Research & reports

Marta Sylla, Julia Olszewska, Małgorzata Świąder · Journal of Agribusiness and Rural Development · Poland

This article analyzes the current state of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Poland, focusing on farm characteristics, spatial distribution of producers and consumers, and operational principles of CSA groups. Based on survey data from telephone interviews, the analysis indicates a rapid increase in CSA groups, which primarily operate in large cities. A common operational principle is that consumers prepay for organic, high-quality produce at the beginning of the growing season.

Fika Mayrlina Anggrayni, Dini Ririn Andrias, Merryana Adriani · Media Gizi Indonesia · Indonesia (Surabaya)

This observational study, conducted in Surabaya, Indonesia, analyzed differences in food security and coping strategies between agriculture and fisheries urban farming households. Among 62 households, 64.7% of the agriculture group were food secured, while 75% of the fishery group were food insecure with severe hunger. There was no statistical difference in household food security between the agriculture and fisheries urban farming groups (p=0.255). However, a difference in coping strategy was found (p=0.021), with agriculture urban farming households being more food secure and rarely employing coping strategies compared to fishery urban farming households.

Ophélie Robineau, Christophe‐Toussaint Soulard · Natures Sciences Sociétés · Africa

This article emphasizes the utility of the agri-urban system concept for analyzing expanding urban agriculture and the complex relationships between cities and agriculture, moving beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. Based on a case study in Bobo-Dioulasso, West Africa, it aims to develop a framework for understanding these relationships at the city and regional scale. It distinguishes three groups of city-agriculture interactions: spatio-historical, interactions between the current urban system and agriculture, and interactions within the urban agrarian system, seeking to identify factors influencing the diversity and future of urban agriculture.

Nadia Belinda, Dian Rahmawati · Jurnal Teknik ITS · Indonesia (Surabaya)

This study in Semampir District, Surabaya City, Indonesia, aimed to develop urban farming based on community preferences. It identified potentials and problems using theoretical descriptive techniques, identified community preferences using confirmatory factor analysis, and formulated development directions using qualitative descriptive analysis. The study found that urban farming activities in Semampir District had not developed optimally due to the suboptimal role of the community and local institutions.

Jimoh Gbadamosi, Peter Kolawole · Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies · Nigeria

This paper reviews machinery and equipment developed for future farmers and encourages the adoption of urban farming as a way for city dwellers to produce more food using technology. It recognizes the activities of smallholder farmers, who are Nigeria's main food producers, and the absence of large-scale farmers who produce raw materials for factories. The paper emphasizes the role of modern technology in increasing farm product by small-scale farmers and the benefits from innovations that will enable farmers to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.

Judith Schicklinski · · Global

This study examines individual motivations for commitment to sustainability issues, including urban food production, across different cities globally. It notes that legal frameworks can be a motivating factor, such as land development plans designating agricultural use. While quantitative data suggests food self-sufficiency is not a major motive in any region, qualitative data indicates its increasing importance in the Global South.

P. V. ERMINI, M. R. DELPRINO, B. GIOBELLINA · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Argentina (Santa Rosa-Toay)

In the Santa Rosa-Toay metropolitan area of Argentina, urban and peri-urban agriculture is noted for its scarce recognition in urban development policies and food security policies. Despite the region's urbanization, the absence of political recognition as a metropolitan area has hindered planning and management of land use and occupation according to its potential and limitations. This study developed and applied a methodological proposal to generate information on urban and peri-urban agricultural activities, integrating a spatial perspective with participatory procedures.

Adela Chávez, Juan Ariosto Palacios Vásquez · DELOS Desarrollo Local Sostenible · Mexico

This research argues for the importance of not only studying climate change and its consequences but also consolidating professional training in urban food production to strengthen food security. It emphasizes the urgent need to provide learning units related to sustainable development, climate change, and food at all educational levels.

Colleen Hammelman · CABI eBooks · Colombia

In Medellín, Colombia, displaced women utilize urban gardens as a survival strategy amidst food insecurity and tenuous support from local government. Urban planning permits these gardens under the guise of supporting displaced families, but also for preserving open space and halting the growth of informal settlements. This chapter provides a clear example of how urban planning impacts the critical survival strategy of growing food.

Michael Schläppi · Metropolitan Universities · United States (Milwaukee)

This paper discusses the Sustainable Research and Economic Development model, which involves undergraduate students in interdisciplinary community-based research. Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, supports community efforts to bring healthy food to urban environments through interactions with the Cooperative of the Institute of Urban Agriculture and Nutrition (CIUAN). The model explores pathways for urban agriculture and urban farmers' markets to convert blighted properties into productive spaces as part of metropolitan economic development.

Kouakou Kouakou Paul-Alfred · European Scientific Journal ESJ · Cote d’Ivoire (Abidjan)

This study assessed the productive performance and technical efficiency determinants of urban agriculture in the Abidjan District, Cote d’Ivoire. The analysis of the production frontier revealed that producers' technical efficiency ranged from 21% to 97%, with an average of 76%. Key determinants significantly impacting technical efficiency included the legal status of occupied space, education level, irrigation water quality, access to credit, and the nature of the main activity. The study suggests improving efficiency through strengthened training and technical support for producers and integrating urban agriculture into district development plans.

· Policy Press eBooks · United States (Detroit)

Dan Carmody, President of Detroit's Eastern Market Corporation, discussed the market's history and its importance for food access in Detroit. He addressed the role of urban agriculture and the new wave of gentrification, which has the potential to significantly impact the Market.

David Arredondo Garrido · ZARCH · Spain

This study analyzed four urban agriculture and gardening initiatives in the city centers of Seville, Barcelona, Madrid, and Zaragoza, Spain, over the last decade. These projects aimed to counteract the homogenization of urban historical landscapes and create spaces for culture and social interaction. Despite difficulties in their management and their minor impact, these interventions demonstrated a method for reconfiguring urban landscapes in abandoned central areas.

Never Mujere · CABI eBooks · Zimbabwe (Harare)

This case study in Harare City, Zimbabwe, examined an urban irrigated agriculture project's contribution to household food security and poverty alleviation, including crop types, productivity, and farmer challenges. It found that while urban irrigated smallholder agriculture contributes to livelihoods, numerous socio-economic factors impede greater participation. Furthermore, some participants withdrew due to security threats from perceived political affiliations.

Deborah Hines, Sarah Balistreri · Sustainable energy developments · Latin America and the Caribbean

This chapter highlights successful Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture (UPA) practices in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) that have improved food and nutrition security and increased dietary diversity. It introduces sustainable production techniques that reduce dependence on traditional energy sources and promote renewable energy. The chapter provides evidence that UPA activities can reduce poverty and hunger, generate food and nutrition security benefits, and create employment and income for poor urban households in LAC.

Duncan Hilchey · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Global

This combined spring and summer issue of JAFSCD highlights the growing interest in food systems resilience, presenting various strategies such as supporting critical organizational and physical infrastructure along with social capital, incubating new farmers, protecting farm landscapes, using season-extending technology, and supporting labor. It also emphasizes adapting to climate change and creating stronger connections between farmers and residents in need who are in close geographic proximity. The issue includes columns on Latinx/Hispanic issues in food systems work, the role of "freedom farmers" in the civil rights movement, and the under-appreciated contribution of urban agriculture to communities.

Pedro Vitor Pereira Guimarães, Maria Fernanda Berlingieri Durigan, Hyanameyka Evangelista de Lima-Primo · Cadernos de Agroecologia · Brazil

Cupuaçu is important for family and peri-urban agriculture and indigenous communities in the Amazon, contributing to local food security. This study aimed to characterize pulps from cupuaçu plants with varying susceptibility to witch's broom disease. Differences were observed mainly in chemical and physical-chemical characteristics among pulps, with emphasis on susceptible and highly susceptible plants. All evaluated pulps complied with established quality standards, but significant differences were found between physicochemical characteristics, proportional to the plants' susceptibility to witch's broom disease, particularly for soluble solids (SS) and titratable acidity (AT).

Laura Menatti · International Journal of the Commons · Global

This paper analyzed how the concept of landscape relates to notions of the common good, commons, and common pool resources (CPRs). Through theoretical research supported by practical examples like community gardens, it argued that landscape can be defined as a common good and can include commons and collective management of common pool resources. This analysis led to the possibility of defining the "right to landscape," arguing that landscape is a domain where human rights can be claimed and a right to which human beings are entitled.

Evangelia Athanassiou · Landscape Research · Greece (Thessaloniki)

Trends redefining public spaces in Thessaloniki, Greece, are analyzed. One trend involves official urban policies introducing private and voluntary sectors into public space management, while another consists of citizen-led initiatives reasserting 'publicness' through collective activity, exemplified by urban farming in an abandoned military camp. These trends are argued to create a hybrid landscape of public space where the public and private binary is redefined, representing divergent imaginaries of 'publicness'.

V. Kumar, K. Sentamilselvan · Advances in business strategy and competitive advantage book series · Global

This study is an initiative to explore the feasibility of urban farming and focuses on its challenges and opportunities in the context of rapid global urbanization. It aims to bring out societal views on urban farming and suggest ways to overcome hindrances. The research seeks to facilitate the utilization of urban farming's benefits.

Christa Wichterich · Feministische Studien · Global

This essay explores the transformative potential of caring and commoning in alternative projects such as community agriculture and urban gardening. While these self-organized experiments develop caring practices towards nature and humans, their transformative impact on society is limited. This limitation stems from unintended mechanisms of social or racist exclusion, or from appropriation by the municipality or the state.

Etienne Nel, Jessie Smart, Tony Binns · Growth and Change · Zambia

This study examined resilience to economic shocks in Zambia's Copperbelt region, which experienced significant economic destabilization after the 1970s. Following massive job losses in mining and manufacturing, the local population shifted to informal sector activities and food self-provisioning. The practice of urban agriculture served as a case study of how households strengthened their food security through their own actions in the absence of formal sector employment opportunities.

Lorena Meneses · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Colombia (Palmira)

In 2015, Pontificia Bolivariana University implemented the 'Environmental Education' project in Palmira, Colombia. This project aimed to offer an alternative means of food acquisition for children at Fundación Hogar Divino Niño and identify plants usable on the land to minimize negative environmental impact and promote food sovereignty. Although conceived from an agricultural perspective, it became a participatory scenario where non-formal education and communication for social change played a role in uniting a community around a common good.

Owen Beatty · ScholarsArchive at Johnson & Wales University (Johnson & Wales University) · United States

This study analyzed food insecurity in the United States, focusing on populations below the poverty threshold. It found that large-scale agricultural production has led to "food deserts" isolated from affordable, quality food. Urban agriculture, by localizing production, was identified as a viable resource and potential solution for individuals experiencing hunger and those in food deserts.

Natascha Wagner, Luca Tasciotti · Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d études du développement · Tanzania

This study explores the link between urban agriculture, dietary diversity, and child health in urban Tanzania, using weight-for-age and height-for-age Z-scores. Utilizing two rounds of observational data for urban Tanzania and an instrumental variables estimation approach, the research shows that practicing urban agriculture leads to the consumption of a greater variety of food items, and the health status of urban children living in households practicing urban agriculture significantly improves in both the short and long term.