Research & reports

Roy L. Montgomery, Andreas Wesener, Fran Davies · Lincoln University Research Archive (Lincoln University) · New Zealand

This study examined a temporary community-initiated open space (CIOS) established in central Christchurch, New Zealand, after the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. CIOS are bottom-up initiatives relying on financial sponsorship, temporary land-use agreements with landowners, and volunteers. The paper discusses bottom-up governance approaches in a single post-earthquake community garden project, using concepts of community resilience and social capital, and analyzes the facilitating organization's actions, its impact, and key actors' motivations, values, perceived benefits, and challenges.

Andile Mji · Commonwealth Youth and Development · Global

This study reports on a program where 118 learners (56.8% female), aged 16-18, participated in starting and tending school gardens. The aim was to determine how an empowering environment built learners' competencies and what lessons they learned, and if their utterances reflected positive youth development attributes. Qualitative data from open-ended interviews revealed that learners changed, learned to share, understood the meaning of working with others, and their utterances were consistent with positive youth development competencies.

Maria de Fátima dos Santos Pimenta Garcia · Service social · Global

This study discusses how urban agriculture facilitates social participation, stimulates solidarity, and fosters social belonging, thereby strengthening neighborhood networks and bringing generations together. It suggests that urban gardens encourage active aging and contribute to the biopsychosocial balance of the elderly by transforming daily life and integrating people through leisure activities and the use of common spaces.

Gabin Korbéogo · Environment and Urbanization · Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou)

This article explores how land tenure, water flows, and water quality are legally, politically, and socially framed in urban agriculture in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Urban agriculture serves as a revenue source and a socio-political arena involving state representatives, experts, and farmers. Public authorities monitor legal standards for water use and hygiene, while farmers strive for efficient resource use, sometimes challenging official norms. These competing interests lead to conflicts over resource use or rule legitimacy, which are negotiated through institutional or informal bargaining.

Georgia Pollard, Philip Roetman, James Ward · Kobra (Universitätsbibliothek Kassel) · Australia (South Australia)

While urban agriculture is seen as a sustainable approach to improving food security, there is a significant knowledge gap regarding the financial accessibility of urban food production for all households. If urban agriculture remains primarily a middle-class discretionary activity, its role in city-wide food security improvement will be limited. This paper demonstrates that citizen science offers an effective approach to investigate the inputs (labor, costs, water use) and outputs (produce yields, value) of urban food gardens, using the Edible Gardens project in South Australia as an example.

Jason Byrne · · Global

Research on urban greenspace, including parks, gardens, and green infrastructure, consistently demonstrates that marginalized and vulnerable communities have less access to these areas. This chapter overviews environmental injustice research on urban greenspace, examining debates and challenges for researchers and policymakers, and highlighting issues like climate injustice and food insecurity related to environmental inequality.

Sertaç Güngör · Journal of Agricultural Faculty of Gaziosmanpasa University · Turkey (Konya)

This study investigated the current state of gardens in 7 nursery schools in Selçuklu district, Konya city, Turkey, regarding landscape design and space usage. The findings revealed that the nursery school gardens were not used effectively, lacked sufficient green space in their landscape design, and were not properly designed to contribute to children's mental and physical development.

Hyun‐Kyung Kang, Seung Jun Back · Journal of people, plants, and environment · Global

This study investigated the effect of an urban agriculture experience program on the mental health of seniors over 65, comparing a group participating for over six months with a control group. Using t-tests on stress and depression indices, and physiological disparity, the experiment group showed statistically significantly lower stress scores related to loneliness and health, and much lower depression levels than the control group. Autonomic nervous system analysis also indicated lower stress and normal pulse diversity for the experiment group, suggesting urban agriculture stabilizes sympathetic nerves and activates parasympathetic nerves, increasing stress resistance.

Jyothsna Latha Belliappa, Alison Byrnes, Prayas Abhinav · · India

The City Spinning project, an urban horticulture and community networking experiment in two Indian cities, demonstrated a low-cost, resource-light model that separates consumption from ownership, aligning with sustainable Product-Service Systems. This project aimed to support urban poor children's nutritional needs and foster social equity by enabling interaction with community members. It also highlighted the importance of safe play spaces for children's development of citizenship competencies, which are often limited to confined playgrounds in most Indian cities.

Ju Eun Kim · International Journal of Urban Sciences · United Kingdom (London)

This empirical research evaluated the role of London's community gardens in promoting participants' environmentally friendly food consumption patterns, thereby lowering London's foodprint. An online survey was circulated to 95 community gardens in London, with 48 gardeners responding, complemented by semi-structured interviews. The study confirmed that the timespan of community garden participation is not an absolute indicator of low-carbon food consumption choices, while identifying experiential and social learning as key aspects promoting gardeners' behavioral change.

Zane Vincēviča–Gaile, Dāvis Varakājs · · Latvia

This study aimed to determine the concentration of potentially toxic elements (Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb, Zn) in berries grown in allotment gardens in Rīga city, Latvia. Samples of raspberries, strawberries, red currants, black currants, gooseberries, and cherries were analyzed using atomic absorption spectroscopy. The results showed significant variability of element concentration among the berry species, with mean concentrations for Ni at 0.54 mg/kg, Pb at 0.20 mg/kg, Cr at 0.10 mg/kg, and Cd at 0.03 mg/kg.

Dra. C. Andreína Inés González Ordóñez, MSc. David Zaldumbide, MSc. Javier Solano · · Ecuador (Machala)

This research analyzes the potential of urban agriculture for small entrepreneurs in Canton Machala, El Oro Province, Ecuador, using a documentary review of related literature. Urban agriculture is identified as having economic, social, and environmental benefits, including improved food and nutrition, reduced ecological footprint, and strengthened social fabric. Its implementation can enhance living conditions by providing healthy food, additional income, and improved environmental quality.

Helena C. Lyson · · United States (California)

This qualitative fieldwork in a large, urban school district in Northern California explored school food reform efforts addressing childhood obesity. Reforms transpired through three processes: sustained involvement of parent-activists, leadership by the school food service director in championing farm-to-school efforts and facilitating partnerships, and widespread community support for funding and implementation. These findings indicate how local social change transformed public school food programs to benefit youth health.

Bethany B. Cutts, Jonathan London, Shaina Meiners, Kirsten Schwarz, Mary L. Cadenasso · Local Environment · Global

This paper applies a dynamic spatial politics framework to interpret a 30-year conflict over an urban garden in Sacramento, California. It examines how urban gardens, often idealized, are also sites of conflict due to competing visions of "soil" versus "dirt." The study highlights that contaminants like lead in the soil contribute to this instability, reframing fertile soil as dangerous dirt, and influencing the garden's transformation from a countercultural space to a gentrified amenity.

Eileen Bogweh Nchanji, Imogen Bellwood‐Howard, Nikolaus Schareika, Takemore Chagomoka, Johannes Schlesinger, D. Rodríguez Torres Axel, Glaser Rüdiger · International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability · Ghana (Tamale)

An ethnographic study in Tamale, Northern Ghana, assessed the sustainability of urban vegetable production between 2008 and 2014. While urbanization increased cultivation of profitable vegetables like cabbage, the practice involved irrigation with grey and wastewater and high pesticide use, posing health and environmental hazards. Industrial growth reduced open space urban agriculture by 8.7%, leading farmers to use interstitial spaces and peri-urban fringes, indicating a dynamic but not yet sustainable production system.

Sydney Giacalone · Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography · United States (Boston)

This ethnographic study, conducted in Boston and Somerville in the summer of 2016, investigated how urban chicken keeping might transform keepers’ thinking about food systems and animal relationships. The research revealed the unexpected discovery of lead contamination in urban chicken flocks in the Boston area, which unsettled the imagined simplicity of urban agriculture and exposed a "metabolic rift." This finding prompted keepers to engage more deeply with the history of the soil and opened new ways of thinking about collective metabolism, multispecies living, and food politics.

Norbert Becker, Stefanie Schön, Alexandra‐Maria Klein, Ina Ferstl, Ali Kizgin, Egbert Tannich, Carola Kuhn, Björn Pluskota, Artur Jöst · Parasitology Research · Germany

The first mass development of Aedes albopictus, likely introduced by trucks from Italy, was confirmed in an allotment garden area in Freiburg, Southwest Germany, in 2015. Surveillance confirmed a high infestation, with the container index exceeding 30% in August 2015. Control measures, including citizen awareness, environmental management, and Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) tablets, successfully reduced the Aedes albopictus population, with the number of gardens without containers increasing from 17% to 35% by September 2015.

Søren Christensen · Civil Engineering and Architecture · Global

This meta-analysis of literature published between 2000 and 2016 examined urban community gardens' capacity to generate social capital. It found that several studies confirm urban community gardens create both bonding and bridging social capital, with indications of linking social capital. The analysis suggests future research should use mixed methods, including qualitative approaches focusing on activity meanings and documenting sociodemographic compositions, to further understand how these gardens foster social capital.

강미영, 김영희, 김용현, 진종현, 이민희, 허무룡 · · South Korea

A South Korean study aimed at raising awareness of environmental importance through eco-friendly urban agriculture and promoting the effective establishment of urban agriculture. It found that, through urban agricultural activities, urban residents received education in eco-friendly farming methods and applied them in plot preparation, crop cultivation, and harvesting. Participants also regarded the seeds and seedlings used in urban agriculture as eco-friendly, and reported that the activities helped change their perceptions of the environment; they stated that this heightened awareness of environmental importance also influenced behavioural change, that they could introduce their urban agricultural activities to neighbours as eco-friendly, and that they intended to continue participating in urban agricultural activities.

Ellen Burke · Landscape Research · Global

This paper is a transdisciplinary literature review addressing how to measure the performance of food production landscapes in urban, suburban, campus and other design contexts. Noting that such performance is currently most often measured by the weight and value of harvest alone, it aims to identify expanded methods and metrics, particularly for health and well-being benefits. Through the review it presents evidence for mental well-being, physical activity, and human nutrition benefits, and catalogs performance metrics and evaluation methods.

Jairus Rossi, Timothy A. Woods, James E. Allen · Sustainability · United States

A controlled pilot study offered 95 first-time shareholders drawn from a university wellness program a $200 voucher to join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, surveying food lifestyle behaviors before and after participation and comparing changes against an 82-person control group using econometric analysis. Changes were found in four categories — fresh versus processed food consumption, food prepared at home versus away, food purchasing behavior and interest in nutrition, and self-reported health outcomes — and these changes were more strongly realized among shareholders who reported lower-than-average health prior to the CSA.

Kerstin Martin, Taylor Hinton, Darby Anderson, Elizabeth J. Schafer, Rebecca Dawson · The FASEB Journal · United States

This report examines a comprehensive community wellness initiative launched in 2014 in Meadville, Pennsylvania — a town classified as a food desert under USDA criteria, where 26.1% of residents lived in poverty and nearly 13% had poor nutritional status in 2014, and where an estimated 70% of adults regionally were overweight or obese with childhood obesity above 30%. The initiative established community gardens, piloted a fresh fruits and vegetables program in a local elementary school, and launched a mobile farmers market — piloted in summer 2016 in collaboration with the local bus company — targeting a low-income neighborhood to increase access to fresh produce and reduce obesity.

Patsy Eubanks Owens · Children Youth and Environments · United States

This is a review of Illène Pevec's book Growing a Life: Teen Gardeners Harvest Food, Health, and Joy (New Village Press, 2016, 407 pages), which presents the experiences of youth — typically low-income and ethnically diverse — participating in a dozen gardening programs across four US states: Colorado, New York, California and New Mexico. Examples cited include youth in New York helping plant green walls and youth in New Mexico learning to grow traditional Native American foods. The review characterizes the book as research-based evidence documenting the effects of school gardening programs on adolescent development and well-being.

Pranee Liamputtong, Erin Sanchez · Activities Adaptation & Aging · Australia

A study of older residents in a rural Victorian town in Australia examined perceptions of, and reasons for participating in, a community garden through in-depth interviews with 10 older persons. Participation built social support networks and social capital and created social connectedness among participants. The main reason for initial involvement was that participants were new to the area and sought to build local support networks in their new living environment.

Emily Benton Hite, Dorie Perez, Dalila D’Ingeo, Qasimah Boston, Miaisha M. Mitchell · Annals of Anthropological Practice · United States

A study examined the structure and meaning of community gardens in Frenchtown, Tallahassee, Florida's oldest and most cohesive African American community. Using a mixed-methods approach during a five-week NSF-funded ethnographic field school with the Health Equity Alliance of Tallahassee, the study analyzed how residents transform empty spaces into places of engagement and empowerment, resisting systemic racism. Through garden activities, residents transcend race, culture, income, and neighborhood boundaries while promoting health, heritage, place-making, and economic opportunities, positioning community gardens as an expression of social resistance.