urban-farming activity strengthened both food security and community mutual-aid ties.

Harneet Kaur Dhillon, Alyssa Thorman, Jordan A. Franchina · Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition · United States

A report on a community-garden-and-food-pantry project to ease food insecurity among medical students at the University of Utah. Medical students planted and maintained a 400-square-foot garden and hosted numerous skills workshops; volunteers harvested 250 pounds of produce, and the food pantry managed distribution of over 6,500 pounds of other donated food items. The sustainable garden and pantry provided a significant amount of no-cost healthy food to students, and the study states that the scale of student involvement and food utilization demonstrates the need for novel strategies to address medical student food insecurity.

Paulo Germán García Murillo, Laura Belkis Parada Romero, Juana Yaira Martín Perico · · Colombia

In Bogotá's Teusaquillo locality, Colombia, an urban agriculture project was carried out in 2021 with teachers and fifth-grade students at Colegio El Carmelo during the pandemic, aiming to build awareness of STEAM competencies (environmental, technological, pedagogical, artistic). Two home-based experimental practices were designed using cargamanto bean seeds, chosen for being easy to obtain during food-supply crises, covering sustainability, STEAM and learning competencies. The pandemic period led the project to involve students' families as well as the students themselves, and the resulting reflections on food security, nutritional culture, prototyping culture and scientific citizenship are compiled as a record of the educational practice.

Paulo Eduardo Moruzzi Marques, Pierre‐Mathieu Le Bel, Vitória Oliveira Pereira de Souza Leão, Roberta Moraes Curan · Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural · Brazil

This article analyzes the motivations and strategies of actors in urban and peri-urban agriculture (AUP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, using justification theory across a sociology-and-geography lens. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, field observations, and document analysis, it examines two cases: the Milton Santos settlement spanning Americana and Cosmópolis, and the Farmers' Association of the Eastern Zone of the São Paulo capital. The right of access to land was found to be absolutely central to AUP; claims to this right, together with conceptions of AUP's roles, mobilize references to justice with ecological contours, which lends growing legitimacy to the cause and generates various kinds of support. However, evidence from the cases studied indicates that AUP is far from having its permanence and growth assured.

Maegan Krajewski · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Canada

The North Central Community Gardens, an urban agriculture initiative of the North Central Community Association in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, launched the Branch Out Project in summer 2020. Its purpose was to expand the North Central Community Gardens beyond its existing three locations onto additional schoolyard and backyard land. Despite — or perhaps because of — the COVID-19 pandemic, the project's first season resulted in the construction of eight new gardens and positively affected food access, community engagement, and knowledge development and exchange. The commentary has two goals: to provide insight into the process of community garden expansion for the benefit of other practitioners, and to contribute to understanding the possibilities, challenges, and impacts of community gardens generally — and garden expansion specifically — as a counter-neoliberal food sovereignty practice.

Henriques, Carolina Neto, Costa Pinto, Teresa, Costa, Pedro, Marat-Mendes, Teresa · Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) · Europe

This paper analyzes local actors driving food-system transformation in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA), Portugal. It compares a 2014 questionnaire survey of planning officials with the discourses of 80 public- and civil-society-sector initiatives surveyed in 2019, characterizing the initiatives, examining how they are shaping new food planning agendas in the LMA, and drawing on a framework from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF) to identify lessons for future planning policy grounded in inter-municipal cooperation and continuous mutual learning.

James J. Connolly · · United States (California)

This case study examines the leading edge of gentrification along San Francisco's Third Street T streetcar line. Bayview-Hunters Point (B.V.H.P.), the end of the streetcar line's first phase, is an ethnically mixed, working-class neighborhood and the last historic concentration of African American residents in San Francisco. While gentrification-driven change is already visible further up the line, its presence in B.V.H.P. remains comparatively shallow so far. Nonetheless, many residents and community activists perceive that a fast-moving gentrification frontier leaves them with a conundrum: remain in a contaminated, post-industrial, climate-exposed environment, or advocate for their health while risking displacement. The neighborhood has seen greening such as community gardens and a waterfront promenade, alongside inequalities including enduring racial segregation, environmental privilege, green gentrification, luxury development, climate-related health risks, and continued exposure to contamination.

Matt Hare, Ana Peña del Valle Isla · Local Environment · Mexico

Two surveys mapped the distribution of edible plant species growing in publicly accessible interstitial spaces — such as central reservations and pavements — in subtropical central Mexico City (CDMX), walking roughly 20 km of streets and identifying 36 species of edible plants including fruits, herbs and vegetables. Of five feasibility conditions for using these spaces for foraging, three — suitable growing conditions, provisioning capability, and the existence of multiple plant dispersal pathways — could be satisfactorily assessed, while two — usage and a favourable planning environment — could not be judged from the field data. Rather than improving everyday food supplies, maintaining these spaces for emergency foraging was framed as a way to increase urban resilience against extreme food supply shocks. CDMX promotes planting fruit trees along avenues, but the survey found local socio-ecological systems sustain a greater variety of edible plants across a wider range of interstitial spaces.

Dwi Aditiyarini, Catarina Aprilia Ariestanti, Aniek Prasetyaningsih, Timothy Charles Wherrett, Hardo Firmana Given Grace Manik, Katon Wijana · Sendimas 2021 - Seminar Nasional Pengabdian kepada Masyarakat · Indonesia

A community-service report on Kampung Sayur Bausasran, a pilot urban agriculture district in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where the COVID-19 pandemic had reduced productivity and community engagement. Academics from Duta Wacana Christian University (UKDW) ran an empowerment program covering six farmer groups and one Food Yard Movement (Gerakan Pekarangan Pangan) plot, addressing human resources, business, institutional, and environmental development through training, application and simulation of knowledge and technology. Needs were first mapped through interviews with each farmer group's leadership; needs differed by condition, location and land area, but all centered on agriculture-related support, and simple hydroponic cultivation was introduced as one solution. Supporting activities included beautifying the vegetable village and improving management and administration, aimed at developing the area toward education-based ecotourism. The program was well received by village officials and farmer group leaders, producing greened vegetable alleys, diversified processed products, and a website and social media for promotion. The report identifies remaining needs for more detailed mapping of each farmer group's potential and for human-resource development programs to raise community motivation for advancing urban agriculture.

Kathleen Tims, Mark Haggerty, John Jemison, Melissa Ladenheim, Sarah Mullis, Elizabeth Damon · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

A case study of the long-running Orono Community Garden (OCG) program in Orono, Maine, used survey data and personal interviews to examine rural senior food insecurity, analyzing senior participation, impact on food security status, and participants' perceptions of the program. The OCG program increased food access by delivering fresh food directly to senior households in need, alongside other local food assistance programs in Orono. Participants also viewed the OCG program as a destigmatized, socially acceptable source of food access, in contrast with other food assistance programs.

James A. Allen, Andrew C. Mason · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · United States

This study visited 14 food forests in the American Southwest — all but two located in urban or peri-urban areas — and interviewed the founder or manager at 12 of them. The sites spanned a wide range of physical environments, community types, and ownership arrangements found in the region. Despite challenges such as a hot, dry climate and difficult soil conditions, the researchers found clear evidence that food forests can be successfully established in urban areas there; beyond food production, the forests provided benefits such as mitigating the urban heat island effect, increasing local biodiversity, and improving neighborhood aesthetics, though the study notes a need for additional research.