Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
2091 results(73 / 84)
Realizing a Holistic Approach to Food through School Gardens and Growing Activities
2012Mat Jones, Emma Weitkamp, Richard Kimberlee, Debra Salmon, Judy Orme · Children Youth and Environments · Global
This mixed-methods study analyzed the development of school garden initiatives by tracking the progress of 55 primary schools participating in the "Food for Life Partnership" program. Findings showed considerable expansion of food growing facilities, outputs, and supporting infrastructure. Participating students, parents, and community volunteers created new links to food-related activities in the dining hall, classroom, and home environment. The effectiveness of these changes was connected to the strategic redevelopment of growing spaces and conceptually integrated messages on food sustainability.
Food educationCommunityHealthWelfareImpact Evaluation of Community Gardening Initiatives on Food Security in Ghanaian Towns from an African Perspective
2012Yves ZONGO, Isidore Mbock, Ngaïmi Fongòmba, Siméon Ndayizeye · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Ghana
To evaluate the impact of community gardening initiatives on food security in Ghanaian towns, a structured survey was administered online and through face-to-face interviews. Findings indicated that community garden programs resulted in an average of 20% increase in vegetable production per household, with significant improvements noted among women and youth participants who traditionally had limited access to fresh produce.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceWelfarePolicyLos cultivos de cobertura en la horticultura familiar urbana: una oportunidad para mejorar la formación del estudiante de agronomía.
2012Marcelo Milo Vaccaro, Geovanny Francisco Ruiz Muñoz, CARLOS HENRIQUE FARIAS TORRES, Javier Couretot · · Argentina (Rosario)
Research conducted in Rosario, Argentina, in 2012, evaluated the efficiency of cover crops in recovering urban soils and characterized agro-ecological practices among urban vegetable producers. The study found that cover crops are effective for urban land recovery and that producers possess the knowledge to integrate them. Additionally, the experience enhanced agricultural engineering students' professional training by developing their social skills and ethical commitment.
CommunityFood educationOrganic cycleBeyond a Construction Site, Beyond National Citizenship: The Infrapolitics of Translocal Citizenship
2012Žiga Vodovnik · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global
This article examines the concept of "translocal citizenship," which moves away from the nation-state as its territorial reference point and rejects its continuation within new supranational entities. The second part focuses on the "Beyond a Construction Site" project, initiated by the Obrat Culture and Art Association (KUD Obrat), where an unused construction site has been repurposed as a community garden. This project practically illustrates translocal citizenship by fostering new forms of collective action and political membership better suited for intercultural dialogue and the inclusion of migrant communities.
CommunityPolicyWelfareInterdisciplinary Model for Infusing Food Security into STEM Curriculum
2012Maleka P. Hashmi, Kitrina M. Carlson · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Global
A student-driven, community-engaged learning course on food systems and choices was developed to enhance student understanding of food security determinants. The course, guided by the socio-ecological model, included student-led modules and community research projects in metro Atlanta, focusing on local food distribution and access in low-income areas. It culminated in a symposium and research reports, with a grant from Emory's CFCP supporting community collaboration.
Food educationFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityCSA & TeikeiGrowing Community Resilience: Empowering Neighborhoods with Tools of Design for the Northern Climate
2012Anna Biebrauer · University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy (University of Minnesota) · Global
This handbook provides a basic design primer for urban farmers, gardeners, and community groups interested in creating pocket farms, community gardens, or CSAs. It compiles urban agriculture components, precedents, and design considerations for arrangement, construction, perception, and use by farmers and their communities. The suggested ideas and plants are tailored for the Northern climate (hardy to USDA Zone 4).
CommunityDIYCSA & TeikeiAre We Really Worrying About the Right Issues?
2012&NA; · Nurse Educator · Global
This paper describes the development and integration of a multidisciplinary community garden as a service project for a baccalaureate nursing cohort at an urban university. It discusses the application of professional ethics, service, nutritional theory, and community health nursing competencies within this project.
CommunityFood educationHealthHealth impact assessment in the island of Ireland
2012Owen Metcalfe, Claire Higgins, T. Lavin · Oxford University Press eBooks · Ireland
This chapter considers the development of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) on the island of Ireland over a 10-year period. While not a statutory requirement, HIA has received some support from national and local government as a decision-support tool to enhance healthy public policy. New public health frameworks in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in 2012 have the potential to embed HIA more systematically. The Institute of Public Health in Ireland has played a key role in building capacity for HIA and supporting its practice, with a case study examining how HIA was used to add a health and health inequalities lens to a cross-border community garden development program.
HealthPolicyCommunityCultivating Urbanism: Transforming the Existing City Through Agrarian Interventions
2012Takao Ugai · ScholarSpace (University of Hawaii at Manoa) · Global
This investigation aims to develop a new urban scheme for "Cultivating Urbanism" by adapting agricultural practices into existing urban fabrics to create pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use, high-density cities filled with agriculture. The study analyzes the history of urban systems and agriculture, drawing on New Urbanism and Agricultural Urbanism to propose new urban typologies. It investigates the paradigm of ecology, lifestyle, food products, and physical and psychological benefits, using Shinjuku, Tokyo, as a case study for applying urban agriculture methodologies to various building prototypes.
PolicyClimate changeCommunityFood sovereignty & justiceSatisfaction in the context of customer co‐production: A behavioral involvement perspective
2012David M. Hunt, Stephanie Geiger‐Oneto, Philip E. Varca · Journal of Consumer Behaviour · Global
This exploratory field study, drawing on community theory, examined whether engagement in co-production activities in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) leads to greater product satisfaction for consumers. Results indicated that two types of value co-creation—commitment to co-production and behavioral involvement in product-related activities—were positively correlated with product satisfaction. These findings support the notion that value co-creation provides value for consumers.
CSA & TeikeiCommunityEconomicsSostenibile per necessitŕ. Breve storia dell'agricoltura urbana a Cuba
2012Alberto Graglia, Giulia Mazzanti · TERRITORIO · Cuba
This paper reflects on the conditions that enabled the rapid and large-scale spread of urban agriculture practices in Cuba, making it an emblematic example of reducing economic dependency on oil. The success of urban agriculture in Cuba is attributed to the country's unique history and its economic and political circumstances.
CommunityEconomicsPolicyFood sovereignty & justiceForms of Lead in Profiles of Differently Use Soil
2012Iwona Makuch · Soil Science Annual · Global
This study investigated the influence of intensive horticulture on lead content and its fractions in soil profiles from house gardens, allotment gardens, and arable fields. It was not determined that the manner of usage had any influence on total lead content or its distribution in soil profiles. However, the usage manner did influence the content and distribution of lead fraction III, which is connected with organic matter, with humus horizons of garden soils showing the highest content.
Contamination & food safetyHealthCommunityUrban–rural linkageortolocoZurich: Urban agriculture as an economy of solidarity
2012Marit Rosol, P. Schweizer · City · Switzerland (Zurich)
This paper investigated how urban agriculture projects based on Solidarity Economics principles can develop new economic forms as an alternative to neo-liberal capitalism, focusing on the Swiss gardening cooperative ortoloco. For two years, ortoloco, a peri-urban organic farm with explicit political aims beyond food supply, successfully applied and continuously developed these principles in its economic practice. The project demonstrates the potential for developing new economic forms based on solidarity.
CommunityEconomicsFood sovereignty & justicePeri-urban agricultureCommunity-Based Waste Management Strategies: Peri-Urban Interface, Kumasi, Ghana
2012Abdullah Adam-Bradford, Duncan McGregor, Dávid Simon · · Ghana (Kumasi)
Rapid urbanization in Kumasi, Ghana, and its peri-urban areas leads to significant pollution and waste disposal problems, exacerbated by rapid growth, poverty, and weak local governance. Waste management services are rarely provided in these peri-urban areas despite increasing settlement densities. Community-based strategies promoting nutrient recycling, such as converting organic waste into compost for urban and peri-urban agriculture, offer opportunities to address these issues.
CompostOrganic cycleCommunityPeri-urban agricultureFood sovereignty & justiceThe Contribution of Women to Food Security and Livelihoods through Urban Agriculture in the City of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
2012Fungai Hamilton Mudzengerere · · Zimbabwe (Bulawayo)
This research investigated the contribution of women to food security and family livelihoods through urban agriculture in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Primary data collected through observations and interviews showed that women practice urban agriculture more than men and play a crucial role in household food security. While women make decisions on crop types, harvest times, and markets, they face challenges with land ownership, financing, and market access, which negatively affect their agricultural activities.
Food sovereignty & justiceWelfareEconomicsCommunityEnvironmeNT grants making a real difference
2012Karl Hampton · · Australia
The EnvironmeNT grants initiative has supported various areas, including Indigenous Ranger groups for weed management, wildlife rescue services, school recycling projects, and the establishment of community gardens. It also provided funds for threatened species protection and feral animal impact reduction.
CommunityPolicyPerspectives on The Effectiveness of NGO Initiatives in Urban Agriculture In Zimbabwe
2012Batanai L Sammie, Charles Nyamutowa, Munyaradzi Gwazane · International Journal of Scientific Research · Zimbabwe
This study used FGDs and case studies to identify perceived causes of failure of NGO urban agriculture initiatives in Zimbabwe. The study identified the principal-agent relationship between NNGOs and LNGOs as the epicenter of all initiative failures.
Governance failurePolicyCommunitySustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba
2011Koont S. · University Press of Florida (Contemporary Cuba series) · Cuba
This book provides a comprehensive account of Cuba's world-leading sustainable urban agriculture program, documenting a thousand-fold increase in urban agricultural output since 1994 and analyzing how government organizational infrastructure and human capital investment enabled this transformation.
CommunityPolicyEconomicsOrganic cycleCommunity perceptions of human excreta as fertilizer in peri-urban agriculture in Ghana
2011Simon Mariwah, Jan-Olof Drangert · Waste Management & Research The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy · Ghana
A study in a peri-urban agricultural community in Ghana explored attitudes towards sanitized human excreta as fertilizer, collecting data from 154 households. It found a general negative attitude towards fresh excreta and its handling. While residents accepted excreta could be used as fertilizer, they were unwilling to use it on their own crops or consume such fertilized crops.
Limited or null effectPeri-urban agricultureCommunityOrganic cycleHealthEmbodied connections: sustainability, food systems and community gardens
2011Bethaney Turner · Local Environment · Australia
Based on an ethnographic study of community gardeners in the Australian Capital Territory, this article argues that fostering an embodied form of sustainability, which accounts for individual embodied engagement in these collective spaces, is critical for achieving sustainable urban living outcomes. It suggests that individual embodied engagement in collective spaces like community gardens can contribute to reconnection to the socio-cultural importance of food. This process may offer pathways to developing broader engagement with the food system and a long-term commitment to sustainable living practices.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceHealthUrban–rural linkageCritical urban gardening as a post-environmentalist practice
2011Chiara Certomà · Local Environment · Global
This paper investigated the emergence of the urban gardening movement as a form of post-environmentalist political practice. Despite the general acknowledgment of environmental issues, Post-Environmentalism suggests that environmental thinking is becoming increasingly "de-politicised." This study aimed to suggest that "re-politicisation" of environmental politics is possible by considering political practices emerging in urban space. Critical urban gardening, for instance, uses biological material as a form of political expression and activates material-semiotic networks in the urban environment.
CommunityPolicyFood sovereignty & justiceAllotment Gardens: A Reflection of History, Heritage, Community and Self
2011Lesley Acton · Papers from the Institute of Archaeology · Global
This article examines the changing demand for allotment gardens and the motivations of plot holders, refuting the assumption that economic reasons are primary. It finds that while allotments have historically alleviated hunger, the social aspect primarily motivates most plot holders. Allotments are valued by individuals and collectives as part of history and cultural heritage.
CommunityWelfareEconomicsThe Contribution of Agricultural Land to Urban Resilience: Reflections from Russia
2011Louiza M. Boukharaeva, Marcel Marloie · Espaces et sociétés · Russia
In Russia, the collective management of urban gardens provides places for relaxation and food production, attracting all population categories. These gardens are considered socially compensatory, stabilizing, and therapeutic, acting as shock absorbers for social, economic, and food crises.
Urban–rural linkageCommunityFood sovereignty & justiceHealthEconomicsRegional Foodsheds: Are Our Local Zoning and Land Use Regulations Healthy?
2011Patricia E. Salkin, Amy Lavine · FLASH - Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship & History (Fordham University) · Global
This article examines how existing land use plans and regulations can promote healthier and more sustainable communities through the regional foodshed movement. It discusses specific land use strategies applicable in urban and suburban settings globally, focusing on facilitating local and regional food production and distribution. These strategies include supporting smaller-scale community gardens, residential agricultural uses, and farmers markets, moving beyond traditional farmland preservation.
PolicyFood sovereignty & justiceHealthCommunitySpace to Grow: Women, art, and the urban agriculture movement
2011A. J. Gilbert, Yael Raviv · Women & Performance a journal of feminist theory · Global
The abstract for this record is incomplete. It introduces "Sharecropper," a series of micro farming installations, as an artistic, practical, and philosophical exploration of growing, cooking, and eating food within a community.
CommunityFood educationDIY