Research & reports

John M. Polimeni, Raluca Iorgulescu Polimeni, Richard L. Shirey, Christina L. Trees, W. Scott Trees · Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER) · United States

This paper develops a theory of demand for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership, using survey and anecdotal data from members of the Roxbury Biodynamic Farm, the second largest CSA in the United States. The discussion considers evidence of a direct relationship between production method and demand. It also hypothesizes that dynamic demand, influenced by participation over time, is a necessary but insufficient condition for CSA sustainability.

Samuel W. Lewis · Scholarship @ Claremont (The Claremont Colleges) · United States (California)

In summer 2010, 11 high school students from under-resourced communities in Pomona, Montclair, La Puente, and Chino Hills, California, were paid to participate for six weeks (five days a week, 30 hours a week) in the Youth Earth Connections (YEC) summer internship program, funded by the 2010 Davis Projects for Peace and a Pomona College Summer Undergraduate Research Project Award. The program was designed to connect movements for food and environmental justice with farming work, and weekly survey responses from interns suggest that experiential urban farming programs at the high school level can connect students with issues of environmentalism and social justice and motivate action against the industrial food system and the environmental injustices they experience.

Edna Bonacich, Jake Alimahomed‐Wilson · Souls · United States (California)

The role of capitalism in the ecological crisis and jobs crisis facing the Los Angeles African American community is examined, arguing that sectors of Black Americans, like many people in the Global South, are being pushed out of the formal system of capitalist employment. In response, the paper looks to delinking and the development of economic experiments rooted in community economic self-determination based on anti-capitalist values, reporting on a small urban farming project the authors are starting.

· Lincoln (University of Nebraska) · United States

The May 2011 issue table of contents for NEBLINE, a newsletter published by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension. It lists a feature on nature, gardening and science in a butterfly garden, alongside sections on urban agriculture, 4-H and youth programs, nutrition education, and Family and Community Education (FCE) club news.

Bruna Lara Alvarenga Barros, Jackeline Canuto Mendes, Vinicius Moreno Nolasco, Marivaldo Aparecido de Carvalho, Rosana Passos Cambraia · Cadernos de Agroecologia · Brazil

A project in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil paired students from the Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri with youth and educators at AJIR, a philanthropic institution housing ten at-risk young men. Activities centered on cultivating vegetables, fruit trees and medicinal plants and raising small animals as part of residents' diet, guided by an ecological diagnostic of the local environment-agriculture relationship. The work aimed to valorize popular and endogenous knowledge alongside scientific knowledge and to build agroecological learning practices.

Andrew Kimbrell · Tikkun · United States

This essay criticizes the dominant industrial food model, corporations turning agriculture into agribusiness through heavy chemical, mechanical and genetically altered inputs, as producing profound alienation between the public and food production; it argues that increasing urbanization widens this physical and psychological distance, obscuring the industrial food model's consequences, including forest destruction, animal cruelty, pesticide harm to farmworkers and wildlife, and devastation of farm communities, which together constitute a moral crisis as well as an environmental and health crisis. It also describes a growing organic-and-beyond movement over the past two generations, with millions of Americans joining community supported agriculture (CSA) and opposing pesticide misuse, factory farming and genetic engineering of crops.

Joshua M. Davis · School for International Training Digital Collections (School for International Training) · United States

This paper evaluates the sustainability of the Market Basket (MB), a modified Community Supported Agriculture program run by Post Oil Solutions in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA, that provided local, fresh vegetables to low-income consumers at wholesale prices across two locations over two years, drawing on the author's experience as market coordinator, focus groups, interviews, and secondary data. Over 60 people participated in the MB during that period, and the paper argues the MB was an effective approach for increasing produce consumption, but issues affecting its sustainability remained unresolved — most notably funding to support a coordinator and increasing participation among generationally low-income consumers — with steps to address both currently underway.

Marianne Sarkis, Amelia Angevine, Samuel Morrison, Caitlin Raph, Andrea Siemaszko · Clark Digital Commons (Clark University) · United States

A student research project in the United States investigating what factors influence refugees' participation in community gardens. Students conducted observations, informal interviews and focus groups with local refugees, examining location, education, community, economics and access to supplies as candidate factors. The project concluded that a lack of economic and structural flexibility is a significant reason for the low participation observed.

Kristin Reynolds · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

In Alameda County, California, the University of California Small Farm Program collected data from 2006 to 2009 through on-site interviews with 52 urban farmers and gardeners, surveys of Extension staff, and participant observation. The study examined characteristics of urban agriculture in the county, operators' challenges and assistance needs, and Extension staff members' interest in expanding programming for urban agriculture.

Tommy Bleasdale, Carolyn J. Crouch, Sharon L. Harlan · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

Researchers studied a struggling community gardening program in a low-income minority neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona, operated within a larger local food initiative led by a nonprofit community development organization. Based on interviews and participant observation used to build an exploratory survey, the study found that while residents had gardening interest and experience, awareness of the program itself was low, perceptions of gardening's benefits and burdens varied among current gardeners, ex-gardeners, and those who had never gardened, and the benefits residents cited often differed from the goals stated by the local food initiative.

Britta Riley · TED · United States

In this TED talk (posted November 2011), artist-technologist Britta Riley presents Windowfarms, a vertical hydroponic system for growing food in apartment windows, and the crowdsourced "R&D-I-Y" development approach behind it. Windowfarms was named one of Entrepreneur magazine's "100 Brilliant Companies to Watch" in 2010.

McClintock N. · Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 3(2):191-207 · United States

Theorizes urban agriculture through the metabolic rift framework, arguing it addresses ecological, social and individual rifts by rescaling production, reclaiming vacant land, and de-alienating urban dwellers from their food.

Draper C., Freedman D. · Journal of Community Practice 18(4):458-492 · United States

Reviews 1999-2010 literature, organizing community gardening purposes, benefits and motivations into eleven themes. Finds rigorous quantitative studies sparse but a substantial body of qualitative evidence.

Alaimo K., Reischl T. M., Allen J. O. · Journal of Community Psychology 38(4):497-514 · United States

Cross-sectional random telephone survey (N=1916) in Flint, Michigan finds household involvement in community gardening/beautification and neighborhood meetings associated with perceptions of bonding and linking social capital and neighborhood norms.

Dubbeling M.C.E., Merzthal G., Soto N. · Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development · Peru (Lima)

Analyzes the multistakeholder policy formulation process for urban agriculture in Lima's Villa María del Triunfo district, demonstrating that inclusive stakeholder engagement produces more effective municipal policies addressing food security, land use, and economic development simultaneously.

Sarah Taylor Lovell · Sustainability · United States

This paper reviews literature on urban agriculture for land use planning in the United States, where interest in urban food production is growing due to economic and food security concerns. It discusses urban agriculture's potential for integrating multiple functions in densely populated areas, from community farms to rooftop gardens. The paper also addresses barriers and constraints, and identifies research opportunities for urban planners and landscape designers to integrate food-systems thinking into city plans.

K. Brandon Lang · Culture & Agriculture · United States

This paper investigates the evolution of "From the Ground Up," a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program in Maryland, and the reasons behind its changes. Based on survey and interview data, the study explores how this CSA, which connects producers and consumers through seasonal fees and weekly produce shares, has developed over time.

Katharine Antonia Travaline, Christian Hunold · Local Environment · United States (Philadelphia)

This study explored urban agriculture's contribution to ecological citizenship in Philadelphia, United States. The analysis was based on participant-observation and open-ended interviews with leaders and community participants from seven urban agricultural organizations. The findings indicate that urban agriculture promotes public participation and social learning about environmental decisions.

Miranda Martinez · · United States (Lower East Side)

This work explores the dynamics of gentrification, community gardens, and their impact on the Puerto Rican community in the Lower East Side. It examines class cultures in conflict, neighborhood transformation, and the symbolic significance of the area.

David Baker Architects · · United States

Armstrong Place is an affordable family townhouse community in the United States, designed as a transit-oriented development. The complex features a large shared open public courtyard with allotment gardens for families to grow food and flowers, as well as a rain garden. It includes a total of 124 rental units and ten for-sale townhomes ranging from $175,000 to $345,000 for families earning 60-100% of the Area Median Income (2011 figures).

Evan Marcus Sawyer, Jason Terry Reynolds, Lee F Hermsdorf-Krasin, Robert Brian Grady · Digital WPI · United States (Worcester)

This project aimed to provide AIDS Project Worcester in Worcester, United States, with a visual prototype garden and construction-ready plans. The goal was to facilitate the design, building, and operation of a community garden for the organization.

Grady C Erickson · Lincoln (University of Nebraska) · United States (Lincoln, Nebraska)

This case study in three elementary schools in Lincoln, Nebraska, examined whether socio-economic background affects environmental awareness in children interacting with no-till, raised-bed school gardens. Surveys were used to measure environmental awareness. The hypothesis that lower socio-economic background would result in lower environmental awareness was inversely related to the findings. The school with the most impoverished background (Saratoga) showed the highest percentage of correct answers on environmental awareness surveys, while the school with the highest socio-economic scale (Norris) showed the lowest.

Molly Alexandra Croog · School for International Training Digital Collections (School for International Training) · Mexico

This paper explores the urban agriculture movement in Mexico City, investigating who practices it, how, and why. It examines the benefits of urban agriculture and its role in a future food system, discussing food security and sovereignty. Three projects—a traditional farm, a government-funded community project, and a household-level organization—are explored, with conclusions on their impact on economics, community, and environment.

Irene H. Reti · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · United States (Santa Cruz, California)

This interview is about Paul Glowaski, Garden Director for the Homeless Garden Project in Santa Cruz, California. Glowaski, interested in urban agriculture for its self-sufficiency and food security for low-income communities, pursued organic farming training, leading to his current position at the Homeless Garden Project. The project operates a two-acre market farm that trains low-income and homeless community members in sustainable agriculture.

Sarah Rabkin · · United States

Amy Courtney, founder of Freewheelin’ Farm, a community supported agriculture (CSA) program, delivers shares by bicycle-drawn trailer. Courtney, a 1997 graduate of UCSC’s Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture, started the farm in 2002 with minimal motorized vehicles, utilizing used equipment and recycled materials. She and her partners continue to haul all CSA shares six miles into Santa Cruz by bicycle. Courtney's work is driven by a commitment to social justice, community health, and cultural vitality. The farm collaborates with "Food, What?!"—a youth empowerment program, and hosts cultural and educational initiatives.