Research & reports

Deirdre Shaw, John Crossan, Andrew Cumbers, Robert McMaster, Katherine Trebeck, Iain Black · Families Relationships and Societies · Global

This article explores the possibilities of prosumption, encompassing production and consumption, for creating new "we" identities based on nature and community. It focuses on community gardens as places that generate progressive social relations. These relations critique mainstream mass production and environmentally destructive food systems.

Vargas Sandoval, Norma Constanza · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This descriptive qualitative research project analyzes how urban agriculture processes in Bosa, Bogotá, contribute to social construction through community development. It characterizes the social structure used by participants, identifying dimensions of community organization, systems supporting social dynamics, and relationships articulating actors for network building. The documentation of these urban agriculture experiences serves as a tool for local and district program planning and execution.

Heidrun Moschitz, Christoph Kueffer · GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society · Global

This paper argues that while urban agriculture might be considered a passing fad, it is a vehicle to deal with many urgent topics of societal transformation towards a sustainable future. It discusses the potential of urban agriculture to change agriculture and urban life.

G. A. Abu, A. Soom, Abu, Godwin Anjeinu, Soom, Aondonenge · AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) · Nigeria

This study examined factors affecting food security in 180 rural and urban farming households in Benue State, Nigeria, using structured questionnaires. It found that 53.3% of rural and 62.2% of urban households were food secure based on calorie intake. Key constraints to food security included lack of access to credit, inadequate land, poverty, soil infertility, and storage/processing problems.

Diana Paola Vargas Huertas, Juan–Carlos Ruiz · Ciudad Paz-ando · Colombia (Bogotá)

This case study analyzed the creation process of an agricultural-based socio-economic network (orchards) in the Altos de la Estancia sector of Ciudad Bolívar in Bogotá, from the perspective of social resilience. Using participatory design accompaniment methodologies, the study examined resilience variables, vulnerability, and alternative economies within urban agriculture, and analyzed the social actors involved in the network's formation. The research revealed diverse capacities to face environmental adversity within risk management and community building processes, supported by district institutions, academia, and popular collectives.

Lorelei L. Hanson, Deborah Schrader · Interdisciplinary Environmental Review · Canada (Edmonton)

This case study critically examined the development of a food and urban agriculture strategy in Edmonton, Canada, using survey data and semi-structured interviews with citizens and stakeholders. It explored the transformative potential of local urban food initiatives and identified hurdles in moving beyond maintaining the status quo. The study aimed to identify leverage points for long-term local food system transformation within conceptualizations of sustainability.

Matthew M. Mars · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Canada (Vancouver)

Michael Ableman's book "Street Farm" tells the story of how an urban farm transformed vacant lots in Vancouver, Canada's Low Tracks neighborhood into sites for food production, partial community restoration, and nurturing the human spirit. The narrative reveals a tenuous balance between the promises of urban farming and the harsh realities of addiction, hunger, homelessness, and violence often characterizing inner-city conditions. Urban agriculture is presented as a means to sustainably produce food for a city while also feeding the souls of disenfranchised individuals and communities.

Catherine Wong, Kathryn Geoffrion Scannell · University of New Hampshire Scholars Repository (University of New Hampshire at Manchester) · United States

McQuade Library partnered with a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operation to become a distributor of local foods, providing fresh produce to Merrimack College and the surrounding community. The library collaborated with Farmer Dave’s CSA, recruiting over fifty members to facilitate weekly food drop-offs for twenty weeks. Unclaimed food shares were distributed to a nearby food pantry, senior center, and an emergency shelter, supporting sustainable agriculture and hunger relief efforts.

Patrizia Longo · Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia · United States (Lafayette, California)

This paper documents the history of Urban Farmers, a grassroots organization in Lafayette, California, that addresses poverty and sustainability through a community-development approach to food security. The organization's project focuses on localizing the food system and fostering community development.

Andrew E. G. Jonas · · United Kingdom

This chapter explores the notion of "the alternative" as relatively unexamined. Empirical work over three years involved six food businesses and initiatives facilitating direct contact between producers and consumers. Earth Share Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Nairn, North East Scotland, provides vegetables to approximately 200 households weekly. The chapter suggests that diversity within the "alternative" food sector is not necessarily problematic, and consumers' contingent, accidental, and partial commitment has not undermined the success of these schemes.

Diana Mincytė, Karin Dobernig · Environment and Planning A Economy and Space · North America

This article examines manual work in urban farming within alternative food networks in the Northeastern United States, based on ethnographic fieldwork and 40 interviews. The analysis reveals that while manual work counters alienation, it also reproduces consumer society institutions and reinforces neoliberal values like productivity and self-improvement. Urban farms function as "experiential production" sites, where the farming experience is continuously commodified despite re-embedding in community and environment.

Thaís Cristina Schneider, Paulo André Niederle, Myrian Regina Del Vecchio-de Lima · Razón y Palabra · Brazil

This article analyzes urban agriculture from a communication perspective, focusing on how practitioners and non-practitioners understand its critical and alternative role regarding the modern food system. The study of Quinta da Videira in southern Brazil found that while urban agriculture is used to counter conventional food production and associated lifestyles, there are also resistances to integrating agricultural practices into the urban environment.

A. Sempere · Americanae (AECID Library) · Global

This paper argues that the concentration of people in urban areas poses significant ecological and social challenges, such as how to supply food to large population centers that grow at the expense of surrounding agricultural land. According to the United Nations, over half of the world's population currently lives in cities, projected to reach 66% by 2050. Current cities rely on food imported from increasingly distant places rather than food produced in their geographical environment, resulting in cities and citizens disconnected from their ecological and sociocultural context.

Elizabeth Vibert · Journal of Contemporary African Studies · South Africa

This article examines the Hleketani Community Garden in Limpopo Province, South Africa, highlighting the successes of women farmers in reducing poverty and improving health outcomes. Despite these benefits, the research identifies significant structural barriers, including lack of access to resources, unfavorable policy frameworks for small-scale agriculture, and worsening climate change, that hinder small-scale farmers, particularly women.

Ricardo Massulo Albertín, Daniel Augusto, Boaventura Almeida Mubai, Bruno Luiz Domingos De Angelis, Márcia da Silva, Frederico Fonseca da Silva, Fábio Angeoletto · Boletim de Geografia · Brazil (Maringá)

This study aimed to diagnose the socioeconomic aspects of vegetable producers and identify the perception of passersby around urban gardens (community gardens) in Maringá (PR), as a means to mitigate negative social impacts like food insecurity caused by urbanization. A case study was conducted in five community gardens in the northern zone of Maringá, Paraná State. Results showed that the activities within these gardens and public sector involvement characterized them as public policies for promoting quality of life, rather than mere government policies. Questionnaire responses from passersby evidenced that the public policy for creating and consolidating urban gardens in Maringá promoted quality of life. The community garden project was found to have significant socioeconomic, landscape, and sentimental value for both producers and passersby, with producers opting for diverse production, self-consumption, and vegetable sales.

Lal, Prita · Academic Commons (Stony Brook University) · United States (New York City)

This dissertation studies the relationship between community gardens and gentrification in New York City. It argues that low-income people's efforts in revitalizing their blighted neighborhoods by building community gardens in the 1970s and 1980s contributed to gentrification in the 1990s and beyond. The research points out that real estate developers preyed on people's efforts, and the people subsidized the city's revitalization. It concludes that while gardeners did not cause gentrification, their efforts played a significant role in the process, and stronger policy protections for gardens are needed as city policies permitted gentrification.

Ruth Cary · Reflections A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric · United States (Chester)

The Food Justice Portrait Project at Widener University involves first-year writing students creating portraits of community leaders engaged in food access and urban farming in Chester, PA. This collaborative community writing project aims for reciprocity, archiving biographies and institutional histories, and challenging the charity model of addressing community needs by supporting community agency.

Alfred Wong, Alan Hallsworth · Kobra (Universitätsbibliothek Kassel) · Canada (Vancouver)

This paper examines urban/community gardening in Vancouver, Canada, from the perspective of basic farming realities such as growing season and land availability. It was found that securing low-cost land within dense urban limits, insufficient ambient temperature and water supply during the growing season, and contemporary societal structures pose significant obstacles to community gardening producing affordable food. Overcoming these fundamental hurdles carries significant negative environmental and economic consequences.

Rada Betancourt, Bibian Andrea · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This document, based on an action research methodology, aims to provide informative, conceptual, and methodological bases for formulating an agroecological urban and peri-urban agriculture (AUPA) program in Bogotá. It describes the context of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the capital district, projects its future in Bogotá, and formulates foundational principles based on previously obtained results.

Kimberley Curtis · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Global

This book review covers Steven McFadden's "Awakening Community Intelligence," presenting his argument for the exponential expansion of Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs). McFadden believes CSAs have the potential to become "community cornerstones" and function as a "network of light-giving impulses" through digital networking, addressing 21st-century challenges.

Monroy Quevedo, Katherin Mayerli · · Colombia (Bogotá)

A mixed-methods study in UPZ Marruecos, Rafael Uribe Uribe Locality, Bogotá, Colombia, investigated the impact of urban agriculture on the food and nutritional security of participating families. Based on interviews and surveys with 10 participants, urban agriculture was found to contribute to families' food and nutritional security by increasing the availability of safe food and improving physical access. Participants perceived higher consumption of vegetables, fruits, tubers, cereals, and legumes, leading to greater dietary diversity.

Stéphane Stéphane · · Canada

Stephane Groleau gave a talk on Urban Vegan Agriculture at the Montreal Vegan Festival on November 6, 2016. The event also featured an information booth on veganic agriculture. The talk highlighted that growing food in cities without animal exploitation is possible, despite urban agriculture often relying on such practices.

Ranjan Datta · Cogent Education · Global

Community garden activities play a significant role in bridging formal and informal learning, especially in urban children's science and environmental education, by promoting relational methods that integrate food security, social interactions, community development, environmental activism, and cultural integration. An auto-ethnographic study revealed that community garden-based practices adhere to forms of agency such as embracing diversity, sharing power, and trust building as part of everyday learning.

Stefan Hebold, Andrea Frömel · edoc Publication server (Humboldt University of Berlin) · Global

This study aimed to address the lack of scientific documentation on the forms and effects of urban agriculture by investigating the health of urban-produced plant-based foods. Raised beds were established at urban, peri-urban, and rural locations, planted with identical species, and compared with the yields from an ECF container farm hydroponic system. Yields were compared between the hydroponic system and raised beds, while raised beds were compared among themselves based on heavy metal accumulation.

Ida Åberg · · Global

This abstract introduces urban agriculture (UA) as a potential solution to the challenges of feeding rapidly growing cities sustainably and addressing unsustainability and poverty.