Research & reports

Tamara García–Armisen, Josué Prats, Yociel Marrero, Pierre Servais · Water Science & Technology · Cuba (Havana)

The Almendares River in Havana, Cuba, receives wastewater from over 200,000 inhabitants, resulting in very poor microbiological water quality downstream due to high faecal bacterial indicators (FBIs). This water is used for urban agriculture and recreation, despite not meeting microbiological standards. This study compared FBI removal in three wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs): a conventional facility, a constructed wetland (CW), and a solar aquatic system (SAS). Natural systems (CW and SAS) showed approximately two log units higher FBI removal efficiency than the conventional plant. The large conventional WWTP was found to have a negative impact on the river's microbiological quality.

Helen M. Byamugisha, Robert Ikoja-Odongo, George William Nasinyama, Shuaib Lwasa · · Uganda

In Kampala, Uganda, urban farmers lack access to adequate information on innovative agricultural technologies, inputs, and balancing productivity with environmental requirements. This information deficit results in low urban farming production despite supportive legal frameworks. This paper presents preliminary findings on information search and acquisition mechanisms among urban farmers in Kampala District, exploring their contribution to reducing or exacerbating urban food insecurity, and plans to design an information seeking and use model for them.

곽동화, 이정미 · 한국디지털건축인테리어학회 논문집 · Global

This study clarified the concept of sustainable community in contemporary architecture and urban design, examining various application modes such as rural ecovillages and urban demonstration projects. It summarized design elements for sustainable communities, including symbiosis with nature, permaculture, and resource-saving technology. Design methods identified included strategic planning, visioning, and community action planning.

Sophie Watson · Open Research Online - ORO (The Open University) · Global

This article advocates for diverse cities where individuals can interact despite their differences within public spaces. It posits that these spaces are not the grand, planned areas created by urban planners, but rather marginal, unseen, and often unplanned locations. Examples provided include street markets, city farms, allotments, and abandoned land adjacent to railways.

Wang Ai-fe · Shanxi Architecture · Global

This paper discusses the function and current state of residential community garden scenery, thoroughly examining design principles based on factors like region, function, nature, system, and comprehension. It concludes that residential community garden scenery design must adopt measures suited to local conditions and comply with nature to meet contemporary demands.

Peng Yi-jun · Anhui nongye kexue · Global

This discussion examined the necessity and construction methods of rooftop gardens, along with the key considerations and challenges during their development. It also covered their developmental history, current status, and future prospects.

Sarah Pink · Edinburgh University Press eBooks · Global

This research, conducted in autumn 2005, involved interviewing David and Anne about a community garden project, using digital video, still cameras, and audio recording. The study explored the visual elements of the project, noting how participants used spoken words, documents, drawings, and photographs to narrate their experiences. The combination of multiple media provided a comprehensive understanding of the garden's past, planned creation, and future sensory experience.

John Schischka, Paul Dalziel, Caroline M. Saunders · Journal of Human Development · New Zealand

This research investigated the application of Sen's Capability Approach to two human development programs: a community garden-based poverty alleviation program in a New Zealand city and a self-help project for women in Samoa. Sixteen focus groups of participants described significant changes in their capabilities, including learning new skills and discovering existing valuable capabilities. This finding aligns with Sen's emphasis on participant agency.

Henrik Ernstson, Stephan Barthel, Erik Andersson, Sara Borgström · · Sweden (Stockholm)

This thesis investigates social-ecological features shaping the generation of ecosystem services (ES) in the urban landscape of Stockholm, Sweden. Through interdisciplinary case studies, it showed that informally managed allotment gardens have a higher abundance of pollinators, and voluntary actor groups motivated by a sense-of-place support ES generation. Social-ecological memory among allotment gardeners retains and transmits practices linked to ES, suggesting that sustaining urban ES requires considering historical property rights, diverse actor groups, and local communities of ecosystem practice.

Christine King · Systems Research and Behavioral Science · Global

This paper explores how agri-ecological systems such as Organic Agriculture, Biodynamics, CSA, Permaculture, Farmers Markets, and Community Gardens contribute to agri-ecological and community resilience. These systems contribute to more sustainable and resilient communities through community development processes like relationship building, genuine participation, inclusiveness, resource mobilization, and creating space for knowledge sharing. The paper compares ecological systems models to agri-ecological systems and suggests how ecological systems theories might contribute to the future of community-based agri-ecological resilience.

Lenore Newman · · Global

This 2008 paper examines barriers to urban agriculture expansion in North America—poor urban soils, lack of knowledge, zoning restrictions, and personal time constraints—through two case studies of assisted urban small-plot intensive farming in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia. In both cases, entrepreneurs installed and tended small plots on participants' land, selling the harvest at local farmers' markets or sharing it directly with the landowners. The paper notes that both projects had strong educational components and engaged a diverse demographic, and that having one farmer tend multiple plots could help address concerns about the carbon footprint of small-plot farming raised elsewhere in the literature.

Luis L. Vázquez Moreno, Emilio Fernández Gonzálvez · · Cuba

A participatory research study conducted in 2003–2005 across municipalities and representative production systems of Havana's urban and peri-urban agriculture — where synthetic pesticides are prohibited in "organopónico" and other orchard systems — characterized farmers' pest management practices. Farmers were found to have adopted agroecological innovations including managing floristic diversity, crop rotations and associations, corn and other plant barriers, repellent plants, peripheral live fences, natural-enemy reservoirs, biopesticide applications, and botanical preparations.

Irenio Curbelo Tribicio · OBSERVATÓRIO DE LA ECONOMÍA LATINOAMERICANA · Cuba

Set against Cuba's demographic backdrop of accelerating urbanization, declining birth rates, gradual population aging and an uneven distribution of the workforce, this reference paper argues for the need to understand imbalances between labor supply and demand in urban agriculture and to establish measures to improve its use. It states that wage and incentive systems must align with the rational use of human resources in order to secure workers' fair compensation under the principle of socialist distribution. No specific survey findings or figures are presented.

Ann Hallén · · Sweden

A landscape-design thesis proposing a school garden for Jallaskolans upper secondary school outside Uppsala, Sweden, which had requested a garden for students including those with special needs. Based on a site inventory, literature review and visits to other educational and therapeutic green spaces, the author produced a plan scheme intended to stimulate the senses and serve a habilitating function for all visitors. The work stops at the design proposal stage and does not report construction or measured outcomes.

Olufunke Cofie, Larbi, Theophilus Otchere, George Danso, Ernest Mensah Abraham, S.K. Kufogbe, N. Obiri-Opareh · CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) · Ghana

A book chapter addressing urban agriculture in the Accra metropolitan area, Ghana, included in Parrot et al. (eds.), "Agriculture and Urban Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Environment and Health Issues" (Paris: L'Harmattan). The available abstract consists only of this bibliographic citation; no study methods or findings are given.

Irenio Curbelo Tribicio · OBSERVATÓRIO DE LA ECONOMÍA LATINOAMERICANA · Cuba

A research project conducted at the Granja Urbana (Urban Farm) of Sancti Spíritus municipality, Cuba, aiming to apply and evaluate a set of economic and financial analysis tools within the category of "labor force and wages," in order to determine the factors influencing the interrelationship and variation of gross value added (VAB), labor productivity, and average wage. The abstract states only the study's aim and object of analysis; it does not report specific findings or figures from the evaluation.

Pallot J., Nefedova T. · Oxford University Press (Oxford Geographical and Environmental Studies Series) · Russia

A monograph based on four years of fieldwork across European Russia examining the scale, geography, and socioeconomic significance of household plot production in post-socialist rural Russia.

E. Elizabeth Henderson, Robyn. Van En · · Global

This book serves as a citizen's guide to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). It covers the context of CSA, how to get started, organization, food aspects, various models, and its future. The guide also includes CSA resources, references, and an index.

Xiaolan Tang · Nanjing Linye Daxue xuebao · Global

This paper examines the sociological implications of urban gardens from an urban sociology perspective. It discusses traditional gardens as collective memory, modern gardens as urban development symbols, and new gardens as shared social spaces. The paper also explores the future urbanization trend of natural ecology and offers suggestions for addressing challenges in urban gardening development.

Bertha Camacho Tuckermann · Knowledge Management for Development Journal · Cuba

An action-research study within an Urban Agriculture project in Cuba identified challenges in integrating learning and change into the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of development projects. The main challenge was that the project team did not recognize M&E as a learning tool, believing results could be used against their work. A lack of time for learning and knowledge sharing was another observed challenge. To address these, resistance was overcome through dialogue, reflection, and action, leading to team empowerment, and the role of an external facilitator proved key in steering the learning process.

Jim Godfrey · The Journal of Horticultural Science and Biotechnology · Global

This article, titled "Urban Horticulture and Agriculture in the Developing World," was published in The Journal of Horticultural Science and Biotechnology, 82(1), p. 1. The abstract provides only the publication details and title of the article.

Barbara Matthys, Andres B. Tschannen, Norbert T. Tian‐Bi, Hermann Comoé, Salia Diabaté, Mahamadou Traoré, Penelope Vounatsou, Giovanna Raso, Laura Gosoniu, Marcel Tanner, Guéladio Cissé, Eliézer K. N’Goran, Jürg Utzinger · Tropical Medicine & International Health · Côte d'Ivoire

A cross-sectional survey was conducted in urban farming communities in Man, western Côte d'Ivoire, involving 113 farming households (586 individuals) and 21 non-farming households (130 individuals). The prevalences of S. mansoni and hookworm in farming households were 51.4% and 24.7%, respectively. Risk factors for S. mansoni included close proximity to the Kô River, water contact with irrigation wells and ponds, and low education attainment, while risk factors for hookworm included living in smallholder irrigated rice plots or large rice perimeters, using domestic well water, and low socioeconomic status.

Caroline Keenan · Children Youth and Environments · Tanzania (Dar es Salaam)

This study explored the potential of urban agriculture projects to improve the lives of marginalized youth in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It employed various participatory research approaches, emphasizing the importance of engaging young participants to ensure their voices and experiences are heard.

Nita Chaudhuri, Daryl Cole, D S Niang · Epidemiology · Senegal (Dakar)

A Participatory Education and Action Research (PEAR) process was conducted with 3 farmers in periurban Dakar, Senegal, and surveyed 55 farmers using pre- and post-intervention questionnaires. Post-intervention, farmers showed a clearer understanding of environmental impacts like water contamination and pesticide runoff, and perceived a broader range of health risks linked to urban agriculture. Observations also indicated reduced pesticide container litter in the fields.

Peta Christensen · Local-Global: Identity, Security, Community · Global

This article discusses the development of community gardens as a means for neighborhoods to foster ownership, pride, connection to food, and friendships. Community gardens are presented as accessible spaces appealing to diverse populations, suitable for educational workshops and celebrations. The text also explores the concept of building city gardens to enhance urban beauty.