Research & reports

Karen Besterman‐Dahan, Nora B. Arriola, Sarah Bradley · Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition · United States (Tampa)

A community garden program for veterans in mental health programs at a Veterans’ Administration Hospital in Tampa, Florida, was implemented to evaluate veteran outcomes including food security and nutrition. Evidence suggests these programs can provide a safe space for veterans and positively impact their food security and fruit and vegetable intake.

Robert M Schulman · VTechWorks (Virginia Tech) · United States (Virginia)

This study provides guidance for other institutions to establish community gardens for providing fresh, local, and healthy food to those in need, based on the experiences of a community garden established at a religious congregation in Sterling, Virginia. Entering its fourth year of operation, this case study also addresses the expansion of its mission beyond food to include an educational outreach aspect. Two forms of outreach are envisioned: publishing a newsletter to the congregation to increase interest and volunteerism, and instituting on-site workshops to educate interested members on how to establish a food garden.

Cecilia M. Tsu · Amerasia Journal · United States

This article examines community gardens established for refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in the United States during the 1980s. It argues that refugee gardeners perceived a significant disconnect between their rural lives in Southeast Asia and the role of vegetable growing in the U.S., despite advocates emphasizing continuity with their past. The gardens provided a measure of economic empowerment, but highlighted the disjuncture in their resettlement experience.

Brian James Leech, Christopher Strunk · Food Culture & Society · United States (Rock Island)

This research explores the historical evolution of urban gardening in Rock Island, Illinois, a post-industrial city, from 1913 to 2018. It finds that while urban agriculture was prominent during 20th-century crises, it has maintained a constant presence, with initiatives like Victory Gardens and community gardens sharing common goals of addressing poverty and food access. However, gardening programs have often failed to acknowledge the underlying causes of food insecurity.

Jonnell Robinson, Sarah Brown, Rose Tardiff, Dennis Brady, Jen Pauley, Mable Wilson · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (Syracuse)

Syracuse Grows is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization in Syracuse, New York, dedicated to food justice. The organization hosts an annual "Resource Drive" event each April, mobilizing community resources to support over 25 community gardens and 3 urban farms. During this event, compost, mulch, and manure are transported across the city, transforming previously vacant lots into spaces for nourishment and camaraderie.

Michele Hunt · · United States (Cleveland)

Rid-All Green Partnership was founded by three childhood friends, Damien Forshe, Keymah Durden, and Randy McShepard, who grew up in Cleveland’s Lee-Miles neighborhood. They provide training in urban farming and environmental stewardship, and Rid-All serves as a regional training center for the Milwaukee-based urban farm “Growing Power.” Alongside its educational programs, Rid-All offers art, entertainment, sports, and community engagement initiatives, and created “The Brink City 'Green in the Ghetto'” comic book to communicate the importance of environmental justice to non-traditional and hard-to-reach audiences, including urban youth.

Leonardo Negreiros Monteiro, Joelson de Araújo Delfino · · Brazil

The project “Promoting health and social well-being through healthy eating” was implemented at the Lar para Idosos Tia Angelina elderly home in Porto Nacional, Brazil. Its objective was to improve the quality of life for residents through healthy eating, achieved by implementing a vegetable garden. This initiative also provided Agronomy Engineering students from UNITINS with the opportunity to develop competencies in understanding the importance of quality food and contributed to forming healthier eating habits for the elderly residents.

Mariana Portilho, Camila Rodrigues, Annelise Caetano Fraga Fernandez · Cidades, comunidades e território/Cidades comunidades e territórios · Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)

This study describes the formation of Arranjo Local da Penha, a community network created in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro's Penha favela complex, focused on urban agriculture and led by women. Through fieldwork and participant observation, the study analyzed themes of women and agroecology, health, and healthy eating. The network promoted women's empowerment and access to healthy food, but faced limits in the mobilization and development of urban agriculture.

Esteve Gaelle Giraud, Sara El-Sayed, Adenike Opejin · Sustainability · United States (Arizona)

This paper examines the potential of sustainable gardening to enhance Food Well-Being (FWB). It uses three studies of sustainable food gardeners in Arizona, USA, including children and teachers in school gardens, sustainable gardeners and farmers, and gardeners during the pandemic. Results indicate a connection between sustainable gardening and eudemonic well-being, impacting five FWB dimensions (physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, social). However, the paper notes that without appropriate policies, funding, and infrastructure, the impact might remain minimal, volatile, and subject to tokenism.

Christy Gene Somsen · Digital Commons - USU (Utah State University) · United States (Utah)

Farmers’ markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, and community gardens, while aiming to help low-income families access fresh produce, often assist more middle-class families. In Utah, these programs could be improved, as the state does not utilize the WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program or accept WIC Cash Value Vouchers, and has few Farm to School Programs.

Karen Besterman‐Dahan, Sarah Bradley, Nora B. Arriola, Kiersten Downs · Wellbeing Space and Society · United States

In collaboration with a local garden, an evaluation explored the perceived benefits of gardening for veterans from two Veterans Affairs (VA) programs in the United States. Using focus groups and photovoice methods, four main benefits of participation were revealed: supporting mental and emotional wellbeing, improving socialization and comradery, nurturing life and identity, and learning new skills.

Daniel Remley, Glennon Sweeney, Julie Fox, Laquore Ja Meadows · Journal of Human Sciences and Extension · United States

U.S. Cooperative Extension is positioned to address suburban food insecurity, citing data that low-income populations in the country's largest metro-area suburbs grew twice as fast as in primary urban cities between 2000 and 2013, and that a 2018 Pew Research Center report found poverty rising more sharply in suburbs than in urban or rural counties. Stigmatization of food assistance, lack of transportation, limited access to food pantries and limited community gardens are identified as challenges specific to suburban poor communities, with Extension proposed to address the problem through community-engaged research and education across family and consumer sciences, community development, agriculture and natural resources, and 4-H youth development.

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.

Harine Matos Maciel, Jair do Amaral Filho, Wlisses Matos Maciel · Latin American Journal of Development · Brazil

This case study of Banco Palmas, a solidarity financial system created in 1988 by the Residents Association of Conjunto Palmeira in Brazil, was conducted through documentary and bibliographic research. Banco Palmas pursues local, solidarity-based development in Conjunto Palmeira through microcredit and complementary programs — a training school, an incubator for women at risk, an urban agriculture laboratory, a local currency circulating in neighborhood stores, fairs with local producers, and a solidarity store — and the paper concludes that it demonstrates the feasibility of self-sustainable popular and solidarity development projects through microcredit that stimulates consumption and production within the neighborhood itself.

Melinda Suto, Shelagh A. Smith, Natasha Damiano, Shurli Channe · Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy · Canada

Sustaining well-being is a challenge for people with serious mental health issues. Community gardening is used as an occupation to promote clients' well-being, though evidence supporting this intervention remains limited. This paper examined how facilitated community gardening programs changed the subjective well-being and social connectedness of people living with mental health issues. Using a community-based participatory research approach and qualitative methods with 23 adults living in supported housing and participating in supported community gardening programs, data were analyzed inductively from a constructivist stance. Participation in the programs enhanced well-being through welcoming places, a sense of belonging, and positive feelings developed through doing. Connection to living things and responsibility for plants grounded participants in the present and offered a distinct venue for learning about gardening and about themselves. The paper concludes that practitioners and service-users should collaborate to develop leadership, programs, places, and processes within community gardens to support well-being.

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.

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.

Tatiana de Oliveira Sousa, João Aparecido Bazzoli, Cecília Delgado · Estudos Geográficos Revista Eletrônica de Geografia · Brazil

An exploratory study examined an urban gardening project run by the municipal government of Palmas, capital of Tocantins state, Brazil, analyzing challenges in setup and maintenance, administrative difficulties in production and distribution, and the socioeconomic profile of participating families. Surveying the gardeners' profiles and practices, the study found that the urban gardens promoted social inclusion of participating families, particularly low-income, unemployed, elderly, and women gardeners.

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.

Allea Martin, Amy Coplen, Lauren Lubowicki, Betty T. Izumi · Health Education & Behavior · United States

A Photovoice study of the CSA Partnerships for Health program in the United States, a subsidized community-supported-agriculture scheme designed to lower the cost barrier to fresh produce for low-income households. Twenty-eight participants photographed aspects of the program over 2 to 4 weeks and discussed selected images in focus groups; they reported that the program supported positive changes in their physical and social health and helped them learn about new foods, cooking and agriculture. Based on these self-reported, qualitative accounts, the authors suggest that a reduced-cost CSA membership combined with cooking education can support participants' ability to try new foods, build skills and improve health outcomes.

Mariela Jara · IPS Agencia de Noticias (Inter Press Service) · Peru

IPS News reported on 12 October 2021 on the 1,400 square-meter "Biohuerto Ayllu 21" garden in Sector II Group 21, Villa El Salvador, 25km south of Lima. Started in 2018, the garden has 40 plots of 6 meters each and separate production, training, seedling, harvest, post-harvest and sales zones. It is run by 12 families, all elderly women migrants, who work an average of two days a week growing chard, radishes, broccoli, celery, tomatoes, beets, basil, spinach and lettuce, mainly for household consumption.

Eduardo Sá · Articulação Nacional de Agroecologia (ANA) · Brazil

An article tracing three decades of Belo Horizonte's urban agriculture and agroecology policy, from the 1993 founding of the municipal food and agriculture policy department (SMAB) through the 2004 creation of Amau and the 2018 launch of a participatory organic-certification system (SPG-RMBH). It reports that in 2019 the city's food bank handled 387,905 tons of food and school meal programs served 84.7 million meals.

Mary Rogers, Illana Livstrom, Brandon Roiger, Amy Smith · HortTechnology · United States (Minneapolis)

Growing North Minneapolis (GNM) is an urban agriculture and youth development summer program in North Minneapolis, MN, run as a partnership between the University of Minnesota and community partners that recruits, trains, and employs youth aged 14–15 facing barriers to employment. Post-program qualitative surveys showed that youth learned across multiple domains of knowledge and valued the social interaction offered by the intergenerational mentorship structure.

· Landscape and Urban Planning · USA (New York City)

Empirical study of NYC's public High Line project showing housing values near the park rose 35% and rents ~68%, with parkgoers overwhelmingly white/tourist—evidence that a flagship public greening investment captured value for the affluent and failed its low-income host neighborhood.

Doris González-Fernández, Ana Sofía Mazzini Salom, Fermina Herrera Bendezu, Sonia Huamán, Bertha Rojas Hernández, Illène Pevec, Eliana Mariana Galarza Izquierdo, Nicoletta Armstrong, Virginia Thomas, Sonia Vela Gonzáles, Carlos Gonzáles Saravia, Marilyn E. Scott, Kristine G. Koski · Frontiers in Public Health · Peru (Lima)

In peripheral settlements of the Pachacámac district of metropolitan Lima, Peru, community health promoters delivered a sequence of (1) home and community gardens, (2) 'conscious nutrition' and (3) parenting workshops (ICDP), comparing 113 children aged 0–3 in intervention communities with 127 in control communities at baseline, 8 and 12 months. The interventions significantly reduced the risk of food insecurity (adjusted risk ratio 0.20, 95% CI 0.08–0.51) and of language delay (0.39, 0.19–0.82), but did not significantly improve motor or social/cognitive delay. Multiple micronutrient supplement use lowered motor delay risk (0.12), while households with more pets had higher risk of motor delay (3.24), social/cognitive delay (2.72) and food insecurity (1.73). Because gardens were bundled with nutrition and parenting components, the contribution of the gardens alone cannot be isolated.