Research & reports

Becky Lundberg Witt · FLASH - Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship & History (Fordham University) · United States (Baltimore City)

This article argues that property law in Baltimore City, Maryland, creates a significant barrier to urban growing by prioritizing the right to exclude others from vacant and abandoned land. Thousands of fallow lots remain inaccessible to neighbors for community benefit due to property ownership laws, which can neglect the human rights of the poorest citizens. The paper examines how the universal right to adequate food might legally support urban farming and gardening.

Darya Hirsch, Christian H. Meyer, Johannes Klement, Martin Hamer, Wiltrud Terlau, Hirsch, Darya, Meyer, Christian, Klement, Johannes, Hamer, Martin, Terlau, Wiltrud · Publication Server of Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences (Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences) · Germany

This paper presents an empirical case study on Urban AgriCulture initiatives in the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg region of Germany. It states that Urban AgriCulture is a niche movement with the potential to contribute significantly to urban development and constitute a pillar of urban quality of life.

Yuanyuan Shi, Min Qingwen, Lu He, Fuller Anthony M · Journal of Resources and Ecology · China

This paper proposes "Agricultural Heritage Systems" as an entry point to balance urban and rural development in China, addressing threats posed by rapid urbanization. It focuses on public dietary change, agricultural industry development, institutional guarantees, ecological restoration, and cultural tourism in urban and peri-urban agricultural heritage sites, establishing a development model that balances urbanization and urban-supported agriculture. The paper argues this approach can preserve traditional culture, maintain organic farming, leverage landscape tourism, and utilize urban funds and technology to support rural enterprises.

Charlotte Prové, Joost Dessein, Michiel De Krom · Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) · Belgium; Poland

A study evaluating urban agriculture in Belgium and Poland argues that current governance approaches fail to reflect the importance of local context. The authors found that considering city-specific factors is crucial for urban agriculture to reach its full potential. They recommend a broader policymaking strategy that acknowledges benefits beyond food production.

Paredes Guzmán, Germán Ricardo · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This project aims to describe different methods of establishing and producing urban agriculture, focusing on sustainability and food security for the vulnerable population of Altos de Cazucá, Soacha municipality, Colombia. This population is affected by forced displacement due to armed conflict, resulting in increased poverty and malnutrition, with a chronic malnutrition rate of 30% in children compared to the national average of 8%. The project proposes to apply participatory action research methodologies and techniques to develop an urban production model that addresses these issues.

Manase Kudzai Chiweshe, Kudzai MacMillan Muzanago · · Zimbabwe (Harare)

This exploratory study analyzed the emergence of sack potato farming as an alternative empowerment platform for urban women in Zimbabwe, using qualitative methodologies and secondary literature. It found that sack potato production, which gained prominence in Zimbabwe in 2013, can increase food security and income for urban households and promotes micro-economic enterprises among urban women.

Laure‐Elise Ruoso, R. Plant, Brent Jacobs, Pierre Maurel · · Australia (Western Sydney)

This study, based on in-depth interviews with farmers in peri-urban Sydney, Australia, examines how changes in these areas impact farmers' place identity and decision-making. It analyzes how increasing urban development, land subdivision, rising land values, and environmental regulations threaten farming activities. The findings indicate that these factors influence farmers' practices, business management, and decisions to continue or relocate peri-urban farming.

Nala Walla · · United States

A 2016 essay on the urban agriculture movement and race in the United States. It argues that urban gardens give people of color a way to reestablish agrarian skills without moving to rural areas, and states that much of the US urban agriculture movement is led by people of color. It also notes that in the UK, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones founded the Young City Farmers program on a similar premise.

Tracey Adams · Lincoln (University of Nebraska) · Global

A University of Nebraska study examined whether urban farming could support future food security through a literature review and hands-on work on small farms. Mapping community garden locations in Omaha, Nebraska against the city's median household income found that urban farming is prevalent even in poverty-affected areas, despite Omaha being surrounded by extensive rural farmland.

Rosanne Wielemaker, Jan Weijma, G. Zeeman · Resources Conservation and Recycling · Netherlands

A study on Rotterdam, the Netherlands, assessed how source-separation-based New Sanitation (NS) systems could match the supply of nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic matter with demand from Urban Agriculture (UA), premised on the view that sustaining cities long-term requires a circular metabolism where the output ('waste') of one urban process becomes input for another. Applying the Urban Harvest Approach, originally developed for the urban water cycle, to nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic matter across two UA typologies (ground-based and rooftop) and four NS concepts treating domestic urine, feces, and organic kitchen waste, the study found that UA's demand for nutrients and organic matter could be reduced by 65-85%, with full (100%) self-sufficiency achievable for phosphorus, while nitrogen and organic matter would reach only partial self-sufficiency.

E.N. Sabiiti, Constantine Bakyusa Katongole · Water science and technology library · Uganda

Wakiso district, the peri-urban area surrounding Kampala, Uganda's capital city (population about 1.51 million), ranks first nationally in poultry production and second in pig production, accounting for 7.4% and 6.3% of the national chicken and pig populations respectively. The chapter finds that agricultural land in these peri-urban areas is increasingly at risk from urban encroachment, driven by population growth, distorted land values, a construction boom, and expanding recreation and leisure facilities competing with farming for land, which is likely to adversely affect the city's food security.

· · Japan

This account of Tokyo urban farming contrasts Brooklyn Grange, a roughly 1-hectare rooftop farm in New York that produced 23 tons of organic produce in 2014, with Taiken Noen ('hands-on farming') in Tokyo's Nerima ward, where urban residents cultivate vegetables under instruction from local farmers on about 1,300 plots across 12 farms covering roughly 5 hectares combined, a practice the text describes as continuing to grow in popularity.

Cristian Suzin Magrin, Angélica Ferari Rodrigues · Mostra IFTec em Resumos · Brazil

This report from Brazil describes aquaponics — a system combining fish farming and soil-free hydroponic plant cultivation, in which fish waste nourishes plants that in turn filter the water for the fish — through a literature review and an experimental simulation of an aquaponic setup with a physically separate fish tank and hydroponic unit connected by pumping. It states the system requires no removal of final filtration waste and less complex filtration than aquaculture, has lower pest losses and earlier harvests than soil-based gardens, and operates at low cost, and concludes it is a sustainable, economical food-production approach suited to both household and industrial scale.

Insa Theesfeld, Nicole Rogge, Theesfeld, Insa, Rogge, Nicole · · Global

This paper applies collective-action theory to urban gardens, arguing that in developed countries in particular they emerge less from economic competitiveness or a desire for regional food than from a lack of participation in city development and limited opportunities for democratic use of public space and socializing. It presents criteria for describing this development and for distinguishing degrees of collectively used resources across gardens, and demonstrates the criteria's applicability using three pilot case studies, showing that urban garden movements can offer participants the chance to build new regional identities through sharing time, knowledge and participation in public decisions.

Leila de Castro Louback Ferraz, E. R. de O. Carvalho, Mayara Márcia Sarsur Viana, Nathália Rabelo Pereira Oliveira · Cadernos de Agroecologia · Brazil

A study of community gardens run by the municipal government of Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais, Brazil for nearly 33 years — cited as a reference example of urban agriculture in Brazil — found that more than 95 plant species are cultivated there, spanning food, condiment, ornamental and medicinal uses. This is described as contributing to improved quality of life for the population by securing food security with variety and quality, as well as playing a role in guaranteeing income in the urban setting.

Wende Marshall · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States (New York City)

A book review of Kristin Reynolds and Nevin Cohen's Beyond the Kale, which analyzes the grassroots urban farming and gardening movement in New York City. The review frames the book's account, likening it to Antonio Gramsci's "war of position", as depicting urban gardening not merely as food growing but as a challenge to race- and class-based structures of oppression, oriented toward environmental justice and liberation.

B. Borra, R. van Veenhuizen, Marc Schut, Andrew Adam‐Bradford · Coventry University Open Collections (Coventry university) · Global

A report on the collaboration between RUAF (the urban agriculture resource centre) and The Spontaneous City International (SPcitI), begun in 2015 in the context of the Syrian refugee crisis. It focuses on the Mafraq region of northern Jordan, where an inventory of the role of food and agriculture was commissioned by the International Cooperation Agency of the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNGI). The two organizations describe building partnerships linking urban agriculture and urban planning in cities of the Global South.

Maya MITEVA · AGROFOR · Global

Citing UN (2015) projections that Bulgaria's population will shrink by 27.9% by 2050 (compared with 15.1% for Japan), this case study positions urban agriculture as a planning tool for responding to population decline and urban shrinkage. It analyzes Japan's Kashiniwa program, an innovative local governance system for managing vacant lots in shrinking cities that began in Kashiwa City in 2010, examining Japanese local authorities' approach to declining and aging population and discussing its transferability to Bulgarian planning practice.

Javier Melero Llorente · Phytoma España: La revista profesional de sanidad vegetal · Global

This is a profile and interview piece on Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Argentine artist, architecture professor, human rights activist, and 1980 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, describing his decades of support for agroecology and social movements defending alternative, ecologically based agricultural production, and covering his October visit to the School of Agricultural Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de València to inaugurate its fifth course on agroecology, urban agriculture, food sovereignty, and rural development cooperation, shortly after serving as an international observer for Colombia's peace referendum. It contains no research data or study findings.

BibekDhital BibekDhital, Anusha Sharma, Santosh Adhikari · International Journal of Environment Agriculture and Biotechnology · Nepal

Against a backdrop of rapid urbanization and increasing land fallowing in rural Nepal, this case study examined the current state of urban agriculture in Pokhara and Dhulikhel municipalities. It found that a 150 m² area was sufficient to meet the vegetable needs of an urban family of four to five, saving an estimated NPR 6,000-8,000 per year per 100 m².

KIKUCHI Toshio, TABAYASHI Akira · E-journal GEO · Japan

A case study of the Sunagawa area in Tachikawa City, in the Tokyo metropolitan fringe, analyzed the mechanism sustaining urban farming through the relationship between the siting of farm-product direct-sale stands and the commodification of rural space. Urban farming's persistence in the area depends heavily on the location of these direct-sale stands: because the stands sell directly to urban residents and are maintained to meet their needs, agricultural production continues. As a result, not only the rural landscape and agricultural land use but also the rural community itself are sustained, and as urban residents visit and buy from the stands, the rural space comes to be understood as both a production space and a consumption space.

Gabriela Ivonne Pérez Rodríguez, Rafael Delgado Morales, Lydia Guadalupe Bernal Negrete · · Mexico

This is a progress report on research into urban agriculture (UA) in the Guadalajara Metropolitan Zone (ZMG), Mexico, aimed at understanding the actions being taken to promote and develop UA there and identifying cases of success or failure. The paper presents only the first phase of a research project intended to reproduce the ZMG's UA model in the Laja-Bajío zone of Guanajuato state, consisting of a study and analysis of the current state of UA and urban gardens in the ZMG. It is organized into three sections: the first covers the current state of urban agriculture worldwide, in Mexico, and in the ZMG, including its relevance to regional development, how it develops in different countries, and public policies and their shortcomings; the second describes the desk and field research conducted in the ZMG and its results; and the third addresses the prospects for UA in Mexico and areas of opportunity.

George R. Smith, Dilip Nandwani, Vanaja Kankarla · International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology · Global

This conceptual article works to validate a common set of parameters and principles for sustainable agriculture, comparing alternative forms of sustainable agriculture with rural-to-urban community resilience and drawing conclusions across multiple sustainable/alternative agriculture systems. It proposes organic agriculture parameters and principles as a conceptual framework and examines best-management parameters of urban and rural sustainable agriculture in the United States and United Kingdom. The article states that urban agriculture is expanding alongside rising demand for fresh, accessible produce, and that evidence supports a symbiotic relationship between sustainable agriculture and rural/urban communities, while also noting that some hold this relationship has not been clearly defined.

François Mancebo, Sylvie Salles · Challenges in Sustainability · Global

This essay-style article surveys urban agriculture projects that have proliferated worldwide since the late twentieth century, reshaping urban landscapes and urban fabric, offering alternatives to traditional urban life, creating new commons, and bringing people together. It cites examples from Singapore (self-reliant in meat), Bamako (self-sufficient in vegetables), and Berlin (80,000 community gardens on communal land with 16,000 more people on a waiting list). It states that vacant and derelict land arising from deindustrialization, population aging and decline (as in Japan and Germany), and emigration (in some African mid-sized cities) creates new opportunities for urban agriculture — citing Detroit, where thousands of hectares of urban land have been given to unemployed workers for food growing, and Britain, where councils in 20 cities have promoted urban agriculture on wasteland. It notes urban agriculture is gradually becoming a planning-policy option, integrated into land-use planning documents in Delft and protected within an inclusive local land development plan in Paris.

Christine Brown-Paul · Practical Hydroponics and Greenhouses · Global

An overview article (2016, no specific region) surveys the varied forms of urban agriculture — from small community gardens to urban farms spanning several city blocks to intensive indoor hydroponic or aquaculture facilities — describing it as a fast-growing phenomenon with the potential to nourish community health and social fabric and create economic opportunities for farmers and neighborhoods, while also coming with its own set of challenges and opportunities.