Research & reports

Luiz Guilherme Luz Cardoso, Solange Teles da Silva · Revista Brasileira de Direito Urbanístico | RBDU · Brazil

This study investigated how Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (AUP) can address climate inequalities as an extension of the fundamental right to a sustainable city, given Brazil's accelerated urbanization and worsening heat islands in peripheral areas. Using a hypothetical-deductive method and documentary and content analysis of institutional, journalistic, and academic data from 2000 to 2026, the study analyzed AUP practices' contribution to mitigating thermal and socioeconomic asymmetries. Results indicate that AUP restores land use value, fills normative gaps in master plans, and establishes itself as a vector for democratic governance, food sovereignty, and intergenerational urban sustainability.

Mya O. Price · · United States

This chapter traces the historical dispossession of Black farmers from enslavement through Jim Crow, discriminatory federal policy, and contemporary land loss. It synthesizes historical analysis, policy critique, and community-based case studies to show how Black farmers are reclaiming land, rebuilding local food systems, and advancing food sovereignty through cooperatives, urban agriculture, and advocacy.

Nazareno José de Campos · Revista Campo-Território · Brazil (Florianópolis)

This article examined the strong urbanization process in Florianópolis and neighboring municipalities in Brazil. Using various bibliographies, information, empirical analysis, cartographic instruments, and practical activities such as visits to production areas, it showed that despite the transformation of rural areas into urban spaces, rural elements persist within urban areas, supplying regional and national markets for agricultural and livestock products. Despite extensive urbanization, the rural presence remains within the urban fabric, characterizing what is known as urban and peri-urban agriculture.

Anthony James Sousa · DigitalCommons - CalPoly (California State Polytechnic University) · United States (California)

This senior project proposes a mixed-use development in Visalia, California, aiming to increase housing density and incorporate urban agricultural uses. The project includes site analysis, site plan development, and a literature review on urban agriculture's role in planning. It seeks to set a precedent for future development in Visalia by reconnecting urban and rural relationships.

R P Mula, Molly Doane, Gabrielle Powell, Myer G. Mula · Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension Economics & Sociology · United States (Chicago)

This study visited, documented, and described 15 community gardens in Chicago, Illinois, and interviewed their leaders. It found the utmost importance of saving traditional crop seeds (heirlooms) for diversity, climate change mitigation, and health, as these are grown organically. Insights include reorienting mindsets, crafting garden requirement manuals, consolidating the value chain, and educating health workers on promoting community gardening.

Alfredo Pérez Guerrero, María Josefina Jiménez-Moreno, Florentino López-Sánchez · Revista Chapingo Serie Agricultura Tropical · Mexico

This research analyzed the multifunctionality of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in Tocuila, Texcoco, Mexico, by applying the Multifunctionality Index of Agricultural Production Systems (IMSPA) to 50 agricultural systems through surveys. Indicators were weighted using the Delphi technique with experts and ejidatarios. Results showed that 50% of systems had medium-high multifunctionality (level IV), 48% had medium multifunctionality (level III), and only 2% had high multifunctionality (level V). The majority of agricultural systems exhibited an intermediate level of multifunctionality, with relevant but limited capacities to generate simultaneous benefits across productive, environmental, and social dimensions.

Anelise Anapolski, Ana Passuello, Miguel Aloysio Sattler · International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education · Brazil

This study investigated urban agriculture (UA) as regenerative infrastructure on a university campus in Brazil, assessing challenges and opportunities before project implementation and proposing design requirements for future projects. Data collected from 120 questionnaires and 9 interviews revealed key challenges including maintenance, stakeholder engagement, risk of discontinuity, and lack of institutional support. The academic setting offers opportunities through integration with teaching, research, and outreach, and the campus community positively associates UA with innovation.

Elías Machado · Editora Científica Digital eBooks · Brazil (Guarapuava)

This study examines the relationship between climate change, urbanization, and urban and peri-urban agriculture in Guarapuava-PR, Brazil. It emphasizes how regional atmospheric variability intensifies existing socio-environmental vulnerabilities. Guarapuava's climate, characterized by high thermal amplitude, frequent frosts, and irregular rainfall, significantly conditions agricultural production systems, especially in urban and peri-urban areas, negatively affecting productive cycles.

Montgomery Planning (Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission) · Montgomery Planning · United States

Montgomery Planning's overview of the Agricultural Reserve, created in 1980 by Montgomery County Council action and covering 93,000 acres — nearly a third of the county's land. The Reserve combines dedicated agricultural zoning (limiting residential density to one unit per 25 acres in the AR zone), a transfer of development rights (TDR) program, and a Building Lot Termination (BLT) easement program to prevent farmland fragmentation, sustaining more than 500 farms.

Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) · State of Oregon, Department of Land Conservation and Development · United States

Oregon's state land-use agency page explaining the state's farmland protection framework. Statewide Planning Goal 3, established under Senate Bill 100, defines agricultural land based on soil capability, and all 36 counties apply Exclusive Farm Use (EFU) zoning, with minimum lot sizes typically 80 acres for cropland and 160 acres for rangeland. As of 2015, Oregon's farmland totaled 16.3 million acres (over 26% of the state), with the farm economy valued at $5.7 billion, about 11% of the state economy, supporting more than 326,000 jobs.

Neighborhood Gardens Trust · Neighborhood Gardens Trust (NGT) · United States

Neighborhood Gardens Trust (NGT), a Philadelphia nonprofit, is a land trust that makes community garden land tenure permanent. It has preserved 53 community gardens so far and aims to protect a total of 80 by 2027. Preserved gardens range from single house lots up to 3.7 acres, the largest, and vary from food-producing plots to flower and sitting gardens. NGT covers ongoing liability insurance, real estate taxes, and capital improvements (with support from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society), while local gardeners keep managing the day-to-day.

· Wikipedia · United States

Brooklyn Grange operates 5.6 acres of organic vegetable and honey production across three rooftop farms in New York City, the largest rooftop farm operation in the city. Founded in 2010, it produces about 80,000 pounds of vegetables and roughly 1,500 pounds of honey annually. The founders launched the business with loans, personal savings, and investors, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard farm was partly funded by a $592,730 grant from the NYC DEP Green Infrastructure Grant Program.

· Wikipedia · Canada

Lufa Farms is an urban agriculture company founded in 2009 in Montreal, Canada, that operates commercial hydroponic greenhouses on building rooftops. It runs four rooftop greenhouses, employs about 200 people, and delivers roughly 20,000 baskets weekly to more than 500 pickup points across Quebec.

· Wikipedia · United States

Gotham Greens is a U.S. company founded in 2009 by Viraj Puri and Eric Haley that grows lettuce, herbs, and related products via hydroponics in rooftop greenhouses. Its first greenhouse (15,000 sq ft) opened in Brooklyn in May 2011, and as of 2026 it operates 13 facilities totaling over 1.8 million square feet across New York City, Chicago, and other states. The company claims up to 30 times the production efficiency per acre versus conventional field agriculture, up to 90% less water use, and 97% less land use, and raised $310 million in 2022 (cumulative funding of $440 million).

· Wikipedia · United States

A rooftop garden designed by Ralph Hancock and Raymond Hood opened on the 11th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in April 1935. It originally featured themed gardens representing 13 nations (the 'Gardens of the Nations'), which were demolished by 1938; the garden subsequently died off and was replaced by a non-public flower bed, and no longer exists today.

· Wikipedia · United States

The rooftop garden at the Kaiser Center in Oakland (building completed 1960) was commissioned after the building's design and created by Theodore Osmundson & Associates, a San Francisco landscape architecture firm. It was inspired by the gardens at Rockefeller Center and is described as the first rooftop garden built in the United States after World War II.

· Wikipedia · United States

According to the English Wikipedia article 'South Central Farm', the South Central Farm in Los Angeles operated from 1994 to 2006 as a 14-acre (5.7 ha) urban farm, considered one of the largest of its kind, used by roughly 350 families of moderate means from the surrounding community. On June 13, 2006, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department carried out an eviction and more than 40 protesters were arrested; on July 5, 2006, workers began bulldozing the farm amid further protests.

· Wikipedia · United States

This Wikipedia article covers the Beacon Food Forest, an urban food forest on public land in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood, described as the largest food forest on public land in the United States. Jacqueline Cramer and Glenn Herlihy proposed the concept in 2009; the project received a $20,000 grant in 2010 and a $100,000 development grant in December 2011, with initial planting of 1.75 acres in September 2012. It added 27 P-Patch garden plots in 2014, expanded by 1.5 acres in 2019, and its Food Forest Collective gained nonprofit status in August 2017.

City of Atlanta (AgLanta) · AgLanta (City of Atlanta, official) · United States

This official City of Atlanta (AgLanta) page describes the Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill, a 7.1-acre site in a designated food desert acquired by The Conservation Fund in fall 2016 and developed as Atlanta's first community urban food forest, growing fruit, nuts, vegetables, herbs, and mushrooms for public consumption. It is framed as part of the city's goal to bring healthy food within a half mile of 85% of Atlanta residents by 2022, funded in part through the U.S. Forest Service's community forestry program.

· Wikipedia · United States

A Wikipedia article on FarmBot, an open source precision agriculture CNC farming project. Started in 2011 by Rory Aronson while studying mechanical engineering at California Polytechnic State University, he began working on it full-time from March 2014 with a grant from the Shuttleworth Foundation. Tim Evers and Rick Carlino joined as core developers. It was a Hackaday Prize finalist in 2015, and after nine design iterations the commercial FarmBot Genesis began preorders in July 2016. It uses the OpenFarm crop database to create optimal planting plans.

· Wikipedia · United States

This Wikipedia article on Seattle's P-Patch community garden program states the name derives from the Picardo family farm in the Wedgwood neighborhood. It reports about 90 P-Patch locations around the city, which in 2023 donated a total of 33,438 pounds (15,167 kg) of produce to food banks and meal programs. It also describes a 25,000-square-foot (2,300 m2) P-Patch on the roof of a Mercer Street parking garage at Seattle Center, opened in 2012, whose planned 2020 closure was averted following public protest.

· Wikipedia · United States

This Wikipedia article covers the Liz Christy Garden, described as the first and oldest community garden in New York City. In 1973 Liz Christy founded the Green Guerillas and petitioned the city for access to a vacant lot for $1 a month; the garden was officially created in 1974. Located at the corner of the Bowery and Houston Street in Manhattan, it is now managed by about 20 volunteer gardeners. It was renamed in Christy's honor after her death in 1985, became a legally protected community garden in 2002, and was included in the Bowery Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

· Wikipedia · United States

This Wikipedia article covers sociologist Ray Oldenburg's concept of the 'third place,' proposed in his 1989 book The Great Good Place. A third place is a social space separate from home ('first place') and workplace ('second place'), with examples including churches, cafes, bars, libraries, and parks. It outlines Oldenburg and Christensen's seven characteristics—accessibility, comfortable atmosphere, convenient location, unpretentiousness, established regulars, conversation focus, and lighthearted mood—and argues these spaces matter for democracy, civic engagement, and a sense of place.

· Wikipedia · United States

A Wikipedia article surveying the history and present state of community gardening in the United States. It traces early examples such as the Moravians' garden in Bethabara, North Carolina in the early 1700s, Detroit's municipally sponsored 'Pingree's Potato Patches' of the 1890s, World War I/II victory gardens, and the founding of the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) in 1978. Current figures cited include over 3,000 gardens statewide in New York, over 550 gardens on New York City property (plus 745 school gardens), about 1,400 gardens in Detroit, over 800 documented in Chicago, about 180 in Boston, and Seattle's P-Patch program with 1,900 plots across 68 locations totaling 23 acres.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) · United States

EPA's Brownfields and Land Revitalization program page describes grants and technical assistance for assessing, cleaning up, and reusing contaminated land. As of June 2026 it lists $270 million in brownfield grants and a $1.5 billion investment under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The page does not directly discuss urban agriculture.