Research & reports

Lisen Hendeberg · · Sweden

This study compared Ebenezer Howard's garden city ideals with contemporary urban farming movements in Sweden through a literature review and analysis of three active movements. It found that when garden city ideas were implemented in Sweden between 1905 and 1930, much of the original ideological basis for self-sufficient small towns and collectively owned land was lost. While similarities exist in ideological starting points, their approaches to change differ.

Eva Collins, Kate Kearins · Academy of Management Learning and Education · New Zealand (Auckland)

A sustainability instructor took a graduate class to an eco-village near Auckland, New Zealand, where students observed off-grid homes and community gardens. While New Zealand students were inspired by the alternative lifestyle, two international students from China and Tajikistan expressed that this lifestyle was how they lived at home and they did not wish to live that way, preferring the New Zealand lifestyle. This indicates a limited appeal of the eco-village model to some international students.

Junping Liu · System Sciences and Comprehensive Studies in Agriculture · China (Beijing)

This paper constructed an evaluation index system for urban agricultural multi-functionality using factor analysis and analytic hierarchy process for 13 agriculture-related districts in Beijing. Based on GIS spatial analysis of function, Beijing was divided into three urban agricultural subareas according to production economy function, social service function, and ecological protection function. The results indicate that Beijing urban agriculture has an obvious 'core-periphery' spatial structure but with different function-orientation, locational tendency, and development patterns.

C.J.M. van der Lans · Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling · Global

This study analyzes the sustainability of international horticulture initiatives, including those by Dutch businesses and Wageningen UR, particularly questioning their continuity if foreign support withdraws and their viability given limited foreign currency in developing countries. Using the Multi-Level Perspective framework, two cases were examined: an Integrated Pest Management project in Ethiopia's floriculture sector and the transition to large-scale urban agriculture in Detroit, USA. The report raises concerns about the long-term economic viability and self-sufficiency of these initiatives.

Jennifer Sumner, Heather Mair, Erin Nelson · International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability · Canada (Ontario)

This paper presents a case study of Fourfold Farm CSA, an urban agriculture exemplar in south-western Ontario, Canada. Analysis of in-depth interviews with CSA members and co-founders revealed that the farm serves as more than just a source of organic food. It links urban food consumers with producers through cultural activities, emphasizing civic engagement and community.

Peng Zhi-qiang · Journal of Yueyang Vocational and Technical College · China (Yueyang)

This paper discusses the "Cross-lake Development" strategy for Junshan Mountain District, based on the spirit of Western Union and the district's current status. It proposes that the district government should integrate into the urban consumer demand, accelerate the development of modern urban agriculture, join the inner lake tourism zone, develop eco-tourism recreation, integrate into the city's modern industrial system, and accelerate the construction of an eco-Metro.

Amy Linzie · School for International Training Digital Collections (School for International Training) · Cuba (Havana)

This paper explores how urban agriculture (UA) addresses urban food security and re-establishes food sovereignty in Havana, Cuba, and Mexico City, Mexico. Havana has developed sustainable UA methods addressing organic food access, while Mexico City's D.F. struggles to establish UA's relevance amidst poverty, resource shortages, and pollution. The study examines UA development in these two societies and its relevance to regaining food sovereignty.

Juan Yun · Guangdong nongye kexue · China (Tianjin)

This article provided suggestions for the development of urban agriculture and the "vegetable basket project" in Tianjin, China. The recommendations included constructing urban agriculture in mountainous areas and the Tianjin Binhai new developed area, improving vegetable transportation and fresh-cut vegetable wholesale markets, and establishing retail auction supermarkets and market information websites. These suggestions were based on Tianjin's current agricultural and market levels, geography, and urban construction status.

Wang Cheng-yong, Wang, Cheng-Yong · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · China

This study analyzed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of developing urban agriculture in the Pearl River Delta area, China. Strengths included natural resources, geographic, and technological advantages. Weaknesses involved land resources, labor costs, industrial scale, and personnel quality. Opportunities were identified in potential clients, favorable policies, and markets, while threats included conceptual factors and the urban-rural income gap. Based on this analysis, countermeasures and suggestions for urban agriculture development were proposed.

Jung‐Min Choi · Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning · South Korea

This study conducted basic research for the development of a Korean-style community garden (Kleingarten) model, referencing Japanese Kleingarten, in response to increased demand for green tourism. Theoretical research and interviews with site surveys of Kleingarten in Japan were carried out. Results indicated that, from a hardware perspective, facilities and size should be adapted to Korean conditions and long-term green tourism demands, including adequate lodging facilities. From a software perspective, administration needs to make efforts to obtain understanding and cooperation from local residents.

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.

Celso Donizete Locatel, Francisco Fransualdo de Azevedo · Revistes Científiques de la University of Barcelona (University of Barcelona) · Brazil

A study of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, analyzing the practice of intra-urban agriculture and the municipal government's response to it. It states that agriculture within the urban fabric is not hard to identify, yet municipal legislation does not formally recognize the practice, despite its significant importance to hundreds of families in peripheral areas; most people involved in the activity have no voice or participation in urban planning and management. The study aims to analyze the importance of urban agriculture for farming families' income and to examine the extent to which the municipal government has factored this phenomenon into territorial decision-making in Natal.

Sarah Rabkin · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · United States (California)

A profile of Pie Ranch, a farm on a coastal hillside in southern San Mateo County, California, between Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Jered Lawson and Nancy Vail, together with San Francisco-based Karen Heisler, established this non-profit working farm in 2002 as a place for city youth to learn about food. It produces nearly everything needed to make pie — pumpkins, berries, tree fruits, eggs, milk, butter, honey, and wheat. Students and teachers from urban high schools make monthly farm visits throughout the school year, experiencing hands-on learning about soil, compost, weather, the cycle of planting, tending and harvesting crops, the challenges and rewards of group work, and cooking and eating from-scratch meals. Pie Ranch also offers year-long apprenticeships, summer internships, monthly work parties and barn dances, and various educational and cultural events, sells produce at a roadside stand on coastal Route 1, and works with the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) to protect the historic Steele dairy lands. Lawson is described as a UC Santa Cruz community studies graduate and former apprentice at the university's Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS), who spent a summer during college at Live Power Community Farm in Covelo, Mendocino County. The text is cut off mid-sentence during this biographical description.

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.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · U.S. EPA Local Climate and Energy Program Webcast · United States

In a June 8, 2010 EPA Local Climate and Energy Program webcast, Michael Berkshire of the City of Chicago's planning department described the city's green roof policy. He stated that on a 90°F day, the green-roofed side of City Hall stayed around 90°F while the non-vegetated County Building side reached about 170°F, and credited a sustainable development policy (started 2004, expanded 2008) and a 2008 stormwater ordinance requiring sites to retain 0.5 inch of rain or increase perviousness by 15% as key drivers of green roof adoption.

埼玉県 · 埼玉県 · Japan

This Saitama Prefecture guide on rooftop and wall greening methods cites the Building Standards Act Enforcement Order's live-load table and explains that an existing ordinary house roof can carry roughly only 60 kg/sqm once seismic force is factored in. Covering a roof with 10 cm of natural soil (specific gravity 1.6-1.8) would add 160-180 kg/sqm, exceeding that limit, so it recommends lightweight artificial soils (specific gravity 0.6-1.0) and notes the need for root-barrier sheets to protect waterproofing layers and for automated irrigation.

Zhang Ya-guang · Guangdong nongye kexue · China (Tianjin)

This study analyzed the characteristics and strategic localization of Tianjin coastal urban agriculture. Tianjin coastal urban agriculture was shown to possess characteristics such as positional superiority, industrial fusion, multiplicity of functions, essential factor intensiveness, sustainable development, openness, and ecological protection. Its functions include strengthened economic function, consummated environmental protection ecology function, prominent radiation leading function, and developed social culture service function. Key forms include seedling source agriculture, green ecological agriculture, facility agriculture, processing agriculture, sea agriculture, port agriculture, and leisure sightseeing agriculture.

Yutaka Kudo · Journal of Architecture and Planning (Transactions of AIJ) · Japan

This research examines the development processes of community gardens in Japan and discusses their "publicness" as public spaces. Japanese community gardens were introduced before WWII as a form of urban open space, similar to Kleingarten in Germany and Allotment in England. In the postwar period, they expanded quantitatively through the practical use of urban unused farmland, and are now provided from the perspective of urban environment and rural development. The publicness of community gardens in Japan has been intentionally shaped by various actors throughout their historical transition.

Mirane dos Santos Costa, Marivaine da Silva Brasil, Alberto Feiden, Adalgiza Inês Campolim · · Brazil/Bolivia

An exploratory study was conducted in the border cities of Corumbá, Brazil, and Puerto Quijarro/Puerto Suarez, Bolivia, to investigate the socioeconomic profile of Brazilian and Bolivian sellers of leafy vegetables at street fairs and their relations with urban farmers. The study aimed to identify the origin, production system of leafy vegetables, and the socioeconomic characteristics of these fair sellers and farmers, with preliminary results presented.

马国珍, 代晖军, 田昌明, 张友录 · 青海经济研究 · China (Xining City)

"Farm-supermarket direct docking" (农超对接) refers to the direct entry of agricultural products into supermarkets, connecting agriculture and supermarkets. This model effectively reduces circulation links and costs for agricultural products, ensuring urban supply and consumption safety and benefiting consumers. Although still in pilot stages in China, it represents a development trend for agricultural product production and marketing.

Pay Drechsel, Liqa Raschid-Sally, Robert Clement Abaidoo · · Ghana (Accra)

Urbanization in West Africa has led to most domestic wastewater contaminating surface water sources. In Accra, Ghana, vegetables on urban markets are highly contaminated, with about 200,000 urban dwellers consuming street food containing raw vegetables from these sources daily. This research explores on-farm risk mitigation options, finding potential to significantly reduce helminth egg counts and bacterial contamination through improved washing practices.

Mattia Celio, Christopher A. Scott, Mark Giordano · Geographical Journal · India (Hyderabad)

A study in Hyderabad, India, examined urban water capture and its impacts on pre-existing claims, particularly agriculture. Urban water appropriation often leads to conflict with existing water uses. The findings indicate that the magnitude and direction of impacts from urban water transfer on agriculture vary spatially and temporally, depending on location-specific rainfall patterns, existing water infrastructure and institutions, and farmers' adaptive capacities, including recourse to groundwater.

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.

· Engineering & Technology · United Kingdom (London)

This article describes the historical landscape of the 2012 London Olympic Park site, a 321-hectare brownfield in the Lea Valley. Archaeological findings by the Museum of London indicate human presence from the Mesolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman periods, with evidence of dwellings, skeletons, and a Roman coin. The site hosted textile printing in the 17th century, followed by petrol factories, bone, varnish, soap, and tallow works, distilleries, engineering, and chemical plants, and was used for landfill from the late 19th century. It also had strong electronic associations, with the development of the first diode valve in 1904 and the establishment of Britain's first radio valve factory in 1916 and first television tube factory in 1936.

C. Colliot, J.M. Bertrand · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · France

This paper discusses how peri-urban agriculture is influenced by urban sprawl, noting that common tools like SCoT and PLU are insufficient for rural extension services in this context. Based on examples from the Provence-Alpes Côtes d’Azur region and a CASDAR project, it proposes a future network to renew competencies of rural advisors. The objective is to foster fruitful relationships with city extension services.