Research & reports

刘宛 · Acta Scientiarum Naturalium Universitatis Sunyatseni · China

Based on practical observations and a literature review on new rural construction in China, this article explores the concept of modern urban agriculture and its value and role in new rural construction. It points out that the development of urban agriculture can be a driving force and opportunity for new rural construction, but it is not equivalent to new rural construction itself. Government-led new rural construction should focus on farmer participation and achieving healthy urban-rural interaction.

XU Hua-me · Technoeconomics & Management Research · China

This article evaluates the level of Urban Agriculture Modernization in China's major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, using the Analytic Hierarchy Process method. It finds that modern urban agriculture has developed rapidly based on urbanization and agricultural modernization, but disparate development is obvious in China. The article analyzes the reasons for this disparity and various factors for Urban Agriculture Modernization, revealing the mechanism and path for its realization.

Wang Wen-zhen · Journal of Huangshi Institute of Technology · China (Huangshi)

Due to economic development, Huangshi, China, located along the Yangtze River, has shifted its agriculture from a production-centered peri-urban pattern to a multi-functional urban pattern encompassing production, ecology, and landscape. Integrating urban agriculture with Huangshi's notable location along the Yangtze River is believed to give its modern agriculture distinct features and a promising future.

Duan Yuan-gu · · China

This study analyzed community outdoor environment spaces, focusing on deficiencies in current community garden design. Drawing from traditional Chinese housing psychology, it summarized the necessity of community private spaces and proposed design techniques.

Qian Jing · 现代农业 · China (Beijing)

This article discusses the integration of urban agriculture, ecological tourism, and cultural creative industries as an inevitable trend for the upgrade of suburban industrial structures and the development of modern urban agriculture, citing Beijing as an example. It states that this integration holds significant economic, aesthetic, and ecological value, characterized by the unification of resources, industries, products, and functions. The article identifies the diversity of urban agricultural functions as a basic condition for integration, and the rapid upgrade of urban consumption levels as a prerequisite, suggesting that the government should promote this integration by creating favorable policy and market environments, and talent supply.

Zhen Zhong · Ecological Economy · China (Beijing)

This article analyzes the mechanism by which tourism agriculture influences farmers' income in Beijing suburbs, China. It examines the macro-level urban and rural economic processes and micro-level farmers' livelihoods, concluding that tourism agriculture directs income streams to rural areas and farmers. This process also fosters rural product innovation, maximizes family labor utilization, enhances rural capital yield, and improves market integration, leading to increased peasant income.

许光中 · 北京科技大学学报：社会科学版 · China (Qinghai Province)

This study examines urban agriculture in Qinghai Province, China, as a solution to urban ecological crises exacerbated by rapid urbanization. Urban agriculture, defined as modern agriculture integrating production, services, and consumption based on modern technology and diversified operations, can expand urban green spaces, improve urban ecology, and strengthen urban functions.

陈凯, 史红亮, 续华梅 · 技术经济与管理研究 · China

This study aimed to measure the modernization level of urban agriculture in China and analyze the causes of its disparities and influencing factors. Using the analytic hierarchy process, the research evaluated the modernization level of urban agriculture in 11 major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The analysis revealed the mechanisms and pathways for urban agricultural modernization.

Qinglan Chen · · China (Yixing)

This paper begins with the connotation of urban agriculture, analyzing the necessity and feasibility of developing urban agriculture in Yixing, China. It discusses the patterns and layouts of urban agriculture, combining Yixing's natural conditions with experiences from other areas, and proposes measures and advice for its advancement.

장동헌 · 산업경제연구 · South Korea

To identify policy implications for fostering urban agriculture in South Korea, a perception survey was conducted among experts. The findings indicated the need to establish a basic direction for urban agriculture, prepare legal and institutional frameworks for planned management and use of urban agricultural land, continuously promote related programs, establish an exchange system through network formation, and adopt a comprehensive approach to urban agriculture maintenance.

赵三志, 杨正强 · 中国农业银行武汉培训学院学报 · China

A report on how the Hubei branch of the Agricultural Development Bank of China supported urban agriculture development in Wuhan, China, by using credit as a leverage tool to cultivate pillar industries of agricultural industrialization, taking advantage of Wuhan's designation as a comprehensive pilot zone for a "resource-conserving, environmentally friendly society." It states the bank optimized its credit assets and customer structure, achieving a coordinated balance of speed, structure, quality, management and efficiency, but the abstract provides no specific quantitative data.

Zhao Shu-jie · Journal of Hebei Agricultural Sciences · China

A 2009 paper on coastal urban modern agriculture in Tianjin analyzes the essential conditions for its development and discusses basic approaches based on Tianjin's natural and economic characteristics. It proposes countermeasures spanning government support, coordination across sectors, improving farmers' overall competencies, and combining multiple development models, intended as a reference for coastal urban agriculture development.

Jing Liu · · China

A study of urban agriculture enterprises in China's Pearl River Delta (PRD) region built an evaluation index system for innovation capability across three dimensions: management innovation, technology innovation, and institutional innovation. A fuzzy AHP model was applied to assess enterprise innovation capability against the development conditions of urban agriculture.

XU Guang-zhong · Journal of University of Science and Technology Beijing(Social Sciences Edition) · China

This article, using Qinghai Province as a case, argues that as urbanization accelerates and cities' ecological crises intensify, developing urban agriculture can help address this crisis. It describes urban agriculture as based on modern technology and reliant on agricultural industrialization, combining features of production, service and consumption, and states that promoting urban agriculture can expand green space, improve urban ecology, and strengthen urban functions.

Yun Li · Guangdong nongye kexue · China

This report describes the planning of a Modern Agro-ecological Park in Gaoming District, Foshan city, Guangdong province, China. The park is designed as a modern standardization zone for eco-agricultural production and demonstration, a resort zone for eco-agricultural tourism and leisure, a base for green food production, modern urban agriculture and export-oriented agriculture, a base for modern agricultural logistics and information, and a base for eco-agricultural popular science education and agricultural exhibitions (a two-zones, four-bases scheme). Based on the current state and future needs of agricultural development in Gaoming, the plan adopts a development model of a garden section, four subdivisions and one ecological protection belt, with a layout concept center comprising three counterpart units, aiming to build a comprehensive modern agriculture development area combining production and living, ecological protection, scientific research and development, tourism and recreation, culture and education, and information and logistics services. The park's stated goal is to drive the development of modern agriculture in Gaoming District and the wider Pearl River Delta region.

P. S. Datta, Shipra Tyagi · · India

Peri-urban agriculture in the Delhi-NCR area is highly dependent on groundwater availability amid rapid urbanization. This study integrates dynamic δ18O isotopic composition data on groundwater with static data such as elevation of recharge sites to delineate potential recharge zones and hydrodynamic aquifer zones. Significant δ18O-elevation relationships were found (r² = 0.808 to 0.982), with recharge-site elevation resolutions of about 20m in the northwest and 75m in the southwest, identifying potential recharge zones at elevations of 210-230m in the northwest and above 260m in the south. However, variation in groundwater isotopic composition over time indicates that the corresponding aquifers are relatively small and of low productivity, and points to the likely presence of many low-permeability zones in the northwestern recharge areas — a constraint on the groundwater resources that sustain peri-urban agriculture there.

Gayathri Devi, Stephanie Buechler · Practical Action Publishing eBooks · India

A book chapter (in Hovorka, de Zeeuw and Njenga, eds., "Women feeding cities: mainstreaming gender in urban agriculture and food security," Practical Action Publishing, 2009) addresses gender dimensions of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Hyderabad, India. The abstract provided is only the editorial citation, with no method or findings stated.

Shazia Iram, Iftikhar Ahmad, Doris Stüben · Pakistan Journal of Botany · Asia

Soil samples were collected from peri-urban agricultural land in Lahore, Pakistan, irrigated by industrial and sewerage waste from the Hudiara drain, and from mine waste soil in Wiesloch, Germany, and analyzed for heavy metals by X-ray fluorescence and ICP-MS and for fungal diversity and frequency by a soil dilution method. X-ray fluorescence found higher Zn, As and Pb in the German mine waste soil, and the more sensitive ICP-MS found higher Fe, Mn, Cu, As, Sr, Mo, Cd, Sb, Ti, Zn and Pb there as well; the Pakistani peri-urban soils had lower heavy metal concentrations than the German mine waste but higher overall fungal frequency and diversity. Testing radial growth of isolated Aspergillus niger, A. flavus and A. nodulans against CdCl2, CuSO4, NiCl2 and ZnCl2 at 1-40 ppm, all tested fungi tolerated ZnCl2 (25 ppm) and NiCl2 (12 ppm) but none tolerated CdCl2 or CuSO4.

Abha Singh, Salahuddin Mohd. · National Geographical Journal of India · India

In-depth field research around the Iglas sewage pumping station on the Aligarh-Mathura road in Aligarh, India, surveyed 41 farming households and some consumers across five peri-urban villages — Bhojpura, Hari Narayan ki Sarai, Hajipur Chohata, Kheri Khwaja Buddha and Daurala Nirpal — that had used urban wastewater for irrigation for many years. Farmers and vegetable sellers reported suffering from ailments including diarrhoeal disease, typhoid fever, hookworm, amoebiasis and skin infections, yet their primary concern was securing enough water to sustain crop productivity and income, while consumers were more focused on getting a fresh, steady supply of vegetables than on the health risk.

Xiangyang Qin · Journal of Library and Information Sciences in Agriculture · China

Examines the science-and-technology-coordinator system first established in Beijing, China, to address a shortage of rural science and technology services. Based on an analysis of questionnaire responses, the authors describe the current situation and problems of the coordinator system and put forward suggestions for improving coordinators' quality. The abstract gives no sample size, response rate or quantified results.

Tian Yu-min · Vocational and Technical Education · China

This policy discussion argues that to achieve the goal of developing modern coastal urban agriculture in Tianjin, China, agricultural colleges should make full use of talent, expertise, academic disciplines, and science and technology; form a rational, scientific teaching philosophy; innovate talent-training models; adjust specialty structures to match talent demand; reform education and teaching patterns; establish a system for popularizing agricultural science; build a system guiding graduates toward rural areas; and encourage graduates to work or start enterprises at the grassroots level in rural areas.

尚华夏, 俞继东, 周四清, 储健 · 江苏农村经济 · China

A study of Nanjing, China, analyzes the city's "One Village, One Product" development model under its urban agriculture strategy, reporting that Nanjing has 150 specialized villages and 10 specialized towns, more than half of which are effectively linked with leading agribusiness enterprises. It argues that cultivating dominant industries with clear comparative advantage — based on local resources, location, industrial base, and market conditions — underpins the "one village, one product / one town, one industry" approach.

Guo Ya · Zhongguo shengtai nongye xuebao · China (Beijing)

This study analyzed the comparative advantages of Beijing's agricultural sub-sectors using the location quotient technique. It found no significant comparative advantage for Beijing's agriculture industry over surrounding provinces, and no advantage for crop and fish culture. However, there was a significant advantage for forestry and animal husbandry. Within Beijing, agriculture held a higher proportion in local industrial economies in several districts, with specific advantages identified for crop production, forestry, animal production, and agricultural services in different areas.

Seyed Esmaeil Mahdavian, R. Somashekar · ePrints@Bangalore University (Bangalore University) · India (Bangalore)

A study in Bangalore city, India, showed that urban consumers are at greater risk of purchasing fresh fruits with high levels of heavy metals beyond the legally permissible limits defined by the Indian Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954. These national norms are less strict than international food safety standards.

Chen Mei-jing · Anhui nongye kexue · China (Beijing)

This study introduced theories of ecological economy construction and used Yanqing County, Beijing City, as an example. It proposed strategies for ecological economy construction in Yanqing County, focusing on accelerating ecological industry development through modern urban agriculture, new urban industry, and leisure and tourism. The strategies also emphasized ecological culture construction and integrating ecological industry with ecological culture to achieve comprehensive county development.