Research & reports

Huang Xue-qun, Li Jin, Song JianHui · Nongye xiandaihua yanjiu · China (Tianjin)

This paper proposes development ideas and countermeasures for facility agriculture in Tianjin, China, based on the current urban agriculture situation. It outlines the scientific planning of three facility agriculture development zones and strategies to promote 4412 projects using modern technology. The goal is to achieve automation, mechanization, standardization, and branding in agricultural facilities.

홍석기 · 정책리포트 · France (Paris)

The "Le Grand Paris Project" proposes a major reform of Paris to transform it into a sustainable and globally competitive city for the 21st century. Proposed plans, to be implemented from 2020 to 2030, include physical spatial expansion beyond current boundaries, establishment of new governance for geographical and sociocultural integration, and a shift from a single-core radial to a multi-core linear urban structure. The project also suggests urban agriculture, agro-cities, and green car activation to improve the urban environment in line with the Kyoto Protocol.

Yu Chen, Wong Nyuk Hien · Advances in Building Energy Research · Global

This chapter reviews three major types of urban greenery: public green areas, rooftop gardens, and vertical landscaping, from systematic and thermal benefit perspectives. It synthesizes worldwide research on these types of urban greenery and provides general guidelines for strategic landscaping in cities.

Pernilla Ouis, Ebba Lisberg Jensen · Malmö University Publications (Malmö University) · Sweden (Malmö)

This article examines the cultural parallelism between biological and cultural diversity as manifested in allotment garden areas in Malmö, Sweden, from a historical perspective. Using empirical data from interviews with allotment gardeners of different ethnic origins across Malmö, it shows how people bring their old plants and exchange varieties and species. This practice is argued to sometimes enhance contact and integration, and other times symbolize difference, contact with the country of origin, or ethnic identity.

刘宛 · Acta Scientiarum Naturalium Universitatis Sunyatseni · China

Based on practical observations and a literature review on new rural construction in China, this article explores the concept of modern urban agriculture and its value and role in new rural construction. It points out that the development of urban agriculture can be a driving force and opportunity for new rural construction, but it is not equivalent to new rural construction itself. Government-led new rural construction should focus on farmer participation and achieving healthy urban-rural interaction.

XU Hua-me · Technoeconomics & Management Research · China

This article evaluates the level of Urban Agriculture Modernization in China's major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, using the Analytic Hierarchy Process method. It finds that modern urban agriculture has developed rapidly based on urbanization and agricultural modernization, but disparate development is obvious in China. The article analyzes the reasons for this disparity and various factors for Urban Agriculture Modernization, revealing the mechanism and path for its realization.

David M Ahronian, Kelly R Ashton, Erin G Bassett, Maxwell A Cohen, Victor J Czulak, Gregory S Dunbar, Brendan T Farragher, Jonathan L Gorman, Peter L Guy, Timothy J Iles, Piyawut Inthasorn, Travis A Johnson, Jonathan B. Koch, Justin J Kronewitter, Zachary B Livingston, Matthew Morano, Brian Mulvehill, Kevin Murphy, Sean P O'Connell, Peter W. Stephens, Christopher Tourigny, Bryce P White, Timothy E Young · ScholarWorks@UMassAmherst (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · United States (Springfield)

This work explores a service learning strategy within an Urban Design Studio at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, focused on envisioning Springfield's North End. The project aimed to stimulate conversation, develop green design strategies, improve services, and foster cultural engagement to enhance the community's vibrancy and quality of life. It proposes that improved physical, cultural, and social connectivity is key to achieving these goals, and identified six sustainable learning and planning principles, including urban agriculture and education for healthy living.

June Komisar, Joe Nasr, Mark Gorgolewski · Open House International · Canada

This paper describes how Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, has explored agricultural and food issues as design challenges in various student projects. These projects, ranging from community investigations to thesis projects, integrated food-related strategies like community gardens and edible landscapes, demonstrating their utility in addressing broader design challenges such as social inclusion and sustainable building practices.

Qian Jing · 现代农业 · China (Beijing)

This article discusses the integration of urban agriculture, ecological tourism, and cultural creative industries as an inevitable trend for the upgrade of suburban industrial structures and the development of modern urban agriculture, citing Beijing as an example. It states that this integration holds significant economic, aesthetic, and ecological value, characterized by the unification of resources, industries, products, and functions. The article identifies the diversity of urban agricultural functions as a basic condition for integration, and the rapid upgrade of urban consumption levels as a prerequisite, suggesting that the government should promote this integration by creating favorable policy and market environments, and talent supply.

Joël Sotamenou · · Cameroon (Yaounde)

This paper identifies determinants of domestic waste recycling and use in three swamp areas of Yaounde, Cameroon, based on data collected from 126 farmers between August and September 2005. Findings indicate that vegetable production, short farm-to-home distance, use of recycled livestock waste, education level, and farm surface positively influence the decision to use domestic waste. Conversely, farmer age has a negative effect.

Zhen Zhong · Ecological Economy · China (Beijing)

This article analyzes the mechanism by which tourism agriculture influences farmers' income in Beijing suburbs, China. It examines the macro-level urban and rural economic processes and micro-level farmers' livelihoods, concluding that tourism agriculture directs income streams to rural areas and farmers. This process also fosters rural product innovation, maximizes family labor utilization, enhances rural capital yield, and improves market integration, leading to increased peasant income.

· International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management · Global

This publication presents a table of contents for multiple papers addressing interdisciplinary aspects of climate change. Topics include the impacts of climate change on electricity generation and consumption, the role of cross-disciplinary models in the Irish housing sector, urban agriculture as a way to adapt modern cities, experiences in climate change policy-making, a climate stabilization fund, social learning on climate change among regional agents, costs and effectiveness of mitigation policies, campaign strategies by environmental NGOs, the role of sustainable buildings, quantifying vulnerability and adaptability of natural ecosystems, farming community concerns, local government risk assessment, approaches to resolving climate change, impacts on flood events, municipal solid waste management's impact on greenhouse gas emissions in Estonia, conducting interdisciplinary workshops, public opinion on climate change, and innovative multi-stakeholder approaches.

陈凯, 史红亮, 续华梅 · 技术经济与管理研究 · China

This study aimed to measure the modernization level of urban agriculture in China and analyze the causes of its disparities and influencing factors. Using the analytic hierarchy process, the research evaluated the modernization level of urban agriculture in 11 major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The analysis revealed the mechanisms and pathways for urban agricultural modernization.

Carlos Humberto Gómez Arciniegas · Revista M · Global

This article from 2009 investigates the primary features and opportunities of peri-urban agriculture, a practice at the transition between rural and urban areas. The study aims to identify 'agricultural strategies' from significant experiences to encourage future territorial planning practices in other peri-urban contexts. The research seeks to recognize recent experiences where peri-urban agriculture has coordinated economic and social activities and integrated with other activities aimed at valorizing local resources.

Abegunde A. A, Emmanuel Olufemi Omisore, O. F. Oluodo, D O Olaleye · African Journal of Agricultural Research · Nigeria (Lagos)

A study in the Eti-Osa local government area of Lagos, Nigeria, investigated the socio-spatial effects of urban horticultural gardens. Of 75 identified gardens, 63 managers were interviewed, revealing that 79.4% of gardens were profit-oriented. Gardens had inadequate setbacks (mean 1.45 m) from roads, leading to off-street parking and traffic congestion. Only 20% of horticulturists aimed to improve urban aesthetics, indicating a need for urban planners to educate them to prioritize urban aesthetics over economic gain.

Qinglan Chen · · China (Yixing)

This paper begins with the connotation of urban agriculture, analyzing the necessity and feasibility of developing urban agriculture in Yixing, China. It discusses the patterns and layouts of urban agriculture, combining Yixing's natural conditions with experiences from other areas, and proposes measures and advice for its advancement.

Lucette Laurens · Journal for Geography · France

This inquiry examines peri-urban agricultural spaces in Languedoc-Roussillon and the Montpellier agglomeration, France, which are characterized by a decline in agricultural activities and abandonment. These spaces are confronted with new, uncertain, and innovative dynamics, appearing as multifunctional spaces that need to be re-invented. The study highlights the paradox of these areas caught between appropriation for different uses and agricultural decline.

Justin Stoler, John R. Weeks, Arthur Getis, Allan G. Hill · American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene · Ghana (Accra)

A 2003 study in Accra, Ghana, surveyed 3,164 women to examine the relationship between self-reported malaria and proximity to urban agriculture (UA). The odds of self-reported malaria were significantly higher for women living within 1 km of UA compared to those living near an irrigation source, with the association disappearing beyond this distance. Malaria prevalence was often elevated in communities within 1 km of UA, even with more favorable socioeconomic characteristics.

赵三志, 杨正强 · 中国农业银行武汉培训学院学报 · China

A report on how the Hubei branch of the Agricultural Development Bank of China supported urban agriculture development in Wuhan, China, by using credit as a leverage tool to cultivate pillar industries of agricultural industrialization, taking advantage of Wuhan's designation as a comprehensive pilot zone for a "resource-conserving, environmentally friendly society." It states the bank optimized its credit assets and customer structure, achieving a coordinated balance of speed, structure, quality, management and efficiency, but the abstract provides no specific quantitative data.

Ping Liu · Xiandai riben jingji · Japan

A discussion piece traces the development of "creative agriculture" among Japanese farmers since the early 1970s, citing Oita Prefecture's One Village, One Product movement as an early representative example. It describes recent Japanese government measures — promoting green tourism, developing urban agriculture, establishing urban gardens, building attractive rural environments and homes, and encouraging urban residents to move to villages for farm work or experiences in an urban-rural "amphibian" lifestyle — that it says have brought Japan's creative agriculture into a new stage of development.

Bernard Kratky · Acta Horticulturae (University of Hawaii) · United States

Developed by Bernard Kratky at the University of Hawaii and first published in Acta Horticulturae in 2009, the Kratky method is a passive, non-circulating hydroponic technique requiring no electricity or pumps. Plants sit in net pots floating over a nutrient reservoir; as the water level drops, an air gap forms between roots and liquid, letting "oxygen roots" develop. Considered the simplest hydroponic system, it suits leafy greens but not water-hungry crops.

Richard W. Reynolds · · Global

This 2008 global handbook, "On Guerrilla Gardening," explores the motivations and methods of guerrilla gardening, a movement involving illicit cultivation of public land. The book compiles advice from guerrilla gardeners in thirty countries on topics such as plant selection, coping with environmental conditions, seed bombing, and propaganda. It also traces the historical development of the movement from the 17th century to the 1970s.

Eveline Klinkenberg, Philip J. McCall, Michael D. Wilson, Felix P. Amerasinghe, Martin J. Donnelly · Malaria Journal · Ghana

This study investigated the impact of urban agriculture on malaria transmission risk in Accra, Ghana, through larval and adult mosquito surveys. It found that Anopheles spp. and Culex quinquefasciatus outdoor biting rates were three and four times higher, respectively, in areas around agricultural sites compared to areas far from agriculture. The annual Entomological Inoculation Rate (EIR) was also higher in agricultural areas (19.2) than non-agricultural areas (6.6), suggesting that urban agricultural areas may increase malaria transmission risk by providing resting sites for adult mosquitoes.

Sue Wells · Western CEDAR (Western Washington University) · Tanzania

This paper examines the transferability of six Smart Growth concepts to Tanzanian cities (Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Mwanza, Dodoma, Zanzibar) given their extreme poverty and agrarian base. Primary research conducted in May-June 2007 and related publications were used. The study suggests that Smart Growth strategies from the Global North may be unsuitable for the Global South, indicating that urban agriculture in this context presents both a promise and a problem.

Anselm A. Enete, Anthonia Ifeyinwa Achike · Outlook on Agriculture · Nigeria (Ohafia)

A study comparing rural and urban farmers in Ohafia, southeast Nigeria, found that while urban farmers used significantly more purchased inputs than rural farmers, their output was significantly lower. This was attributed to urban farmers being poor and undercapitalized, preventing them from using adequate purchased inputs to maintain soil nutrients. The findings suggest that for urban agriculture to address urban food insecurity, the urban poor require sufficient financial empowerment.