Research & reports

Bartezzaghi G., Quaglia S., Garrone P. · Agriculture and Human Values · Italy

Examines how cross-sector partnerships among public authorities, retailers, and nonprofits enable small neighborhood food retailers to participate in urban surplus food recovery and redistribution across major Italian cities.

Xie S., Martinez-Vazquez P., Baniotopoulos C. · Energy Science & Engineering · United Kingdom

An energy analysis of an urban vertical-farm benchmark integrating cultivation, storage, transport and office functions quantifies the substantial energy demand of urban vertical farming, underscoring its high operational energy burden absent savings measures.

Stepan Svintsov, Prajal Pradhan, Taylor Smith, Diego Rybski · Sustainable Cities and Society · Europe

A systematic evaluation in 2018 assessed the potential for low-tech, open-air, soil-based urban vegetable production across 840 cities in 30 European countries. The study used geospatial, demographic, and climate data under three land-use intensity scenarios. It estimated that 4551–7586 km² of urban land could yield 11.8–19.8 million tons of vegetables annually, roughly one-third of reported production, revealing substantial opportunities but also structural limits due to spatial variation.

Marlena Rycombel · Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster · Europe

This article explored how local currency activists in Monnaie Léman and the Brixton Pound envision sustainable futures centered on localism. Based on 19 interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in Brixton and Geneva, local currencies were examined as payments limited to specific areas. Activists promote ethical consumption, short supply chains, environmental awareness, economic education, and strong local communities in the short term. Long-term visions focus on localized economies, food sourced from community gardens, and green, compact, community-oriented small towns with well-developed pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.

Magdalena Raftowicz, Mirosław Struś · · Poland

This theoretical study analyzes the potentials and barriers to the development of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Poland, drawing on existing research. It identifies key barriers to CSA development, including financial, legal, organizational, and social factors, which originate from both farmers and consumers. The ongoing land ownership concentration in Poland, fostering industrial agriculture, is contrary to sustainable development and EU agricultural policy, posing a significant barrier to CSA development, particularly for farmers.

Jocelyn Parot, Stefan Wahlen, Philipp Weckenbrock, Marina Schneider, Andreas Gattinger · Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster · France

This paper investigates how Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiatives in France navigate tensions between solidarity ideals and market expectations. Analyzing weekly CSA shares from twelve partnerships, including monitoring and producer interviews, the study found that CSA producers adopt hybrid strategies for economic viability and partial decommodification. The CSA share is presented as a material manifestation of this interfield position, stabilizing CSA as a hybrid field within alternative food systems.

Jennifer Lyons, Anna Davies · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Germany (Freiburg)

This report, part of the CULTIVATE project, assesses the sustainability impacts of Food Sharing Initiatives (FSIs) in Freiburg. It combines insights from CULTIVATE's Food Sharing Map with sustainability impact assessment (SIA) data submitted by FSIs, estimating impacts across environmental, economic, and social pillars. The report notes that the presented indicators are a subset of total impacts and estimations will become more accurate as more FSIs submit SIA data.

Paris Pencharz, Peter H. Verburg, Pierre Chopin · Landscape and Urban Planning · Europe

This study investigated the conditions enabling urban agriculture (UA) at a 1 km² scale across 11 large European cities. The intercity model suggested that UA is more likely found in greener, central neighborhoods with lower property prices and lower proportions of locally born residents. However, there is not a consistent set of factors implying UA presence, suggesting other social and policy factors might be at play.

Jennifer Lyons, Anna Davies · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · United Kingdom (Brighton & Hove)

This report presents sustainability impacts of Food Sharing Initiatives (FSIs) in Brighton & Hove, UK, combining data from CULTIVATE’s Food Sharing Map and submitted Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) data. FSIs are community-driven projects enabling collective food activities and skill exchange. The CULTIVATE project developed "The Toolshed" to assess FSI sustainability impacts across social, environmental, economic, and governance pillars. The report notes that the presented indicators are a subset of total impacts, and urban-scale estimations will improve with more SIA data.

Hannah Bücheler, Christine Bosch · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Germany

This paper explores the potential of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Germany, applying Erik Olin Wright’s concept of real utopia to assess if CSA challenges capitalist structures. Drawing on secondary literature, the study evaluates the desirability, feasibility, and achievability of CSA. The results suggest that CSA in Germany qualifies as a real utopia, but faces limitations to growth due to implementation constraints such as the need for additional market channels and access to land.

Magdalena Raftowicz, Mirosław Struś · · Europe

This chapter establishes a theoretical framework for examining the development of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA). It argues that CSA aligns closely with sustainable development theory and should be regarded as an alternative to industrial agriculture. The analysis concludes that CSA constitutes a form of social and constructive innovation consistent with the sustainable development paradigm. However, the low level of social capital represents a key barrier to implementing the classical CSA model in Central and Eastern Europe.

Giorgia Tucci, Willy Müller · Contesti Città territori progetti · Spain (Barcelona)

The Parc Agrari del Baix Llobregat (PABL) is a leading European example of managing peri-urban agricultural systems in complex metropolitan areas of the Barcelona region. The park has established a multilevel governance framework that coordinates regulatory protection, agricultural production, and spatial development. The study emphasizes the importance of governance continuity in stabilizing agro-ecological practices, reinforcing short supply chains, and preventing land speculation.

Johannes Langemeyer, Gabriele Gervasi, Sergi Ventura Caballé, Gara Villalba Méndez · Ecology and Society · Spain (Barcelona)

This study examined the spatial-temporal transformations of peri-urban agriculture in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona from 2003 to 2015, combining spatial analysis of land use changes with qualitative insights from stakeholder interviews and workshops. Results reveal that the significant decline of peri-urban agriculture is driven by a complex interplay of real-estate speculation, land fragmentation, infrastructure development, evolving land use policies, and ecological pressures from land abandonment and environmental protection. Despite efforts to preserve agricultural spaces, the decline of peri-urban farming remains significant.

Kinga Kimic, Magdalena Błaszczyk · Sustainability · Poland (Warsaw)

This study identified and assessed vegetable cultivation projects submitted to the Warsaw Participatory Budget (WPB) between 2015 and 2023. The research classified projects into six types and evaluated them across social, functional, ecological, and economic dimensions. The results showed that vegetable-related projects in the WPB were decidedly niche, with only 101 initiatives submitted and 31 implemented, primarily focusing on education for children rather than direct food access.

Carla Galán-Guevara, Francesca Forno · Agriculture and Human Values · Italy (Trentino)

This qualitative study in Trentino, northern Italy, examined how alterity is conceptualized and enacted across nine Alternative Food Network (AFN) initiatives, using a decolonial analytical lens. Findings indicate that AFNs create meaningful opportunities for collective organization, ecological learning, participatory governance, and solidarity-based exchange, yet are simultaneously shaped and constrained by regulatory frameworks, certification regimes, economic pressures, and uneven organizational capacities. The study interprets AFNs in the Global North as spaces where partial openings and socio-ecological experimentation coexist with broader structures of coloniality, capitalist market relations, and institutional constraint.

Jana Marion Böhme · PubData · Europe

This study investigated the current state and professionality of biodiversity monitoring in food forest projects and influencing social-ecological factors through an online survey and interviews with German and Dutch experts. It found heterogeneous characteristics and professionality levels in monitoring activities, primarily due to context factors like actors, governance systems, and socio-economic settings. The professionality of monitoring depended on volunteer and expert availability and funding, indicating a lack of integrated, standardized, and systematic monitoring concepts and institutionalization.

Mesut YILDIZ · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Turkey (İzmir)

The Kadifekale Urban Orchard in İzmir, Turkey, was analyzed as a qualitative case study, showing that municipally supported urban agriculture functions as a relational public infrastructure reconfiguring women's labor, care responsibilities, solidarity networks, and public visibility. Based on one year of participant observation, in-depth interviews with 96 women, and focus group discussions, findings revealed women use the orchard to create space outside the home, build solidaristic ties, and increase public visibility. However, the case also revealed a persistent governance tension: municipal support is indispensable, yet women's influence over strategic decisions remains limited.

HM Revenue & Customs (GOV.UK) · GOV.UK / HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) · United Kingdom

The UK's Agricultural Relief lets qualifying agricultural property — farmland, pasture, stud farms, farmhouses and cottages among others — pass free, or partly free, of Inheritance Tax. Owner-occupied land (or occupied by a spouse/civil partner) must be held for 2 years, land let to others for 7 years, to qualify. Relief is 100% where the owner farmed the land themselves or it is let on a tenancy starting after 1 September 1995, and 50% in other qualifying cases. For deaths on or after 6 April 2026, the combined 100% Agricultural Relief and Business Relief allowed against an estate is capped at £2.5 million, with any excess receiving 50% relief instead.

· Viquipèdia (Catalan Wikipedia) · Spain

The Parc Agrari del Baix Llobregat is a protected agricultural area (about 3,473 ha, with 2,938 ha designated as farmland) in the Llobregat river delta within the Barcelona metropolitan region, managed by a consortium established in 1998. Vegetables account for 63% of crops, with fruit trees making up most of the rest. Spanning 14 municipalities, it functions as an institutional framework preserving agricultural landscape and wetland ecosystems amid urban expansion.

Evangelista et al. · Agronomy for Sustainable Development · Europe

This 8-year case study tracked tomato cultivation in a rooftop greenhouse. Peak yield reached 49 g plant−1 day−1 in the 2023 cycle, but overall yield declined by 31.2% across the 8 years. Best water use efficiency reached 36.8 g/L under reduced irrigation. Solar transmittance dropped from 50.9% in 2015 to 46.4% in 2023 due to polycarbonate degradation, and life-cycle global warming impact rose from a minimum of 0.54 kg CO2eq to 0.94 kg CO2eq in 2023.

· Wikipedia (German) · Germany

This article on green roofs in Germany explains that some major cities subsidize up to 50% of installation costs, and reduced stormwater fees (averaging €0.46/m2/year, up to €1.12/m2/year in Cologne) are also used to encourage adoption. Green roofs can be mandated in municipal development plans and used as ecological compensation measures, with about 8 million m2 newly greened annually nationwide, over 80% of it extensive systems.

European Commission · European Commission (single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu) · Europe

This is the European Commission's official Critical Raw Materials (CRM) page. It confirms that both 'Phosphorus' and 'Phosphate Rock' appear as separate entries on the EU's 2023 fifth CRM list. The page illustrates supply-concentration risk with examples for other materials (China supplying 100% of heavy rare earth elements, Turkey 99% of boron, South Africa over 71% of platinum group metals), but does not itself state a specific EU import-dependency figure for phosphorus or phosphate rock.

· Wikipedia · Netherlands

The URL 'Agriculture in the Netherlands' redirects to Wikipedia's general 'Netherlands' article. Despite being a densely populated country of 41,850 km2 and over 18 million people, the article states the Netherlands is the world's second largest exporter of food and agricultural products by value, owing to its fertile soil, mild climate, intensive agriculture, and inventiveness.

European Social Fund Plus (European Commission) · European Social Fund Plus, Social Innovation Match · Netherlands

A case study of Herenboeren, a Dutch citizen-owned cooperative farm model started in 2016. Around 250 households jointly finance and govern each 'Herenboerderij', paying a one-off investment of roughly €2,000–2,500 and a monthly fee of about €45–80 (depending on location and meat consumption) in exchange for a weekly share of seasonal vegetables, fruit, eggs, and optionally meat. Professional farmers are employed to run nature-driven production. As of 2026 there are 23 operational farms across the Netherlands with more than 9,000 citizen members.

Plinth · Plinth · United Kingdom

Published 5 April 2026 and updated 14 June 2026. Full cost recovery means funders covering not only a project's direct costs but its proportional share of overheads — rent, finance, IT, HR and chief-executive time. The article works through an example where two of ten staff (20 per cent of capacity) deliver a project, so £28,000 of £140,000 in annual overheads is added to £85,000 of direct costs for a £113,000 budget, and notes that overhead rates of 15–25 per cent are common sector guidance. It argues that accepting grants below true cost is a structural funding problem rather than a budgeting error, with consequences including staff burnout and governance risk, and notes that charity staff earn roughly 7 per cent less per hour than equivalent roles elsewhere in the economy.