Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
11393 results(73 / 456)
Lost in objectification – how quantification undermines the meaning(s) and public relevance of sustainability in the built environment
2025Jan Grossarth · Discover Cities · Global
This paper critically examines the dominance of quantification—certification scores, KPIs, life-cycle assessment—in sustainability practice for cities and buildings (including urban agriculture), arguing that data-driven metrics strip out the emotional and narrative meaning of sustainability. The authors label the shift from a culturally rich orientation to a purely technical, quantitative practice a "tragedy of sustainability," and argue that narrative-focused interviews and real-life storytelling in architecture and urban planning should not just accompany KPIs and ratings but be prioritized over them. The paper is a conceptual argument, not an empirical study with data or case findings.
Methodological critiquePolicyClimate changeHealthUrban Expansion and its Effect on the Tenure Security of Peri-Urban Landholders in Ethiopia
2025Getachew Demissie Desta, Zeleke Gonfa Wordofa · International Review for Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development · Ethiopia
A study of the rate and direction of spatial expansion of Robe Town, Ethiopia, into surrounding rural kebeles, and its effect on the tenure security of peri-urban landholders. It combined socioeconomic data from 202 sampled household heads with spatial data from Landsat images taken in 1987, 2002, and 2020. The town grew annually by 18.6% (1984–1994), 11.3% (1994–2007), and 9.3% (2007–2020), with its total area rising from 5.1 km² in 1984 to 80.2 km², a 40.9% overall increase. Over the 33-year period, built-up area expanded fastest southward, reaching 9.91 km from the town's mean center, and grew from 4.38 km² in 1987 to 27.9 km² in 2020; about 10.2 km² of farmland was converted to built-up land between 1987 and 2020. In peri-urban areas of Robe town, 48.9% of landowners lost around half of their farmland, leaving peri-urban landowners feeling insecure about their tenure due to fear of eviction and expropriation at minimal compensation.
Economic viabilityPolicyEconomicsClimate changeThe Practices and Challenges of Urban Agriculture in Addis Ababa the Case of Gulele Sub City
2025Getinet, Abate · National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia · Ethiopia
A mixed-methods, cross-sectional descriptive study of urban agriculture in Gulele sub-city, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, examining perceptions, opportunities, and challenges. It combined a survey of employees and farmers, in-depth interviews with farmers, key informants, and experts, and a focus group discussion with civil service employees. The study identified scarcity of urban farmland, scarcity of water for irrigating vegetables, and constraints on various agricultural inputs as core problems, alongside market accessibility issues for selling produce and limited transportation availability, even as vegetable consumption and demand among urban dwellers were rising and government policy treated urban agriculture as a current priority. It also found a negative social attitude among urban dwellers toward urban agriculture, who regard it as old-fashioned work and view urban farmers as backward and uneducated. The study concludes that the Addis Ababa City Administration's urban agriculture development sector needs to work with research institutions to address pest and insect problems and to improve vegetable yield per unit of land.
Economic viabilityPolicyEconomicsCommunityProfils, défis et stratégies sur les motivations entrepreneuriales et durabilité de l'agriculture périurbaine à Kinshasa en République Démocratique du Congo
2025Augustin Tshilumba Ilunga, Michel Mbumba Bandi, Albert Tshinyama Ntumba, Damien-Joseph Muteba Kalala · Revue Africaine d’Environnement et d’Agriculture · Democratic Republic of Congo
A study of urban agriculture in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo—a sector described as vital for food security and employment amid rapid urbanization, food insecurity, and unemployment, where farms face significant challenges including land pressure, restricted access to credit, and lack of institutional support. The study aimed to (i) examine the motivations of agri-entrepreneurs, (ii) assess their impact on farm viability, and (iii) identify the economic and non-economic factors influencing business sustainability, using a qualitative and quantitative survey combining 20 semi-structured interviews across three peripheral zones (via snowball sampling) with documentary analysis. Three categories of entrepreneurs were identified: civil servants farming as a supplementary activity, private-sector employees investing in farming, and traders farming to secure their survival. Non-pecuniary motivations such as social engagement and passion strengthened resilience, but land insecurity, a financing deficit, and lack of training were identified as the major obstacles farms face; observed adaptive strategies included diversification and informal partnerships. The study concludes by calling for integrated strategies to secure land tenure, facilitate access to credit, and professionalize the sector while integrating peri-urban agriculture into urban planning processes.
Economic viabilityEconomicsPolicyCommunityRethinking Urban Lawns: Rewilding and Other Nature-Based Alternatives
2025Diana Dushkova, Maria Ignatieva · Diversity · Global
Ongoing urbanization, biodiversity decline, and intensifying climate change are increasingly challenging the sustainability of urban green spaces dominated by conventional, intensively maintained lawns, which are criticized for their low biodiversity value and high resource demands. This paper explores nature-based solutions (NBS) as alternatives for enhancing the resilience and multifunctionality of urban lawns, conceptualizing lawns as intertwined ecological, design, and socio-cultural systems and evaluating strategies for their transformation. Drawing on case studies from ten Eurasian cities, a narrative literature review, and the authors' inter- and transdisciplinary research experience, it develops a typology of NBS alternatives including urban species-rich meadows, semi-natural grasslands, naturalistic herbaceous perennial plantings, mixed-vegetation groundcovers, edible lawns, pictorial (annual) meadows, and rewilded lawns, with key interventions including reduced mowing, multifunctional green spaces, adaptive management, and community engagement. The paper finds that these approaches can enhance biodiversity, ecosystem services, and climate resilience, but that their success depends on local ecological conditions, landscape design, and public perceptions of urban nature; it recommends using native, drought- and trampling-resistant plants with context-sensitive design that respects cultural traditions of urban greening and fosters social acceptance.
BiodiversityCommunityFood educationZagreb Living Lab
2025Bojan Baletić, Iva Bedenko, Marijo Spajić · · Croatia
A chapter examining the implementation of nature-based solutions (NBS) in the Zagreb Living Lab, in the post-industrial area of Sesvete, Croatia, as part of the EU proGIreg project. Key initiatives include the "City Gardens" project, offering citizens free plots for sustainable urban gardening, and a therapeutic garden designed for individuals with disabilities, alongside integration of green technologies including a modular urban farm combining aquaponics with green roofs and walls. Despite challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and earthquakes, the chapter states these initiatives demonstrated the potential of NBS to enhance urban regeneration, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability, emphasizing co-design processes involving local stakeholders and citizens that successfully fostered community engagement and acceptance of NBS. It discusses challenges and opportunities in operationalizing NBS within urban planning and policy and reflects on the potential for scaling these solutions and their role in shaping Sesvete's future development.
CommunityPolicyDoes participation in CSA affect consciousness and sustainable behavior of consumers? The evidence from a longitudinal study
2025Aldona Glińska‐Neweś, Paweł Brzustewicz, Iwona Escher, Yusheng Fu, Anupam Singh · Food Quality and Preference · Global
Two studies comparing consumers and non-consumers of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) examined whether participation strengthens environmental, social and health consciousness and sustainable behavior. CSA consumers showed higher environmental and social consciousness than non-consumers, with social consciousness increasing over the course of participation, and reported more sustainable consumer behavior extending beyond food to other spheres of consumption.
CSA & TeikeiFood sovereignty & justiceTypologies, spatial distribution, and gender dynamics of urban agriculture in Dodoma city, Tanzania
2025Baltazar M.L. Namwata · African Quarterly Social Science Review · Africa
A cross-sectional survey using multistage sampling across 15 neighborhoods (mitaa) in eight wards of Dodoma City, Tanzania, examined types, spatial distribution and gender dynamics of urban agriculture among 300 urban farmers in squatter and non-squatter settlements, using structured questionnaires, focus groups, key informant interviews and field observation. Crop-only farming was the most common of the observed typologies (crop-only, mixed, and livestock-only), with homestead farming linked to more informal cultivation on floodplains and government land in violation of land-use policy. Men dominated farming decision-making overall, though a trend toward joint and female-headed farming emerged among female-headed households, and squatter and non-squatter areas differed in tenure security, rule enforcement and infrastructure access.
CommunityEconomicsWelfarePolicyDetermination of heavy metal residues in leafy vegetables from peri-urban agricultural lands
2025Md. Rafiqul Islam, Syed Anisur Rahman, Tanvir Ahmed · International Journal of Agriculture and Food Science · Asia
Six heavy metals (lead, cadmium, chromium, nickel, copper, zinc) were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry in spinach, amaranth and fenugreek collected from four peri-urban sites around Dhaka, Bangladesh, during January-March 2024, where more than 2,000 hectares of vegetable land are irrigated with untreated industrial and domestic wastewater via canal networks. Lead in amaranth from the industrial-effluent site reached 0.94 mg/kg fresh weight, more than three times the WHO/FAO permissible limit of 0.30 mg/kg, while cadmium, chromium and nickel stayed within permissible limits at all sites and zinc, though highest in absolute terms (8.6-14.7 mg/kg), also remained within safe limits; contamination was highest at the industrial-effluent site and lowest at the borewell-irrigated control site, indicating a localized food-safety risk for consumers of peri-urban leafy greens grown with wastewater irrigation.
Contamination & food safetyPeri-urban agricultureHealthVerification of the Feasibility of Introducing Community Supported Agriculture into University-Regional Cooperation
2025Honoka TAHARA, Takafumi OISHI · 農村計画学会誌 · Japan
An internet-based questionnaire survey of students, faculty and staff of a Faculty of Agriculture in Japan examined the feasibility of introducing Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) into university-regional cooperation. Awareness of CSA was low and prior participation limited, but respondents tended to rate CSA favorably as a university-regional cooperation initiative; ordered logistic regression showed willingness to pay CSA membership fees was associated with occupation, prior experience (home delivery, farm work), interest in food, CSA awareness, favorable evaluation of CSA for cooperation, and intention to participate in non-purchasing CSA activities.
CSA & TeikeiPolicyFood educationHeavy metals in soils and selected root vegetables from allotment gardens in Warsaw, Poland – health risk assessment
2025Jarosław Chmielewski, Barbara Gworek, Alicja Walosik, Magdalena Florek-Łuszczki · Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine · Poland
Soil (N=196) and root vegetable (N=94) samples from 16 allotment gardens in Warsaw, Poland, were analyzed for manganese, zinc, copper, lead and cadmium and assessed for health risk. Parsley, carrots, beetroots and celery grown in these gardens accumulated elevated levels of all five metals, and the health risk assessment found an increased risk of carcinogenic effects from cadmium and lead in consumers of these root vegetables; the authors conclude consumption of vegetables from the examined gardens should be very limited or eliminated from the diet entirely.
Contamination & food safetyCommunityHealthExploring the urban systemic scenarios of improving socioecological conditions in an informal settlement of a developing country with a system dynamics model
2025Alejandra Acevedo-De-los-Ríos, Favio R. Chumpitaz-Requena, Daniel R. Rondinel-Oviedo, Úrsula Cárdenas‐Mamani, Johan Manuel Redondo · Environmental Science & Policy · Global
This study used a System Dynamics model to simulate five 10-year policy scenarios for an informal settlement in a developing country, addressing settlement consolidation and women's access to formal employment: business-as-usual, time-quality, women's formal employment, circularity (including organic waste management with urban gardens and urban agriculture), and a comprehensive scenario combining all interventions. Individual solutions alone did not fully capture potential synergies, whereas the comprehensive scenario reduced by 47.5% the time needed to improve women's formal employability, a result linked to the settlement consolidation process.
CommunityPolicyFood sovereignty & justicePemberdayaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (PKK) Melalui Program Urban Farming di Kelurahan Rejosari Kota Semarang
2025Riska Oktavia, Akhmad Faqih, Agus Riyadi · Jurnal SOLMA · Indonesia
This community program in RT/RW 01/05, Rejosari, Semarang, Indonesia, empowered women members of the PKK (Family Welfare Movement) through socialization, training, mentoring and monitoring around urban farming practices, including cultivation of chili, eggplant, cassava, shallot, bitter melon, pandan, melon, Brazilian spinach, celery and citrus leaves in shared and home plots. The program report concludes that PKK empowerment through urban farming was effective in improving family welfare in Rejosari, contingent on active community participation, local government support and continuity of mentoring and training.
CommunityWelfareFood educationAssessment of Environmental and Human Health Risks from Heavy Metal Contamination in Community Garden Soils Affected by an Industrial Fire Hazard in New Brunswick, Canada
2025Ikrema Hassan, Innocent Mugudamani, Saheed Adeyinka Oke · Environments · Canada
Top and subsoil samples from Carleton community garden in New Brunswick, Canada, affected by an industrial fire hazard, were analyzed for toxic heavy metals using ICP-OES and ICP-MS, with ecological risk assessed via the ecological risk factor and potential ecological risk index (PERI) and human health risk assessed using a standard approach. Mean concentrations of lead, zinc, copper and tin exceeded permissible limits under Canadian soil quality guidelines and upper continental crust values; nickel posed a high ecological risk across both soil layers while all other metals showed low ecological risk, and overall PERI indicated low ecological threat. In the human health assessment, children faced non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk from arsenic exposure while adults did not face risk from any of the metals studied, identifying arsenic as the primary contaminant of concern and children as the most vulnerable population.
Contamination & food safetyCommunityHealthProjeto de extensão “PANCCult
2025Daniel Sgrancio Uliana, Rhaiza Marcia Passos Leal, Sara Jarske Gering, Érica Aguiar Moraes, Jackline Freitas Brilhante de São José · Revista Guará · Brazil
This experience report covers activities of the Brazilian university extension project "PANCCult: Cultivating Knowledge and Flavors of Unconventional Edible Plants," carried out from November 2021 to January 2024, which conducted social media outreach, organized and participated in events sharing nutritional and culinary information, carried out activities in an urban community garden, and produced scientific materials on unconventional edible plants (PANC) and urban community gardens. The report concludes the project contributed to disseminating knowledge about PANC and provided professional-training opportunities for extension students while encouraging sustainable use of plant biodiversity.
CommunityFood educationFood sovereignty & justiceOrganic cycleSpirit Checklist for The FoodACT Protocol.
2025Anna Stage (17743305), Marie Caroline Vermund (11075551), Mads Bølling (6661577), Camilla Roed Otte (21175813), Alberte Laura Oest Müllertz (21175816), Peter Bentsen (3527732), Glen Nielsen (10468844), Peter Elsborg (8894495) · Figshare · Europe
This is the SPIRIT checklist for the FoodACT protocol, a multimethod, quasi-experimental study preregistered with ClinicalTrials.gov (#NCT05839080) investigating how the existing Danish school garden program Gardens to Bellies (GtB), delivered at six locations across Region Zealand and Region of Southern Denmark, affects fourth-grade pupils' food literacy, climate change literacy, school motivation and physical activity. Approximately 1,600 pupils attending GtB form the intervention group and approximately 1,600 pupils from non-participating schools form the control group, with pupils in the eight-session program growing, preparing and cooking foods; outcomes will be measured via pre/post surveys, accelerometry in a 900-pupil subsample, text-message surveys and semi-structured and focus-group interviews, analyzed using linear mixed models and thematic analysis. As a protocol document, it describes study design rather than results.
Food educationCommunityHealthClimate changeAnti-racist reorientations to land through gardening with newcomer youth of color
2025Riann Lognon, Chetna Khandelwal, Megha Sanyal, Santanu Dutta, Pallavi Banerjee, Pratim Sengupta · Frontiers in Climate · Global
Drawing on a three-year community gardening project co-created with newcomer (refugee) youth of color in North America, this qualitative study analyzed the youths' participatory, embodied and discursive work over the first two years of creating and caring for the community garden, examining how they re-establish relationships with land, air, water and more-than-human life in their newly adopted home. The analysis found the youths' participation centered an anti-racist praxis within the garden, and the study offers an expanded account of how race and climate are implicated together in migration.
CommunityClimate changeFood sovereignty & justiceAgricultura urbana como medida de mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático
2025Edwin Javier Ortega Zúñiga · Ediciones Comunicación Científica eBooks · Colombia
A study of Palmira, Colombia — a city with a long tradition as the country's agricultural capital — finds that it nonetheless faces significant food insecurity. Prior research reviewed in the study attributes this to an aging rural population and young people's declining interest in farming (which has shrunk the available labor force and limited adoption of new technology), gender inequality that restricts women's access to agricultural resources and decisions, climate change impacts such as droughts and floods on production, and accelerated urbanization that has reduced cropland and fragmented the agricultural landscape. As a potential response, the study describes a pilot project at four sites in the city that installed small-space vegetable production systems, which it reports functioned as a viable source of fresh food in dense urban settings. The authors call for a multidisciplinary approach combining social, economic and environmental factors to address food insecurity in Palmira.
Governance failureCommunityClimate changePolicyFood sovereignty & justiceWhat is the nature of evidence regarding relationships between urban agriculture and gentrification? A systematic map protocol
2025Parisi A., Walthall B., Clerino P., Firmbach P., Onyszkiewicz M., Vicente Vicente J. L. · Environmental Evidence · Global
A protocol for a systematic map of the scholarly literature on the relationship between urban agriculture (UA) and gentrification. The authors note that existing accounts variously present gentrification as a possible outcome of UA activities, as a risk that UA initiatives themselves face, and as other kinds of relationship, and argue that these divergent accounts are partly explained by different theoretical engagements with gentrification and by the breadth of activities gathered under 'urban agriculture'. It sets out the search and review strategy and aims to expose gaps in dominant academic discourses. Being a protocol, it reports no findings yet.
Equity & displacementPolicyCommunityUrban agriculture as a biodiversity conservation environment for edaphic fauna in the West Zone of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2025Pires M. J. F. C. D. S., Ribeiro S. A., Ferreira L. S., Antunes L. F. S., Uzeda M. C., Correia M. E. F. · Environmental Monitoring and Assessment · ブラジル・リオデジャネイロ市
A survey testing whether agroecological urban agriculture plots — described as remnants of biodiversity that also provide ecosystem services, food security and income — can shelter soil fauna in an urban setting. Fifteen areas forming a gradient from different plantations to forest were selected in the Campo Grande and Vargem Grande neighbourhoods of western Rio de Janeiro. At each area a transect of three sampling points 5 m apart was established; soil mesofauna was sampled with a specific auger from the litter layer down to 10 cm, and earthworms by the TSBF method at 0–10 cm. Soil fertility and texture were analysed at each point, landscape features were measured within buffers around each site, and multivariate techniques including principal component analysis were used to identify which soil attributes and landscape features most affect the occurrence and abundance of soil invertebrates.
BiodiversityOrganic cycleCommunity Supported Agriculture as a Collaboration Model of Food Production in Agroforestry
2025Tanja Kähkönen, Joshua Finch, Michael den Herder · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Global
This paper describes community supported agriculture (CSA) as a collaboration model for food production, distribution and consumption involving farmers and consumers. It notes that CSA consumers can include individuals and families as well as other consumers such as restaurants, schools and kindergartens.
CSA & TeikeiCommunityThe impact of implementing urban farming program on social, economic, and environmental aspects in Semarang City
2025Fadhil Adi Nugraha, Ira Malihatun, Siwi Gayatri, Titik Ekowati, Sumarsono Sumarsono · AGRICOLA · Indonesia
In Semarang City, Indonesia, a survey of 86 farmers from four Women Farmer Groups (KWT) who received the government's Sustainable Food Yard (Pekarangan Pangan Lestari) program — using questionnaire interviews, descriptive analysis, and a literature review — assessed the program's social, economic, and environmental impacts. The social impact was rated "less" (score 31.10%), the economic impact "low" (28.88%), and the environmental impact "very low" (18.60%). The program strengthened social relations among farmers but was not effective in improving farming skills or public health; economically it had potential to contribute to household expenditure but had not optimized income growth or job creation; and its environmental impact remained limited, particularly in preserving biodiversity and reducing chemical use.
Limited or null effectCommunityEconomicsUrban Farming sebagai Solusi Kemandirian Pangan dan Lapangan Kerja Baru di Bangka Belitung
2025Aprilia Martika, Amelia Sari, Disti Macela Putri, Misbahul Munir · Inisiatif Jurnal Ekonomi Akuntansi dan Manajemen · Indonesia
Focusing on the Parit Lalang area of Pangkalpinang City in Bangka Belitung, Indonesia, this qualitative case study used participant observation, in-depth interviews and documentation studies, analyzed thematically and via SWOT analysis. Urban agriculture there is carried out mostly in small home gardens and on vacant land, using hydroponic and traditional methods, with productive-age residents and housewives as the main participants. The practice increased household food availability, reduced living costs, and generated additional income, strengthening local economic resilience. However, challenges remain, including limited technical skills, financial constraints, and inconsistent government support, and the study concludes that strengthening training programs, improving access to finance, and developing pilot projects are needed.
Food sovereignty & justiceEconomicsCommunityINOVASI PEMBELAJARAN ARITMATIKA SOSIAL DENGAN PENDEKATAN PROJECT-BASED LEARNING BERBASIS ASET SEKOLAH DAN INTEGRASI LINTAS PELAJARAN
2025Eka Sariyanti, Ahmad Yani T · JP2M (Jurnal Pendidikan dan Pembelajaran Matematika) · Indonesia
In Indonesia, a descriptive qualitative study using observation, interviews and documentation examined project-based learning (PjBL) that draws on school assets, including school gardens, to teach social arithmetic (profit-and-loss calculation). The learning project had students process garden produce into sellable products and analyze profit-and-loss calculations, incorporating cross-subject collaboration with Indonesian Language and Social Sciences (IPS). Implementing school-asset-based PjBL was found to increase student motivation, engagement, and understanding of social arithmetic concepts, but the study also identified challenges including time constraints in project management and students' difficulty understanding the concepts of profit and profit margin calculation.
Food educationCommunityClimate-Smart Agriculture and Urban/Peri-Urban Agriculture in the Great Lakes Region
2025Verheyden, Johan G.L. · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Africa
This literature review examines the intersection of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) and climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in the Great Lakes region of Africa — Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo — a region undergoing rapid urbanization amid growing climate change vulnerability. It examines how CSA practices such as agroforestry, composting, water-efficient irrigation, and resilient crop varieties are being adopted and adapted within diverse UPA systems, synthesizes evidence on their impacts on food security, nutrition, environmental sustainability and socio-economic wellbeing, and analyzes the governance, policy and institutional factors enabling or constraining uptake. The review identifies critical research gaps, including the need for long-term impact assessments, locally adapted CSA strategies, effective governance models, and a better understanding of land tenure and nutritional outcomes, and outlines future research directions and policy recommendations with particular attention to Kenya's evolving urban landscape and devolution framework.
Climate changePeri-urban agriculture