Research & reports

Stephanie White · CABI eBooks · Senegal

A book chapter applying resilience theory to situate urban agriculture within city food systems and urban food security. Using urban agriculture in M'Bour, Senegal as a case, it examines how urban processes and space ("urban assemblages") produce various food vulnerabilities and resiliencies, and how food practices are leveraged to survive and thrive in dynamic, variable urban environments.

Rawaa Fawzi Naom Abbawi, Fatima fouad Yaseen · Iraqi Journal of Architecture and Planning · Global

A study taking up the concept of urban agriculture as one of the trends within sustainable urbanism, motivated by limited green space, population growth and ongoing neglect of the urban landscape. A literature review established the key terms and indicators related to urban agriculture's spatial properties and multi-use activity, and the study then tested its hypotheses through a destructive, analytic study of actual urban agriculture projects. Results showed that urban agriculture's connection to city landscape is achieved mainly through contextual linkage, and that social and cultural uses are the most important use realized through urban agriculture's presence in the city landscape. The study concludes with a theoretical model of urban agriculture in the city landscape.

Philippe Robert-Demontrond, Vanessa Beaudouin, Isabelle Dabadie · Recherche et Applications en Marketing (English Edition) · Global

This article examines consumer engagement in community-supported agriculture (CSA) programmes, an alternative direct-selling model, using ethnographic fieldwork and cultural theory as an anthropological analytical framework. It finds that CSA programmes function as "community enclaves" operating outside of and against the conventional market, and that different cultures coexist within the broader CSA movement. This diversity of worldviews generates tensions, but their complementarity is described as proving positive for the movement.

Luz Dary Agudelo Gutiérrez · Journal of research in engineering sciences. · Colombia

In Colombia, this study aimed to implement urban agriculture as a pedagogical and didactic strategy for training vulnerable populations in the production and consumption of healthy food, oriented toward food security. To structure a proposed design for agroecological gardens, the researchers carried out a participatory validation process with the community and supporting local professionals, aiming to spread knowledge and build community ownership of the project. The initiative aims to use vacant urban land for gardening that increases biodiversity while strengthening food security.

Yong Hyun Kim, Moo Ryong Huh, Jeong Ho Lee, Young Sik Lee, Hye Sung Choi · Journal of people, plants, and environment · Global

This study examined effluent water from biofloc technology (BFT) inland aquaculture as a resource-recycling substitute for conventional chemical fertilizer in urban agriculture, using cherry tomato cultivation. Tomato seedlings transplanted into nutrient-free horticultural soil were grown for 8 weeks under five treatments: control, hyponex solution (HS), slow-released fertilizer (SF), daily effluent water (DE), and weekly effluent water (WE). Growth characteristics differed significantly among treatments except for root length: plant length ranked HS=WE greater than DE=SF greater than control, and stem diameter ranked DE=SF greater than WE=HS greater than control, with no significant difference between HS and WE in shoot length/diameter or between DE and SF; leaf number was significantly higher in HS, DE and WE than in SF and control. Fruit sugar content showed no significant difference among treatments except the control, but fruit weight and yield were significantly higher in HS and WE than in DE and SF. The study concludes that the use of effluent water is comparable to conventional chemical fertilizer for urban agricultural cultivation.

Matt Curnock, Carol Farbotko, Kerry Collins, Cathy Robinson, Kirsten Maclean · Geographical Research · Australia

In a context of heightened regional biosecurity activity in northern Queensland, Australia, researchers interviewed 16 community garden group leaders and local government representatives to examine how community garden actors engage with biosecurity surveillance. Informal factors such as social networks shaped engagement more than institutional characteristics like land tenure or the presence of management policies; unengaged stakeholders were typically unaware of pest and disease risks and had limited government network connections but expressed interest in learning, while disengaged stakeholders knew more about the risks and had established networks yet showed low interest in reporting threats.

Alastair Fuad‐Luke · Estudos em Comunicação · Global

This theoretical essay spans agriculture, art, digital media, design and philosophy to reframe Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) as part of an "expanded field" of agri-culture. Tracing experimentation in alternative production systems from medieval times through the rise of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) from the 1980s onward, it applies Felix Guattari's concept of ecosophy to ask how AFNs mediate their activities online and how they might construct new producer-consumer relations. It is an exploratory conceptual paper examining design's potential contribution to scaling AFNs, and presents no empirical data.

Kasper Lange, Gijsbert Korevaar, Inge Oskam, Paulien Herder · Sustainability · Global

This paper addresses "Symbiotic Urban Agriculture Networks" (SUANs), a class of symbiotic networks aiming to close material and energy loops between cities and urban agriculture, and the difficulties private and public stakeholders face implementing technological and organisational design interventions given the complexity of the agricultural and urban environment. Arguing that existing research on Industrial Symbiosis (IS) dynamics relies mainly on historical practice data and provides only a partial understanding of symbiotic networks as sociotechnical complex adaptive systems, it proposes a conceptual Design Science method combining Design Science theory, participatory methods and agent-based modelling to develop grounded, tested design rules for SUANs. It also lays out a research agenda for further strategy, design intervention and model development through case studies, but reports no results from an actual case application.

N. Delille · WORLD OF ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT · Global

This article examines the concept of ecological citizenship -- which positions citizens as agents of change and sources of progress, in contrast to environmental policy's long-standing treatment of citizens as passive actors -- against the backdrop of the rise of community-supported agriculture (CSA). It argues that this new form of sustainable consumption can be considered tangible evidence for Dobson's theory of ecological citizenship, but states that the scientific literature needs to take more interest in the topic to understand its implications for public policy, which it says has not yet been done.

Siebler, Kay · Texas ScholarWorks (Texas Digital Library) · Global

Describes a case narrative of a mobile "writing center without walls" that brings English-language-learner tutoring to non-traditional venues, including a community garden where vegetables are grown alongside the teaching. The abstract does not report a study design, participant numbers, or measured outcomes; it is presented as the story of one such writing center.

J. A. Byrne, Catherine Marina Pickering, D. A. Guitart, R. Sims-Castley · CABI eBooks · Australia

The local impacts of global urbanization — dwindling green spaces, food insecurity, land shortages, and loss of biodiversity — have triggered renewed interest in various forms of urban agriculture. In rapidly growing cities across both the Global North and Global South, residents are seeking better access to places to grow safe and healthy food, spaces that foster social inclusion, and improved environmental quality. Urban cultivation initiatives are often framed around the social benefits of local food growing and typically aim to be "sustainable." This chapter addresses the implications these twin goals have for land-use planning and policy.

Debra Flanders Cushing, Harriot Beazley, Lisa Law · · Australia

A book chapter synthesizes research on food practices, urban food landscapes, and childhood obesity in (sub)tropical Queensland, Australia, examining two community garden examples with a focus on access to healthy food. It cites the WHO position that no single intervention strategy prevents childhood obesity, and that solutions must draw on three areas: governmental structures, population-wide policies, and community-based interventions. Key barriers to children's healthy diets identified are food availability, convenience, taste preferences, peer pressure, and lack of parental or school support, with increased knowledge of fruits and vegetables shown to directly increase children's consumption of them. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future research on urban green spaces and obesity.

Bronwen Morgan, Declan Kuch · Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks · Global

A chapter draws on an extensive study of grassroots innovation responding to climate change, spanning a continuum from social activism to social enterprise, examining the diverse motivations of entrepreneurs who started community-supported agriculture projects, car-sharing schemes, and co-working spaces. It shows how entrepreneurs' differing biographical trajectories shape the initiatives they create around economic, environmental, and social benefits. The chapter argues these benefits must be understood through the ambiguity of a socio-legal lens: while "sharing" initiatives may occasionally catalyze opportunities to move beyond neoliberalism, the ways lawyers and legal techniques shape the infrastructure of collaboration are deeply implicated in the economics of the neoliberal inheritance — meaning such sharing-economy governance remains entangled with, rather than genuinely escaping, neoliberal economic structures.

Heraty J.M., Ellstrand N.C. · Economic Botany 70(1):37-48 · Global

Measures maize genetic diversity in home and community gardens kept by immigrant farmers in Southern California, showing transnational seed dispersal sustains landrace diversity beyond recognized centers of diversity.

Leitgeb F., Schneider S., Vogl C.R. · Agriculture and Human Values · Cuba (Havana)

Using semi-structured interviews with 15 urban farmers in Havana, this study examines how Cuba's 2008 land reform and 2011 Lineamientos policy created conditions for food sovereignty while generating new marketing opportunities, though reducing subsidies raised consumer prices.

Filkobski I., Rofè Y., Tal A. · Urban Forestry & Urban Greening · Israel

A survey of 44 community garden coordinators across Israel found that community gardens serve as community anchors and sites of encounter for diverse urban populations. The study documented their characteristics and functions within the Israeli urban context.

Spilková J., Vágner J. · Land Use Policy · Prague, Czechia

Since 1989 Prague's allotment gardens have been diminishing rapidly, converted to residential, transport, and commercial development or recreation. The paper documents how allotments are among the most vulnerable urban green spaces under the pressures of urban planning and private interests.

Victoria Egli, Melody Oliver, El‐Shadan Tautolo · Preventive Medicine Reports · New Zealand (Auckland)

From April to August 2015, a model illustrating the many wellbeing benefits of community garden participation was developed based on a global, critical literature review. This model grouped the benefits into factors influencing the nutritional health environment and factors influencing the social environment. In October 2015, the model was presented to a diverse group of community members in the Tāmaki region of Auckland, New Zealand, to test its comprehension and gather feedback.

Silvio Caputo, Eva Schwab, Kostas Tsiambaos, Mary Benson, Hervé Bonnavaud, Neslihan Demircan, Tim Delshammar, Frederico Meireles, Nerea Morán, Jeanne Pourias · · Global

This chapter provides an overview of emergent approaches to urban gardening, identifying urban dynamics and spatial implications. It notes that a lack of suitable urban land and difficulties in establishing constructive dialogue with local authorities regarding land provision can lead to the use of interstitial urban spaces for gardening practices. An example includes a community-based organization constructing a permaculture garden on a supermarket rooftop, highlighting challenges in land access and governance.

Steve G. Hallett, Lori Hoagland, Emily Toner · Horticultural reviews · Global

This chapter discusses urban agriculture from economic, environmental, and social perspectives, acknowledging differences between urban agriculture in small and large cities, as well as the Global North and South. Urban farms and community gardens can have both positive and negative environmental impacts, such as reducing or increasing energy consumption, improving water infiltration, and beautifying neighborhoods, or producing odors and contaminating water. The chapter also attempts to frame policy recommendations that might help guide urban agriculture's development.

Helena Nordh, Kristin Tuv Wiklund, Kaja Elisabeth Koppang · Landscape Research · Norway

This study interviewed 33 plot holders in Oslo, Norway, to explore their reasons for engaging in urban allotment gardens (AGs) and the perceived benefits. Reasons included a desire for a safe play environment for children, a place to cultivate, and outdoor contact. Benefits were related to meaningful activities, social networks, and respite from urban life, indicating physical and psychological health benefits.

Christine Hvitsand · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Norway

This article explores why Norwegian producers and consumers engage in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), identifying distinct values and motivations related to environmental protection, justice, health, participation, and communication. While CSA demonstrates transformational power in the agri-food system through sustainable practices and power reallocation, the challenge remains to upscale these actions and prevent the dilution of core values and agroecological practices.

Sofia Nikolaidou, Tanja Klöti, Simone Tappert, Matthias Drilling · Urban Planning · Switzerland (Geneva)

This article examines new forms of small-scale urban gardening practices in Geneva, Switzerland, focusing on how multiple actors negotiate over open space and the resulting hybrid forms of public green space. Main findings indicate emerging forms of collaboration, partnerships, and governance patterns involving public and private sectors and increased civil society participation. This cooperation enhances accessibility and diversified uses of urban green spaces.

Piroska Nagy · Repository of the Academy's Library (Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) · Global

This study provides an overview of the development, geographical emergence, and key values of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) globally and in Hungary, using secondary research methods. The roots of CSA trace back to Rudolf Steiner's ideas in the 1920s, forming the basis for CSA movements in Germany, Switzerland, and the Americas. In contrast, the French AMAP and Hungarian CSA are based on the teikei communities that emerged in the 1970s. Both models were found to be motivated by consumers' desire for access to healthy food, with consumers initiating their establishment.

Tina Marie Waliczek, Jayne M. Zajicek · · Global

This document presents sections such as the history of school gardens and gardens for education, the need for youth gardens, ways to garden with youth, and the benefits of gardening with youth. No specific research content or findings are provided.