Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
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Introducing Preservice Elementary Teachers to Permaculture Education
2024Sonnur Öztürk, Michelle Forsythe · Journal of Agricultural Education · United States
A pilot instructional intervention on permaculture was implemented within an elementary science methods course for preservice teachers (PSTs) in the United States. The intervention had four components — background readings and videos, guided discussion, a food forest design activity, and a lesson plan analysis activity — with data drawn from pre/post-tests, the lesson analysis activity, and daily reflections. After the intervention, PSTs self-reported higher knowledge of permaculture topics and ways to use permaculture in their classrooms, and effectively linked permaculture-based lesson plans to elementary learning standards. PSTs viewed permaculture-based lessons positively as active, real-life learning experiences supporting environmental consciousness, but identified cost and time as barriers to classroom implementation, and viewed the developmental appropriateness and spatial resources required as both advantages and disadvantages.
Food educationCommunityStudy on quality of treated wastewater for urban agriculture use in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
2024Gizaw Ebissa, Aramde Fetene, Hayal Desta · City and Environment Interactions · Ethiopia
Treated wastewater from the plant serving Bole Lemi Industrial Park (BLIP) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was sampled at the treatment plant's influent and effluent and analyzed using a treated wastewater quality index (TWWQI) to assess suitability for urban irrigation agriculture. The aggregate TWWQI classified the water as 'very poor' for urban irrigation agriculture, with heavy metals contributing 85% of that grade, nutrient load 4%, salinity 8%, and miscellaneous contaminants 4%. Discrete indices varied: heavy metals scored 'very polluted', nutrients 'excellent', salinity 'poor', and miscellaneous contaminants 'good'. Contaminant removal efficiency ranged from 30% to 100% (58% in aggregate), and some contaminants showed higher concentrations in the effluent than the influent, indicating the treatment plant failed to remove them. Cr3+, Cl− and TDS contributed most to the poor rating, and the plant was found to need upgrading to increase removal efficiency.
Contamination & food safetyCommunityPolicyUse of spatial information to remove barriers and to foster enablers of uptake of Nature Based Solutions for food production and water resource management in Ghana and the Netherlands
2024J.A. Veraart, Cora van Oosten, Vincent Linderhof, Confidence Duku, Wilfred Appelman, A.M.E. Groot, Marjolein Sterk, Ilse Voskamp · International Journal of Water Governance · Global
With water-related problems from climate change threatening the future of food systems in both the Netherlands and Ghana, this comparative case study analyzed rainwater harvesting and wastewater reuse in the Rhine-Scheldt Estuaries (Netherlands) and the Bono East Region (Ghana). The analysis focused on identifying similarities in how experts and stakeholders use spatial information to remove barriers to, or foster enablers of, the uptake of nature-based solutions (NbS) in view of climate change. Both rainwater harvesting and wastewater treatment techniques were found to be available and ready for adoption by farmers and the food processing industry, but their uptake was hampered by multiple barriers ranging from biophysical and technical to social and institutional. Spatial information was concluded to be a potential enabler for NbS adoption if applicable to a wide range of possible solutions for water scarcity in food production, though both case studies showed difficulty making the future spatially explicit, and in both cases the effect on biodiversity of, respectively, effluent water reuse and rainwater harvesting did not play a direct role in stakeholder dialogue.
CommunityPolicyOrganic cycleCommunity Garden Sebagai Solusi Hijau Permukiman: Optimasi Lahan di Wilayah Perkotaan
2024Wida Oktavia Suciyani, Marwansyah, Husna Candranurani Oktavia Oktavia, Jaka Sastrawan Ramlan Kusumah, Rima Midiyanti, Gilang Ramadhan · Dharma Raflesia Jurnal Ilmiah Pengembangan dan Penerapan IPTEKS · Indonesia (Bandung)
This community service program in the Sukamantri 2 area of Bandung, Indonesia, addressed a shortage of green open space (RTH) in a densely populated residential area by developing a participatory community garden on idle land. The program was implemented in four phases: (1) planning analysis for suitable plant types, (2) land preparation and provision of garden facilities, (3) construction of the community garden, and (4) monitoring and evaluation of program sustainability. Thirty participants took part, including 10 from the Bandung Polytechnic (Polban) community service team and 20 from the partner community. The program resulted in the establishment of a community garden as a use of idle land within the dense settlement.
CommunitySustainable urban farming management: A comparison study in Thailand and Indonesia
2024Assyifa Fauzia · Trend and Future of Agribusiness · Global
A descriptive literature review (2015-2023) and comparative analysis of urban farming management in Thailand's Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR) and Indonesia's Jakarta. Since 2010 the BMR has pursued food self-sufficiency using canals for irrigation and transport, but urban farmers remain poorly connected to traditional markets. In Jakarta, high population density and conversion of agricultural land are serious problems; after the 1998 economic crisis residents expanded urban farming on available land, but industrialization has increased uncertainty over land rights. Both countries share a lack of coordination in urban agriculture regulation and infrastructure, which the paper suggests addressing through better communication among farmers, retailers and non-farming households.
CommunityPolicyPeri-urban agricultureTHE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL ON THE SUCCESS OF URBAN FARMING PROGRAMS AT THE DAHLIA FARMERS' GROUP SEMARANG CITY
2024Aliifa Jenica Athaya Natama, Kadhung Prayoga, Siwi Gayatri · Agrisocionomics Jurnal Sosial Ekonomi Pertanian · Indonesia
A study of the Dahlia Farmers' Group in Semarang, Indonesia, using multiple linear regression to examine the role of social capital in urban farming success (survey conducted December 2023-January 2024). Norms — establishing standard operating procedures for members — played an important role in supporting success, while trust and networks proved less influential, since urban farming success depends more on management and knowledge than on interpersonal relationships. The study recommends the group strengthen norms through digital networks, mentorship, social activities, external partnerships and a reward system.
CommunityPolicyWelfareSetting the Stage: Urban Agriculture, Public Space, and Human Well-Being
2024Beata Sirowy, Deni Ruggeri · The Geojournal library · Global
An editors' introductory chapter to a book on urban agriculture research, situating the volume's thematic scope. The editors argue that, to achieve the greatest impact, opportunities to engage in urban cultivation should be widely accessible to all segments of the urban population and close to where people live. Because land in dense inner-city areas is scarce and costly worldwide, integrating urban agriculture into existing and planned public spaces is presented as the most feasible strategy for achieving this. The book aims to provide theoretical and practical insights on integrating urban agriculture into public space development, covering well-being impacts, design, organization, educational contexts, and urban planning.
CommunityHealthPolicyQuintais produtivos como alternativa para aumentar a segurança alimentar e a geração de renda para populações urbanas de baixa renda.
2024K. O. das G. DIAS, M. C. UZEDA, A. C. A. [UNESP] Alves, M. dos S. F. R. de AZEVEDO · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Brazil
In mid-2021, a 400 m² "productive backyard" (quintal produtivo) was set up at the Fazendinha Agroecológica km 47 in Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, run jointly by Embrapa, UFRRJ, and PESAGRO-Rio, with four subareas for vegetables, unconventional food plants (PANC), fruit trees and annual crops, and egg-laying hens. Food production recorded over six months of 2021 demonstrated the plot's potential to counter food insecurity by supplying a healthy, diversified diet and generating extra household income through the sale of surplus produce.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceEconomicsEmpowering health and wellness for elderly in Wedoro Village
2024Syamsudduha Syahrorini, Andriani Eko Prihatiningrum, Denny Irawan, Yanik Purwanti, Agus Hayatal Falah, Shaza Dyah Ayuni, Akhmad Mulyadi, Andika Wahyu Nugraha, Fajrian Moch Bintang · Community Empowerment · Indonesia
This community service program in Wedoro Village, Indonesia, worked with elderly residents and posyandu health-post cadres, whose most common health issues were diabetes, high blood pressure, and temperature-related concerns, providing education and training to enable independent health checks alongside outreach and urban farming training aimed at cultivating organic plants as an alternative medicine source. The program reports increased awareness of common metabolic diseases among the elderly and states that the urban farming training brought them joy and promoted improved health through greater activity and productivity, without presenting measured before-after health data.
ElderlyHealthCommunityOur cities, our farm lands: The socioeconomic determinants of urban households participation in urban agricultural production under climatic stressors
2024Godwin K. Naazie, Isaac Agyemang, Anthony Mwinilanaa Tampah-Naah · Heliyon · Ghana
A quantitative survey of 362 urban households across diverse neighborhoods in Ghana used descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and binary regression to examine socioeconomic factors behind urban agriculture participation under climate stress. Household size and income were significant at the 0.05 level, middle- and high-income households participated more than lower-income ones, and land was acquired mainly through purchase, which the study identified as a barrier to participation.
Climate changeEconomicsCommunityFood sovereignty & justiceGarden EngAGEment: Cultivating Cultures of Care Through Artful Place-Making
2024Anne Kerber, Ivana Guarrasi, Hsinhuei Sheen Chiou, Sabrina Ehmke, Kristi Oeding, Sachi Sekimoto · Health Communication · United States
Drawing on the Garden EngAGEment community garden project at Minnesota State University, Mankato, this article develops the concept of "artful place-making" as an alternative, experiential approach to organizing and teaching care for people with Alzheimer's and related dementias, using arts-based research, place-based education, and sensory studies. It describes the interplay of knowing, making, and being in the garden as fostering a new culture of care in health professions training, multi-sensory connection, and personal, relational, and community transformation.
HealthCommunityWelfareElderlyReConstruyendo sustentabilidad urbana: un análisis alternativo de huertos urbanos comunitarios en la Ciudad de México.
2024Xanath Bautista-Villalobos, Eduardo Garcı́a-Frapolli · Hábitat y Sociedad · Mexico
Two community urban gardens in Mexico City were analyzed through the lenses of agroecology, the social and solidarity economy, and social innovation. Working with garden administrators and key participants, the researchers defined participatory indicators and ran workshops to gauge local perceptions of how the gardens function. Both initiatives were viewed positively by their communities, though few residents were actually involved. Most evaluated variables scored satisfactorily, but aspects such as the source and use of water, income distribution within the community, and the creation of communal budgets had not met their objectives.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justicePeri-urban agriculturePolicyHabitar, consumir y cultivar. Procesos e iniciativas para la transición ecosocial en Cataluña y Madrid
2024David Berná Serna, Sara Sama Acedo, Patricia Homs Ramírez de la Piscina · Revista Española de Sociología · Spain
Against the backdrop of the current eco-social crisis, this article analyzes the "eco-transformative capacity" of collective initiatives in three Spanish case studies: neo-ruralization and natural wine production in the Sierra Oeste de Madrid and southern Sierra de Gredos, agroecological supply systems in Catalonia, and community urban gardens integrated into a municipal program in Madrid. The analysis focuses on the motivations, challenges, and limitations agents encounter while practicing sustainable ways of dwelling, producing, and consuming, and on their relationship to public institutional agendas on eco-social transition.
Food sovereignty & justiceCommunityOrganic cyclePolicyProductive function of urban gardening: estimate of the yield and nutritional value of social gardens in Prato (Italy)
2024Ada Baldi, Nicolas Lucio Gallo, Anna Lenzi · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · Italy
Semi-structured interviews with participants in the "social gardens" of Prato, Italy — plots the municipality assigns to individual pensioners or unemployed people for growing vegetables for home consumption — examined demographic and socio-economic characteristics, cultivated crops, and plot areas. The typical gardener was male, retired, averaged 74 years old, and had a low level of education. A 50 m2 plot with 40% of its area cultivated was estimated to yield about 90 kg of vegetables per year, roughly 61.5% of one person's fruit and vegetable needs. Tomatoes occupied more than 80% of the cultivated area. Vitamin C and Vitamin A showed the highest nutrient contributions, while calcium and sodium showed the lowest.
CommunityHealthFood sovereignty & justiceWelfareDesigning Trellises
2024Emily Harris, Ilana Lowe, Lindsey Mohan, Whitney Cohen, Sara E. Severance, Terra Giotta, Carlo Albano, Jeffrey Snowden · Science and Children · United States
This is a practice report describing "Designing Trellises," a guided grade 3-5 engineering unit set in a U.S. school garden. Students work collaboratively toward a shared classroom goal of designing, researching, prototyping, building, and testing 2-3 pea plant trellises for the school garden. Through this process — asking questions, planning and carrying out investigations, and designing solutions, among other science and engineering practices — students work out the disciplinary core ideas of balanced and unbalanced forces. At the end of the unit, teachers and students reported that students felt a strong sense of agency and pride from asking and answering questions and creating designs that mattered to them and their school community.
Food educationCommunityPartnership to Create a Food Independent Urban Village in Tanjung Mas, Semarang City
2024Andin Irsadi, Partaya Partaya, Abdul Jabbar · Jurnal Abdimas · Indonesia
Tanjung Mas Village in North Semarang District, Semarang City, Indonesia, is vulnerable to food insecurity due to a high level of poverty, since poor residents are unable to either produce or buy sufficient food. This has prompted government and residents to try to secure food independently through farming, though limited availability of agricultural land has hampered these efforts. This community-service program aimed to provide knowledge and skills and to facilitate urban farming facilities to achieve food independence in Tanjung Mas, using methods including socialization, counseling, dissemination, training, and facilitation of urban farming facilities. As a result, the community gained an understanding of urban farming, learned about urban farming technologies, acquired verticulture skills, and verticulture facilities were established as learning demonstration plots.
Food sovereignty & justiceCommunityFood educationThe actual situation and challenges in the development and management of urban parks as sites for agricultural activities
2024Guolin Xu, Shigeto YANAI · Journal of The Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture · Japan
Based on a survey of 11 urban parks with allotment gardens in Yokohama City, Japan, this study examined the characteristics that promote participation by diverse entities in park management and explored more effective management approaches. Results showed that involvement of local organizations in management was limited to a small number of programs, that participation by diverse entities was associated with increased community interaction, improved intergenerational interaction, and greater park use, and that community gardens gave residents a venue for shared agricultural activity that promoted both community interaction and broader participation in management.
CommunityPolicySchool gardens as sites for community, empowerment, and justice: a participatory action research study
2024Colleen Saxen, Yoko Miura, Alan R. Wight, Michelle A. Fleming · Educational Action Research · United States
Using Participatory Action Research (PAR) with community partners and school staff who led a school garden project in a low-income neighborhood of a small mid-western U.S. city, this study explored the meaning of the garden through photovoice, mapping, and interviews. Three overarching themes emerged from participants' perspectives: community, empowerment, and justice. The garden project was experienced as holding depth of possibility for participants that went beyond the typical outcome measures — content knowledge, physical health, and ecological stewardship — used to assess school gardens.
CommunityFood educationExploring greywater hydroponic vegetable growing and phytoremediation capacity of coleus plants for urban farmers in Mbarara city Uganda
2024Jane Yatuha, Justus Asasira, Godfrey Begumisa, Pascal Amandu · East African Journal of Science Technology and Innovation · Sub-Saharan Africa
This eight-week experiment, conducted from July to September 2023 in Mbarara city, Uganda, tested the capacity of greywater to serve as a hydroponic growing medium for vegetables (broccoli, spring onions, lettuce) and the greywater-cleansing capacity of Coleus ornamental plants. Greywater was collected from restaurant sculleries, and four treatments — greywater, greywater + NPK, tap water, and tap water + NPK — were each set up in triplicate, with pH, EC, TDS, temperature, turbidity, nitrates, phosphates, shoot length, leaf number, fecal coliforms, and heavy metals measured. All vegetables survived, but production levels differed significantly between treatments: lettuce had the highest production in three of the four treatments except greywater + NPK (ANOVA, F(3,56) = 2.970, p = 0.039), while spring onions grew best in greywater + NPK, differing significantly from other treatments (F(3,56) = 3.328, p = 0.026). Greywater treatments showed extreme EC and TDS values (1001.38 µS/cm and 502 ppm; 982.38 µS/cm and 490.75 ppm), significantly different from other treatments (p = 0.000), though no fecal coliforms were detected in vegetable tissue. Coleus progressively reduced TDS and EC and showed capacity to extract heavy metals from the greywater.
DIYCommunityHealthDrivers of the level of market participation among smallholder urban vegetable farmers in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
2024P.N. Ndlovu, Joyce Chitja, Temitope O. Ojo · Cogent Food & Agriculture · South Africa
This study surveyed 156 smallholder urban vegetable farmers in the Sobantu and Mphophomeni township areas of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, using a structured questionnaire and multi-stage sampling, and analyzed drivers of market participation and its level using descriptive statistics and a double-hurdle model. Of the 156 farmers, 127 were market participants and 29 were non-participants. A logistic model found market participation decisions were significantly influenced by credit use (p = 0.004), free inputs (p = 0.096), access to market information (p = 0.001), access to labour (p = 0.014), and smartphone ownership (p = 0.083). A fractional response model found the level of market participation was significantly influenced by age (p = 0.093), cooperative membership (p = 0.002), road condition (p = 0.001), storage (p = 0.016), and distance to input markets (p = 0.069).
CommunityEconomicsInovasi Reaktor Pirolisis Produksi Biochar Berbahan Baku Organic Waste Slurry Dari Sampah Perkotaan Terpilah Dengan Kontrol Tekanan
2024Utis Sutisna, Junun Sartohadi, Nur Ainun Harlin Jennie Pulungan, Ngadisih Ngadisih, YB Praharto, Nurul Hidayati · Prosiding Seminar Hasil Penelitian dan Pengabdian Kepada Masyarakat · Indonesia
A pyrolysis reactor technology (Prosiding Seminar Hasil Penelitian dan Pengabdian Kepada Masyarakat, Indonesia, 2024) converts sorted urban organic waste slurry into biochar using a self-sufficient pressure-control system with automatic temperature control and internal use of pyrolysis gas as fuel, processing waste at 400-500°C. Performance testing on soil samples showed the resulting biochar had 65-70% fixed carbon content with physical and chemical stability suitable as a soil amendment, increased soil cation exchange capacity by up to 30%, and increased soil moisture by up to 15% compared with untreated control soil. The reactor reduced organic waste volume by 50% and the biochar was reported to improve urban agricultural soil fertility and productivity.
Organic cycleCompostCommunityEvaluating Food Production, Cooling Potential, and Gardener Perspectives in Urban Allotment Gardens of Valladolid, Spain
2024Francisco Tomatis, Monika Egerer, Luis Manuel Navas-Gracia · Horticulturae · Spain
A study of twelve plots across four urban allotment gardens in Valladolid, Spain (Horticulturae, 2024) examined food production, cooling effects, and gardener perspectives. Crop selection matched broader Global North urban-gardening trends, adapted to limited plot space and varying by season. The gardens provided more stable and cooler temperatures than urban gray spaces, though the cooling effect was smaller than that of urban parks, and was most pronounced in summer. Greater crop cover at the plot level produced a stronger cooling effect, while crop abundance and diversity showed only a weak correlation with cooling benefits. Gardener surveys found awareness of climate change and its perceived direct threat to crops, health, and the city, along with concern about future water availability for crop growth and garden development.
CommunityBiodiversityClimate changeHistorical Roots OF Urban Gardening OF Streets AND Squares
2024M. S. (Mahmudova) Abdusattorovna · Neliti · Global
An article (Neliti, 2024) states that research examined how road, roadside, and building construction occurred at large scale as a result of the construction of cultural and recreational parks, landscape design, and public parks during the Timurid period. The abstract provides no further detail on data, methods, or specific findings.
CommunityPolicyRediscovering circularity in productive urban landscapes
2024Akiko Iida, Toru Terada, Kazuaki Tsuchiya, Tadashi Yamaguchi, Makoto Yokohari · Urban forestry & urban greening · Japan
Using Tokyo — where urban and agricultural land use have long been intermixed — as a case study, mailed questionnaires and in-person semi-structured interviews with urban farmers examined how community-scale composting of urban-forest green waste is integrated into commercial urban agriculture (2024, Japan). About one-third of professional urban farmers still produced compost, mainly from leaf litter, to improve soil quality, and had adapted to urbanization by sourcing leaf litter beyond their own woodlands from neighboring urban forests within a few kilometers, including parks, schools, and shrines. While urbanization has drastically altered the physical landscape, farmers have carried this intangible composting system forward for hundreds of years by retrofitting it, though the study found farmers are motivated by economic rather than environmental reasons. The authors conclude that decentralized composting works effectively in commercial urban agriculture where waste supply and demand sites are geographically close, and call for further research on scaling up waste recycling through urban agriculture.
Organic cycleCompostCommunityPeri-urban agriculturePractical Ethics: Urban Agriculture in US Cities
2024Nick DeMarsh, Alfonso Morales · Urban agriculture · United States
Focused on cities in the United States, this paper (2024) frames urban agriculture as an opportunity to challenge the status quo of current urban and food systems, discussing the opportunities and challenges that increased urban population and density create for it through Howe and Kaufman's ethical framework of means and ends. Noting the tendency for ethical ends (economic or other outcomes) to preempt consideration of ethical means or processes, it applies this means-and-ends framework to propose three key ideas for framing the ethics of urban agriculture: a place-based historical perspective, a bridge connecting cities and regions, and a nested approach to reimagining healthy socio-ecological systems. It argues that urban agriculture practitioners must understand the history of urban places and agricultural processes both as consequences of national historical processes and in present place-specific contexts and future orientations; that urban agriculture's contribution to an environmentally sustainable future rests on recognizing food production and consumption as an essential part of human life; and that its transformative potential stems from its significant role in the urban and food systems that shape everyday life — while cautioning that this potential does not mean change through urban agriculture is inevitable, since it requires participants and stakeholders to critically examine their own practices and expectations.
PolicyCommunityFood sovereignty & justice