Research & reports

Beatriz Giobellina, Yuliana Céliz · Repositorio Digital de la UNC (National University of Cordoba) · Europe

This paper was presented at the International Seminar on Territorial Development and Innovation Policy, held in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina, and Valencia, Spain, in 2015. The available abstract provides only this presentation context, with no further detail on content or findings.

Roberta Pucci · · Italy (Settimo Torinese)

A project for urban transformation in the HT6 Bordina area of Settimo Torinese, Italy, was proposed. This project critiques a previous plan for 15-story buildings as invasive for the surrounding low-rise residential area and presents a more sustainable alternative, including social and production spaces like an urban garden, playground, and commercial square. The proposal aims to connect existing green areas, residential areas, and a historic farmhouse.

Yvon Le · · France

This lecture focuses on five geographical questions concerning the rural-urban interface. It was shown that major food industries are not necessarily located in main cities, leading to a frequent disconnection between agricultural and regional centralities, and that the disconnection between cities and agricultural surroundings is challenged by farmers through short food supply chains. Access to the countryside by city dwellers is a major issue for social interaction, and urban agriculture opens new opportunities for urban planning.

Marcin Graban · Pressto (Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza) · Poland (Poznań)

The Polish National General Exhibition in Poznań in 1929 attracted many laborers, who later contributed to the unemployed population during the 1930s economic crisis, exacerbating the housing crisis in Poznań. City authorities initially housed the homeless in former exhibition grounds as an interim measure. For a more permanent solution, the city redeveloped allotments or community gardens by building purpose-built residential garden huts or sheds.

S. Mecca B. Özel · · Italy (Pisa)

Rapid urbanization has led to negative consequences such as urban poor, primarily formed in suburbs. The physical expansion of cities occurs more in suburbs, causing "urban sprawl" into rural areas beyond their boundaries, resulting in the loss of agricultural lands and stress on the surrounding natural environment.

Giuseppe Cinà · PORTO Publications Open Repository TOrino (Politecnico di Torino) · Italy

This paper examines Italian planning, highlighting an unresolved discrepancy between urban and agricultural policies due to a long-standing separation of urban and rural worlds. It outlines how this historical gap results in two inconsistent and low-effective policies. The paper discusses agricultural parks as an attempt to overcome this planning backwardness by integrating spatial planning and agricultural activity, documenting three Italian examples.

Attila Tóth, Ľubica Feriancová · Acta horticulturae et regiotecturae · Spain (Barcelona)

This study investigated squat farming as a typology of urban agriculture, focusing on the case study of Can Masdeu, a squatted and cultivated land at the northern city border of Barcelona, Spain. It aimed to understand how landscape and urban structures are influenced by land cultivation and how the social dimension of squat farming is structured. Spatial and perceptual analyses were applied, and users were interviewed through discussions and questionnaires, with results describing the spatial and social characteristics of squat farming at Can Masdeu.

Annabelle Schaffner · · France

Based on 2010 census data, this study analyzed agricultural holdings in the Rhône-Alpes region of France. Nearly 25,000 out of 39,000 agricultural holdings were located in rural communes, but their proportion is decreasing due to urban expansion. Structural differences between rural and urban farms are minor, mainly related to geographical location or production type. However, their economic weight differs significantly: agricultural employment accounts for over 10% of total employment in rural areas, compared to only 1% in urban areas.

Pascale Scheromm, Coline Perrin, Christophe‐Toussaint Soulard · Espaces et sociétés · France (Montpellier)

A study of urban agriculture in Montpellier, France, utilized policy analysis, spatial analysis, and an analysis of urban agricultural actors' practices and representations. The research revealed a great diversity in urban agriculture and a gap between its perception in urban policy and its spatial realities. Traditional agriculture is declining despite occupying more land, while new forms like gardens and agriparks are emerging, fostering interactions between public actors and citizens.

Roberto Henke, Francesco Vanni · · Italy

This study aimed to explore the multifunctional role of peri-urban agriculture in Italy through a comparative analysis of three metropolitan areas: Milan, Rome, and Naples. Market-oriented farms in these three urban areas were selected and classified into three categories: traditional, adaptive, and reactive farms.

· Hart Publishing eBooks · United Kingdom (England and Wales)

This paper explores the phenomenon of people in England and Wales returning to the land for various food-growing projects, including over 1,000 community gardens and 82 school farms. It examines the legal frameworks regulating these diverse projects and finds that the legal framework is fragmented, poorly signposted, and often absent, with projects sometimes depending entirely on landowner goodwill. The study concludes that there is little coherency in the law regarding these initiatives.

Wojciech Sroka · Wieś i Rolnictwo · Poland

This article addresses the concept of urban agriculture in Polish economic and agricultural literature. It aims to develop a definition of urban agriculture, operationalize it, and present its main forms. The study reviews research from various countries and proposes a definition suitable for Polish socio-economic conditions, describing key actors, products, functions, and distinguishing two main forms: urban farming and urban horticulture.

Francesca Cognetti, Serena Conti · SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología · Italy

A paper on Milan, Italy (2014) interprets the rising interest in urban agriculture in Milan as driven both by a desire to revive city design and by concrete attempts to realize it. Constructing a taxonomy of experiences to compose a hypothetical scenario of a "cultivated Milan," it focuses on initiatives that use cultivation not just as individual satisfaction or environmental reflection but as a tool for addressing urban issues and organizing common life; it argues that the English term "community gardens" — despite perhaps overemphasizing the community aspect — better describes these practices than the conventional Italian term "urban orchards," since the observed projects, in different ways, all aim to rediscover shared urban space, both physical and relational, through small projects that offer tangible immediate satisfaction while implicitly pointing toward wider horizons.

Stefano Grando, Roberto Henke, Livia Ortolani, Francesco Vanni, Thomas Aenis, Andrea Knierim, M. C. Riecher, R. Ridder, Harold H. Schobert, Holger Fischer · · Italy

Noting that urban and peri-urban farms cannot feed a city's entire population in either quantity or variety, but can provide a base for products and services that enhance the ecological, social and economic sustainability of metropolitan areas, this study analyzes farms in the countryside surrounding Rome, Italy. It first identifies market-oriented farms within the municipality of Rome and classifies them into three categories — traditional, adaptive and reactive peri-urban farms — then examines two cases of "reactive" farms in depth to identify the factors that shaped their successful trajectories and drove their renewed, multifunctional role in Rome's peri-urban agriculture.

Ségolène Darly, Christine Aubry · Géocarrefour · Europe

This study examined the diversity of alternative agri-food networks (S3A) supplying collective catering (school and institutional canteens) in France, particularly the Île-de-France region, and their respective capacity to reestablish a link between food and urban agriculture. Distinguishing S3A based on proximity relations tied to the region's urban agriculture from S3A built on extended networks spanning distant production and consumption sites, the results show that whether Île-de-France farm products are introduced into canteens depends, beyond the level and nature of local supply, on multiple other local factors such as the existence of producer-referencing networks and the state of kitchen equipment and labor resources.

Landesabstimmungsleiterin Berlin, Amt für Statistik Berlin-Brandenburg · Amt für Statistik Berlin-Brandenburg · Germany

The official final result report for Berlin's 25 May 2014 referendum on preserving Tempelhofer Feld. Of 2,491,365 eligible voters, 46.1% (1,149,145) participated. The citizen-initiated bill (question 1) passed with 739,124 'yes' votes (64.3%), while the Senate's counter-proposal (question 2) was rejected with 588,586 'no' votes (51.2%), resulting in a law preserving at least 230 hectares as permanent public green space.

David Adams, Michael Hardman · Urban Studies · United Kingdom

This paper uses ethnographic data from 'F Troop', a guerrilla gardening group in an English midland city, to re-examine urban guerrilla gardening practices. It argues that these practices may not be as "resistant" or "celebratory" as often suggested in existing literature. The study highlights that the social backgrounds and motivations of participants, along with their relationships with other users of the space, are important but largely unacknowledged aspects of guerrilla gardening.

Meliz Akyol, Hayriye Eşbah Tunçay · · Turkey (Istanbul)

This study explores the role of productive landscapes, specifically urban agriculture, in creating resilient cities. Istanbul, Turkey, is presented as a case study, noting the historical influence of food on the city's image and traces of agricultural uses along the Theodosian Walls and in old neighborhoods. Despite agricultural lands being transformed into settlement areas due to rapid urbanization, the study suggests that combining agriculture with new technology, architectural trends, and sustainable master plans will encourage urban agriculture and create more resilient urban environments.

Paula Nahmías, Yvon Le · Environnement urbain · France

This paper attempts to define "urban agriculture" given the diversity of its forms and representations. Based on field observations in Brittany, France, it concludes that beyond its proximity to the city, the urban character of agriculture is defined by its functionalities and its integration into the agglomeration project.

Ruud Abma, U. Kirchholtes, J.E. Jansma, M.P. Vijn · Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) · Europe

Urban agriculture is a subject of societal interest, seen as a promising contributor to sustainable urban development. It offers alternatives for agricultural professionals, accessible locations for urban residents to relax and learn, and often improves the physical and social environment of neighborhoods.

Raúl Puente Asuero · Revista de estudios regionales · Spain

Based on 30 interviews conducted between May and November 2011 with farmers, farming associations, irrigation associations, the University of Granada, business associations, local councils, political parties and citizen platforms such as Salvemos la Vega, this study examined La Vega de Granada, the agrarian landscape along the River Genil in central Granada province, Spain. It shows that this once-unified agrarian landscape has, in recent decades, become a fragmented and discontinuous aggregation, and reports that in the absence of administrative coordination, social movements have taken the lead in protecting and revalorizing its agrarian heritage.

Chiara Tornaghi · · United Kingdom

This academic-activist research on grassroots urban agriculture initiatives, focusing on four projects in Leeds, UK, found that local and regional institutions have limited ability to respond to these new demands. Planning traditions constrain institutions, failing to create flexible public spaces. Consequently, short-term solutions are found in "loose spaces" or ad-hoc negotiations, but these remain emergency or residual practices, highlighting challenges for urban public space management.

Jan-Eelco Jansma, W. Sukkel, E.S.C. Stilma, Alex C. van Oost, A.J. de Visser · · Netherlands (Almere)

This case study in the Dutch city of Almere calculated that 6,200 hectares of conventional farming land (or 8,100 hectares for organic production) are needed to produce approximately 20% of the daily food basket for 350,000 future citizens. Local production reduces greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 27,000 tonnes/year, a relatively small reduction as most products are already produced in the Netherlands. The study emphasizes that other aspects, such as food basket composition, local food distribution system redesign, consumer behavior, and fossil energy use reduction, must be considered for reducing food miles, fossil energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Cécilia Claeys, Jean-Noël Consalès, Carole Barthélémy · · France (Marseille)

This paper re-examines the question of nature in the city through emerging environmental paradigms, using Marseille, a French Mediterranean city, as a case study. An interdisciplinary analysis combining sociology and geography revealed that new modes of urban and suburban nature management (e.g., National Park, greenways, community gardens) question spatial boundaries between wild and artificial. However, the uses of these spaces are still marked by persistent social segmentations.

Sarah Bell, Cristina Cerulli · UCL Discovery (University College London) · United Kingdom (London)

A case study of a newly established community garden in London was analyzed. The study used the multi-level perspective on transitions to sustainable development by Grin et al. (2010) and modeling of cities as complex systems by Wilson (2010a) and Batty (2005) to analyze the potential for emerging community gardens to contribute to transitions to sustainable urban food systems. Urban agriculture is considered a core element for the future of sustainable cities.