Research & reports

Lindsay K. Campbell · Cornell University Press eBooks · United States (New York City)

In New York City, chapter six revealed how civic and public actors working outside PlaNYC iteratively embedded urban agriculture and food policy into municipal planning efforts. Within the void created by city hall’s lack of engagement, other figures in the municipal government seized the opportunity to advance food policy agendas for New York City. The 2011 update to PlaNYC included a brief crosscutting section on food, although it lacked capital funding to fuel the achievement of its stated goals, and was seen by advocates as a symbolic and political achievement.

Gabin Korbéogo · Environment and Urbanization · Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou)

This article explores how land tenure, water flows, and water quality are legally, politically, and socially framed in urban agriculture in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Urban agriculture serves as a revenue source and a socio-political arena involving state representatives, experts, and farmers. Public authorities monitor legal standards for water use and hygiene, while farmers strive for efficient resource use, sometimes challenging official norms. These competing interests lead to conflicts over resource use or rule legitimacy, which are negotiated through institutional or informal bargaining.

Georgia Pollard, Philip Roetman, James Ward · Kobra (Universitätsbibliothek Kassel) · Australia (South Australia)

While urban agriculture is seen as a sustainable approach to improving food security, there is a significant knowledge gap regarding the financial accessibility of urban food production for all households. If urban agriculture remains primarily a middle-class discretionary activity, its role in city-wide food security improvement will be limited. This paper demonstrates that citizen science offers an effective approach to investigate the inputs (labor, costs, water use) and outputs (produce yields, value) of urban food gardens, using the Edible Gardens project in South Australia as an example.

Jason Byrne · · Global

Research on urban greenspace, including parks, gardens, and green infrastructure, consistently demonstrates that marginalized and vulnerable communities have less access to these areas. This chapter overviews environmental injustice research on urban greenspace, examining debates and challenges for researchers and policymakers, and highlighting issues like climate injustice and food insecurity related to environmental inequality.

Hayford Mensah Ayerakwa · Geographical Research · Ghana

This paper descriptively analyzed the contribution of household engagement in agriculture to urban food security in Techiman and Tamale, Ghana, using household data. The study found that nearly half (43%) of urban residents participate in food production, primarily for consumption and surplus sale. For households engaged in both urban and rural agriculture, agricultural income was the highest, contributing 43% of total cash income in Techiman and 33% in Tamale.

Rémi Schweizer, Cyril Mumenthaler · VertigO · Switzerland (Genève)

This case study in Geneva, Switzerland, examined the integration of urban agriculture and food sovereignty into public policy, focusing on the regional brand Genève Région - Terre Avenir (GRTA). The analysis, based on a cognitive approach, highlighted compromises and imbalances among actor communities with divergent value systems. Ultimately, the study demonstrated the difficulty in challenging the dominant agricultural framework.

C.O. Edeoghon, A.A. Idowu · Ethiopian Journal of Environmental Studies and Management · Nigeria (Lagos State)

This study investigated the role of agricultural enterprises in the food security status of urban farmers in Ikorodu metropolis, Lagos State, Nigeria. A survey of 150 urban farmers, selected using a multistage technique and structured questionnaires, revealed an average food security score of 2.73, indicating food security without hunger. The relationship between food security and agricultural enterprises suggested that fruit, vegetable, and fisheries enterprises tend to move urban farmers towards food secure groups.

Daniela Artunduaga Arboleda, Laura Michelle Bayona Ruiz, Juan Camilo Gómez, Laura Marcela González Vargas, Lady Jhoana Leiton Peña, María Fernanda Pardo Pachón, Daniela Alejandra Quintero Bautista, Möritz Velásquez Riaño · Revista de Tecnología · Colombia (Bogotá)

This descriptive study in a kindergarten in Santa Bárbara, Bogotá, addressed food security for 14 children, who received 16,693.6 g of vegetables/month, significantly less than the FAO-recommended 42,000 g. To mitigate this deficit, urban agriculture workshops were held for parents. The implemented proposal covered 65% of the vegetable supply deficit, equivalent to cultivating 140 plants, and 100% of participants showed interest in continuing the project.

Norul Hafizah Yusoff, Mohd. Ramzi Mohd. Hussain, Izawati Tukiman · PLANNING MALAYSIA · Malaysia

This paper reviews and analyzes the importance of a framework for urban farming activities within cities, describing the community's role in achieving environmental, economic, and social sustainability. It evaluates the benefits and potential of urban farming in limited urban spaces, noting its contribution to improving quality of life and addressing food shortage crises. The paper concludes that the community's role is crucial for implementing urban farming activities in urbanized areas.

Antoinette WinklerPrins · CABI eBooks · Global

This chapter provides definitions and theoretical framing for urban agriculture (UA). Research on UA has evolved beyond describing food production systems to its role in creating spaces of community, resistance, and empowerment. UA serves as a means for those not central to the city's function to claim a right to the city, and it is a rich field for interdisciplinary inquiry into urban sustainability.

Éric Darier · · Global

This chapter reviews Michel Foucault's contribution in the context of environmental effects of biopolitical disasters and presents three Foucaultian approaches. It then illustrates three specific components of the food justice movement: Via Campesina, urban agriculture, and Slow Food. The food justice movement exemplifies the theoretical lenses of power/knowledge, resistance, and ethics from the three Foucaultian perspectives.

María Hernández Hernández · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Spain

A book chapter on Spain examines the historical shift in city-countryside relations, analyzing the factors behind the paradigm change since the late 20th century and the strategies (agri-food policy, local development, governance, land stewardship) and tools (agrarian parks, social agriculture, urban gardens) used to sustain farming in peri-urban areas, based on a literature review of scientific publications, regulatory frameworks, and initiatives. It concludes that quality, authentic local farm production represents an opportunity for peri-urban territories and historic agricultural landscapes.

Fentahun Mengistu, Mulugeta Alemayehu · Ethiopian journal of agricultural sciences · Ethiopia

A 2017 study of homegardens in Bahir Dar City, Ethiopia, based on interviews with 178 households across 7 sub-cities and 12 former kebeles, plus an inventory of fruit species and other higher plant and livestock species. It identified 58 higher plant species of various uses in the gardens: 17 fruit species (28.8%), 12 miscellaneous-use species (20%), 11 vegetable species (18.6%), 11 medicinal species (18.6%), and 8 spice/condiment species (13.6%); the most abundant perennial species were mango (20.8%), guava (13.4%), avocado (11.6%), papaya (11.2%), and Persian lilac (9.9%). It reports that the city gardens offer a distinctive opportunity for preserving medicinal and aromatic plants, while gardens in the outer city showed competition and substitution between horticultural crops and khat (chat).

Salvatore Pinna · Kobra (Universitätsbibliothek Kassel) · Spain

This study examines a municipal rural park in the Madrid region, Spain, established to promote local and seasonal produce, and analyzes its role in agricultural landscape enhancement using in-depth interviews and website analysis. Drawing on the European Landscape Convention's definition of landscape, it shows how spatial, ecological, and social outputs of farmer-led multifunctional and peri-urban agriculture interact with the park's management framework. The results are discussed in relation to Spanish environmental and landscape law, particularly regarding the connection between food, territory, and traditional landscape.

Imogen Bellwood‐Howard, Eileen Bogweh Nchanji · CABI eBooks · Ghana

This book chapter argues that the market function of urban agriculture, combined with characteristics of the urban zone, allows urban farmers and marketers to reconnect ecological aspects with social and economic ones in their livelihood strategies. Drawing on urban political ecology and livelihoods frameworks, it shows this occurring to varying extents across the Global North and Global South, depending on the degree of politicization and connection between producers and consumers. The chapter draws on primary data on vegetable marketing in Tamale, northern Ghana, comparing it with case studies from the Global North, and concludes by considering implications for the future of market-oriented urban agriculture in both regions.

Lewis C. Gray, Lucy Diekmann, Susan J. Algert · CABI eBooks · United States

This book chapter examines the renaissance of urban agriculture in North America since the 1960s creation of community gardens, asking whether it is producing enduring landscapes and socio-economic change or is transitory like past movements. After surveying broad research themes — civic engagement, community development, food justice and ecosystem services — the chapter examines barriers to and impacts of urban agriculture in Santa Clara County, Silicon Valley, where significant economic disparities are reflected in unequal access to different forms of urban agriculture.

Prem José Vazhacharickal · International Journal of Social Sciences · India

Street vending and urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) production systems, and their contribution to local services, are examined in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), India — a region with a population of 21 million where a high proportion of urban poor and rising in-migration make it vulnerable to food crisis. Based on primary and secondary data, street vending in UPA production is argued to complement rural supply chains and reduce ecological footprints, with a recommendation that these marketing systems be better planned and incorporated into city architecture to secure local food supply and employment.

Kerstin Martin, Taylor Hinton, Darby Anderson, Elizabeth J. Schafer, Rebecca Dawson · The FASEB Journal · United States

This report examines a comprehensive community wellness initiative launched in 2014 in Meadville, Pennsylvania — a town classified as a food desert under USDA criteria, where 26.1% of residents lived in poverty and nearly 13% had poor nutritional status in 2014, and where an estimated 70% of adults regionally were overweight or obese with childhood obesity above 30%. The initiative established community gardens, piloted a fresh fruits and vegetables program in a local elementary school, and launched a mobile farmers market — piloted in summer 2016 in collaboration with the local bus company — targeting a low-income neighborhood to increase access to fresh produce and reduce obesity.

Lindsay K. Campbell · Cornell University Press eBooks · United States (New York City)

This chapter traces the network of actors and storylines involved in creating, advocating for and maintaining urban agriculture in New York City. It recounts a brief history of community gardening as a social movement in the city since the 1970s, then explores the practices and narratives of a newer wave of civic practitioners active from the 2000s onward, distinguishing threads focused on local food production, food justice, and neighborhood stabilization and youth empowerment.

Emily Benton Hite, Dorie Perez, Dalila D’Ingeo, Qasimah Boston, Miaisha M. Mitchell · Annals of Anthropological Practice · United States

A study examined the structure and meaning of community gardens in Frenchtown, Tallahassee, Florida's oldest and most cohesive African American community. Using a mixed-methods approach during a five-week NSF-funded ethnographic field school with the Health Equity Alliance of Tallahassee, the study analyzed how residents transform empty spaces into places of engagement and empowerment, resisting systemic racism. Through garden activities, residents transcend race, culture, income, and neighborhood boundaries while promoting health, heritage, place-making, and economic opportunities, positioning community gardens as an expression of social resistance.

Jim Downing · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global

The 2017 DOAJ-indexed abstract states only that the work operates at the intersection of technology, civic society and sustainability to build food security and community-university connections; no specific study site, method or findings are given.

Katharina Witterhold · · Germany

A book chapter drawing on the empirical study "Consumer Netizens," carried out at the University of Siegen, Germany, between October 2011 and August 2015. It examined the shift toward lifestyle-related forms of political participation, showing that everyday food consumption practices in the private sphere are directly interwoven with (semi-)public social media practices addressing political concerns and self-identity. It argues that "food activism" becomes a strong symbol for other political issues, serving as a starting point for social movements as varied as the Slow Food Movement, Fair Trade, and Community Supported Agriculture.

Antoni F. Tulla i Pujol, Ana Vera, Natàlia Valldeperas, Carles Guirado González · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Spain

This study examines Social Farming (SF), using local agricultural and natural resources to promote health, employment and empowerment among groups at risk of exclusion, including people with disabilities, those in poverty, with dependencies, in the penitentiary system, survivors of gender violence, older people, at-risk youth, immigrants and homeless people, as a sustainable alternative to urban agriculture around Barcelona. Amid conflict over land demand for housing, infrastructure and facilities in Barcelona's peri-urban areas, protected agricultural land (agricultural parks) and natural parks have facilitated SF projects linked to social movements and the Third Sector; the study built a database of 161 SF projects in Catalonia and used quantitative and qualitative methods, including the CANVAS method for structural and economic viability and the SROI method for social return on investment.

Kenna McMurray, Kelsey Hall, Roslynn Brain · Digital Commons - USU (Utah State University) · United States

A 2017 fact sheet from Utah State University explains what community supported agriculture (CSA) is, outlines types of CSA models along with their benefits and barriers, and lists CSAs operating in Utah.

Timothy F. LeDoux, B. W. Conz · CABI eBooks · United States

A chapter documenting how the food justice movement in the lower Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts, USA, has challenged inequities in the agri-food system alongside broader socio-economic and racial disparities. It examines Holyoke-based Nuestras Raíces and Springfield-based Gardening the Community, two organizations using urban agriculture to alleviate food insecurity and improve food access while reimagining ecological and socio-spatial relationships in a region marked by decades of de-industrialization and neoliberal economic reform. Drawing on urban political ecology, it argues their assertion of a "right to the city" underlies attempts to dismantle institutional racism and socio-economic stratification embedded in both the current food system and the region.