What's new
All updates to the site so far, newest first.
Published column 'Farming a dry city — Southern Europe has held its farmland without owning it'
Series 'Southern Europe, the dry city', Day 1/3. The overview instalment. Three drafts were compared; draft B was adopted because its spine — EEA and Eurostat water indicators plus the basic data of the Milan and Baix Llobregat agricultural parks — could be verified (draft C was rejected because its sources were unreachable from this environment).
Eight Kobe community farms, four studies and three policies added
Eight new citizen-run growing sites across the wards of Kobe: a rooftop garden on a shopping centre (pick! nic! farm, Suma), a garden on unused high-school land (Gakugaoka Saien, Tarumi), a garden inside a public park (Ikutacho Park Saien, Chuo), rental plots on vacant lots that compost with a supported-employment workshop (Osanpo Batake, Hyogo and Nagata), a complex in a closed primary school (NATURE STUDIO, Hyogo), a group clearing neglected bamboo groves into menma and compost (Ogo Bamboo Project, Kita), a children's growing-to-selling club (Manokko Agri Club, Nagata) and an open garden and playground (Hata tainohata, Suma). Four studies were added, including a survey finding lead and arsenic in Chicago park soils highest in lower-income neighbourhoods, with some areas unsafe for gardening in native soil, and a study of 412 small-scale urban farmers in eThekwini, South Africa, finding only modest income gains from climate-smart practices. Three policies: the UK Allotments Act 1950, Japan's 1989 Specified Farmland Lending Act underpinning its allotment system, and Kobe City's Compost Project. One event: bamboo and straw craft workshops for children at Futaba Gakusha, Kobe, on 9 August.
Added local urban-farming events: small-scale gatherings in Norway, the US, Austria, Italy, Malaysia and Argentina
Added Oslo's allotment-garden autumn days, Buffalo's Urban Farm Day, Angewandte University's compost day in Vienna, Trento's open community garden, the Klang River microforest gotong royong in Kuala Lumpur, and Córdoba's agroecological market (events +6)
Published column 'What is a rooftop farm good for? — between 633 hectares and 1,284'
Series 'The roof as farmland', day 7 of 7. Adopted draft A (30 points against draft B's 28): tests three expectations — food, environment and green space policy — against figures from primary sources, then sets out an order of practice and closes the series.
15 new entries on health, nutrition and food security, weighted to critical findings and non-Western settings
Eleven research entries and four cases. Today's lens was health, nutrition and food security, carrying both evidence of benefit and evidence that benefits are limited. Five entries report critical or null findings: a Canadian systematic review (community gardening may have little to no effect on household food insecurity), a randomized trial of 381 older cancer survivors in Alabama that missed its primary composite outcome, wastewater irrigation and diarrhoea incidence in Ahmedabad, E. coli in 58.6% of samples from Dhaka urban gardens, and a Lima early-child-development project that improved food security and language delay but not motor or cognitive delay. Regions: USA, Canada, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and sub-Saharan Africa. The cases are a Chicago produce prescription farm, a worker-cooperative garden in Quito for people with severe mental health problems, the Lima multi-sectoral project, and an FAO wall-garden project in Lebanon for refugees barred from cultivating land, which closed in 2016.
Published column 'Who pays for the roof — mandates, subsidies, and repeal'
Series 'The roof as farmland', day 6 of 7. Science x Society. Adopted the draft that compares the three instruments — mandate, subsidy and price — down to their actual figures.
Added local urban-farming events in Shanghai, Hyderabad, Lalitpur, Melbourne and more
Added the Shanghai Community Garden Week, a terrace-farming training in Hyderabad, an urban-farming support programme in Lalitpur (Nepal), a garden-club gathering in Melbourne, and composting workshops in San Jose and Lancaster, USA (events +6)
Published column 'A genealogy of the roof garden — from idea to technique, and on to the department-store roof'
Series 'The roof as farmland', day 3 of 7. Adopted the draft tracing the idea of soil on a roof as three lineages: fire safety (Rabitz, 1867), architectural idea (Le Corbusier, 1927) and commerce (Mitsukoshi, 1907).
Ten studies on the economics of urban farming, plus UK allotment law and five city-farm cases
Today's collection used an economics and business-viability lens. The ten research entries lead with negative and limiting evidence: tomato growing in Addis Ababa that returns a negative NPV of US$30,100/ha/yr once water costs are counted; community vegetable gardens in Zimbabwe found not cost-effective at EUR 12,456 per household reaching the target diet score; and a Ljubljana plot-taking boom during the Slovenian debt crisis that did not function as household provisioning. They are joined by household economics from Ghana, Uganda and Cambodia, siting and operating models for Japanese experience farms, and a willingness-to-pay study of a student farm. Cases include Growing Power in Milwaukee, which dissolved in 2017 under mounting debt despite its prominence (an inactive entry), and four London city farms, among them Stepney City Farm, which lost about a third of its site to Crossrail. Policies cover the UK Allotments Acts 1922 and 1925 (ministerial consent before statutory allotment land is disposed of), the Land Settlement (Facilities) Act 1919, and the Land Settlement Association, wound up and privatised in 1983.
Added 11 grassroots urban-farming events, including first entries for Cyprus, Panama, Palau, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Eswatini and Iraq
Today's events-only routine added 11 local urban-farming events and standing community programs — community-garden open days, harvest festivals, trainings and composting workshops — including first-time entries for Cyprus, Panama, Palau, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Eswatini and Iraq, plus a second Croatia entry.
Published column 'Designing for weight and water — the physics that turns a roof into farmland'
Series 'The roof as farmland', Day 2 of 7. Science × Society. Draft A adopted for its single descending line of argument, from the imposed loads of Article 85 through the layer stack, lightweight media, wind and the heat balance.
Added 13 entries through a methodology and review lens, including Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe and developing Asia
Twelve research entries centred on systematic reviews, meta-analyses and re-analyses, ten of which report negative findings or limitations: heavy metals in African urban soils, lead and mercury in Nairobi leafy greens, wastewater-irrigated vegetables in developing Asia, a methods critique of green gentrification research and a review of its mental health effects, a review finding collective-garden health benefits unconfirmed due to cross-sectional designs, a meta-analysis where school gardening plus physical activity did not improve BMI, a review finding weak measurement behind greenery and mental health in aged care, and a Zimbabwe case study where urban agriculture did not reduce food insecurity for grandmother-headed households. On urban beekeeping both sides are now in the database: a Montreal study associating honey bee abundance with declining wild bee richness, and a re-analysis finding no statistical evidence for competition in Munich. One policy entry: Oakland's urban agriculture zoning, including the permitting burden once sales are involved.
Published column 'The roof as farmland'
Series 'The roof as farmland', Day 1 of 7. Science x Society. Three drafts were compared (institutions-first, area-first, science-first) and the area-first draft was adopted as the truest fit for an overview.
Started the series 'The roof as farmland' (2026-07-26 to 2026-08-01)
A topic series (Science x Society) inspecting the roof as farmland over seven days: definitions and area, the physics of load and water, history, world cases, where Japan stands, institutions and economics, and controversy and practice.
Consolidated duplicate exploration columns (42 → 32)
Columns generated more than once on the same subject (four on DIY, four on France, two each on Cuba, the Netherlands, Singapore and Germany) are now single articles. Canonical slugs are kept so existing links survive, and only non-overlapping sections were merged in.
Added three more columns (alternative Netherlands, Singapore and Germany reports)
Three alternative versions stranded on branches under an existing slug are now published as separate articles: polders and floating farms for the Netherlands, the November 2025 revision of '30 by 30' for Singapore, and law versus freedom for Germany.
Added three more columns and fixed a duplicate France slug
Two more DIY columns and a second Cuba column are now live. A recovered France column that collided with the existing slug was separated out as french-workers-gardens-to-rooftop-farms.
Published five exploration columns (three on France, DIY science, the nutrient loop)
Columns stranded on unmerged branches were recovered. The three French pieces run as separate articles — institutional history, Paris policy programmes, and the 19th-century market gardens. All 34 source URLs were checked; two dead links were replaced with primary sources.
Recovered unmerged routine output (+97 cases, +34 research, +151 events, +71 policies)
Data produced by the daily routine had been left on unmerged branches. It was recovered across all branches, de-duplicated in favour of existing records, and 15 research entries with placeholder authors were dropped per the fabrication check.
Added local urban-farming events from Côte d'Ivoire, Argentina, Indonesia, Fiji, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Added five grassroots urban-farming events: an urban agriculture days conference in Bouaké (Côte d'Ivoire), a native-seed fair in Puerto Iguazú (Argentina), a home-garden workshop in Tebing Tinggi village, Riau (Indonesia), and home-gardening trainings in Labasa (Fiji) and Kingstown (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines) — all five countries new to the events dataset.
Published column 'Urban farming in Cuba — farming from necessity, raised by crisis'
Country Report. Cuba's organopónicos and urban agriculture born of Special Period scarcity, told as a crisis-to-agroecology arc. Chose the history/culture angle over policy and on-the-ground drafts.
2026-07-24 New data added
Added 9 urban farming cases from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Hungary, Portugal, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore; 6 research entries on urban agriculture, food resilience, and biodiversity; 5 policies/programs from Kenya, Finland, Denmark, FAO, and Rwanda.
New 'Learning from failure' column series — 3 pieces (free for a limited time)
Added three exploration columns that examine urban-farming failures even-handedly: (1) green gentrification — the paradox of greening raising land values and displacing residents, with High Line/Barcelona/606 evidence and the 'just green enough' prescription; (2) the vertical-farm bubble — the cascade of bankruptcies from AeroFarms to Plenty and the root economics of electricity and crop constraints; (3) the fragility of urban farmland — three types of loss (eviction, slow erosion, defunding) and the mechanisms that secure tenure. All cite paper DOIs or primary sources and are free to read for a limited time.
Improved overseas farm-map accuracy: relocated sites stacked on city centroids worldwide, added ~40 sites (defunct vertical farms, lost community gardens), and excluded area-level programs, policies and studies from the map
Improved farm-map location accuracy nationwide: moved ~100 sites that were stacked on city centroids to their real locations, and excluded area-level programs and multi-site brands from the map
Greatly improved farm-map location accuracy across Kansai (Kobe, Osaka, etc.) and added 3 Minna no Uen sites (PARK Higashisumiyoshi, Toyonaka, Asoviva)
Government-policy failures added (+36 research, +10 policies, +6 cases)
Filled the policy-evaluation type of failure — where a government's promotion effort stalled or collapsed. Research +36: food-policy councils dissolved or underperforming (Portland; empirical evaluations of major US cities), urban-ag strategy implementation gaps (London ON, São Paulo, Normandy), austerity/neoliberal responsibilization onto volunteers (Rosol, McClintock, Cumbers, etc.), interim-use/licence-to-occupy precarity (Paris, Dublin), Detroit zoning legalization turning into speculation and 'planning for decline', policy-driven green gentrification displacing residents (High Line, Barcelona, Vienna), and limited food-security impact (Southern Africa, Malawi). Policies +10: real dissolutions/repeals/defundings (Portland, Orange County, DC, Denver food-policy councils; USDA land-access & Regional Food Business Centers cancelled; NYC GreenThumb auction; Missouri backyard-chicken law struck down; UK Local Food time-limited grant; Zimbabwe's reinstated urban-farming ban). Cases +6: publicly-run or grant-dependent urban farms closed by funding cuts (Newham, Gorgie, Coventry city farms; Edmonton City Farms; Ukiah; Detroit Farm-A-Lot). Every entry carries a DOI or primary-source URL. Repealed policies 4->11, inactive cases 33->39.
Balancing the record: critical research & failure cases (+72 research, +26 cases)
To counter a pro-urban-farming skew, added a large body of negative/critical/failure evidence. Research +72: environmental footprint (CEA/vertical-farm LCAs can exceed open-field carbon), soil/produce heavy-metal, PFAS & PAH contamination and health risks, weak economic viability and repeated bankruptcies, overstated food-security claims, gentrification/equity/'whiteness' critiques, garden loss/eviction and ecosystem disservices. Cases +26 are all status:inactive failures: vertical-farm/CEA bankruptcies (AeroFarms, AppHarvest, Kalera, Fifth Season, Infarm, Bowery, Plenty, FarmedHere, Agricool, etc.) and community gardens lost to development/eviction (South Central Farm, Esperanza, Adam Purple, Hayes Valley, Old Tidemill, Grow Heathrow, etc.). Every entry carries a DOI or primary-source URL.
Gap-fill: under-covered themes & regions (45 research, 26 cases, 23 policies)
Filled thin themes and geographic/spatial gaps. Research +45 (elderly/horticultural therapy, food-loss/gleaning, pollinators/urban beekeeping, community composting; plus Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA, South & Southeast Asia, Latin America). Cases +26 (wall & building-interior: underground/subway/vertical farms and edible walls; plus Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Ghana, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bolivia, Cuba). Policies +23 (repealed: Germany KGO 1919, US Victory Gardens; green-building: SF/Toronto green roofs; zoning: Cleveland/Detroit/Chicago; plus NL/BE, Latin America, Asia, Africa). All with source URLs.
Published column 'Walking the Edible Forest: Urban Food Forests and the Culture of Picking Allowed'
New Science x Society column reading public food forests worldwide (Seattle, Atlanta, Todmorden, Andernach) through governance and field practice, alongside the ecology of the seven layers and guilds.
Added local urban farming events in Lithuania, Ukraine, Guadeloupe, Georgia, Montenegro, Guyana and Mongolia
Added 7 events: a seed exchange (Varėna, Lithuania), composting workshops (Chortkiv, Ukraine; Georgetown, Guyana), a permaculture solidarity garden inauguration (Port-Louis, Guadeloupe), an ecovillage summer camp (Ninigori, Georgia), a plant/seed swap (Tivat, Montenegro), and a gardening club (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia). Focused on small, grassroots local events in countries with previously thin coverage.
Added local urban farming events from Ireland, Slovenia, Wales, South Africa and Colombia
Added 6 small-scale local urban farming events across 5 countries: Ireland (Greystones pollinator guide launch), Slovenia (Ljubljana seed & toy swap), Wales UK (community garden open days in Cwmbran and Swansea), South Africa (Brakpan market day), and Colombia (Medellín gardeners' seed-exchange network).
Published column 'Urban farming in the Netherlands — farming as design, born of a small country'
Country Report. Reads Dutch urban farming as 'farming as design', from volkstuinen (from 1838, AVVN 1928) and school gardens to rooftop farms (DakAkker). Adopted the case-focused draft after comparing three editorial angles.
2026-07-21 New data additions
Added 4 new case studies (Chicago, Copenhagen, Singapore, Detroit), 5 research papers (food security & climate resilience), and 4 policies (USDA grants, municipal programs). Net +9 new entries (3 cases, 2 research, 0 events, 4 policies).
Added 4 urban farming events: local garden events from Portugal, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Argentina
Added Lisbon's Jardins Abertos open-garden network, Manila's Luneta Urban Garden relaunch, West Jakarta's citizen urban-farming group joint harvest, and Roldán, Argentina's urban garden meeting with seed distribution — all small, local-scale events in countries/cities not previously represented in the events dataset.
2026-07-19: Add new data from Latin America, Canada, and policy research
Added: 2 cases (Rosario El Bosque, Thorncliffe Park), 2 research papers (pollination citizen science, SSA food security), 2 policies (Egypt success index, South Africa transformation). All sources verified. Coverage: cases 359→361, research 896→898, policies 86→88.
Added local garden events from Iceland, France, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, and Denmark
Added 6 small local urban-farming events: a spring plant exchange in Kópavogur (Iceland), a shared-garden open day in Toulouse (France), an allotment garden open day in Tampere (Finland), an open-garden weekend in Hochwald (Switzerland), community garden days in Graz (Austria), and an allotment work day in Aarhus (Denmark).
2026-07-18 Added urban farming cases and policies from Greece, Poland, South Africa, Chile, Philippines, and Malaysia
Added Greece's municipal gardens program, Poland's Krakow-Warsaw urban agriculture plans, South Africa's Cape Town-Johannesburg initiatives, Santiago community gardens, Philippines government program, and Malaysia's Young Agropreneur Programme. 6 new cases, 8 new policies.
Published column 'Urban farming and DIY — how making it yourself reclaims sovereignty over growing'
Science × Society. On DIY/open-source urban farming; adopted the case-led draft covering Windowfarms, Farm Hack, FarmBot and L'Atelier Paysan for its factual grounding.
Add Bangladesh, Poland, Palestine urban agriculture data
Added new cases including Dhaka rooftop farming, Kraków community gardens, and Palestine urban agriculture integration. Integrated research on sub-Saharan African urban agriculture and Bangladesh rooftop gardening. Added policies including Bangladesh National Agriculture Policy and Kraków pilot program.
Added local urban-farming events from 19 previously uncovered countries
Added 20 grassroots urban-farming events (seed exchanges, composting workshops, community garden visits, and small local fairs) across 19 previously uncovered countries: Jordan, Bulgaria, Serbia, Latvia, North Macedonia, Palestine, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Egypt, Malawi, Namibia, Pakistan, Cambodia, Myanmar, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Cuba (events +20).
Published our privacy policy, terms of use and legal notice (operator information)
2026-07-14 New Research and Policy Entries
Added 5 recent research papers (2025-2026) on elderly, food-loss, and pollinator themes, plus 4 urban agriculture policies from Africa, Middle East, and South America. Strengthens elderly welfare, food-waste reduction, and pollinator conservation literature.
Added local garden events from Estonia, Slovakia, Spain and Malta
Added a Tallinn Old Town community garden open programme, a Bratislava open-gardens weekend featuring a community growing-plot garden, community urban garden open days in Madrid and Marratxí (Mallorca), and a garden potluck & ethnobotany workshop at an NGO garden in Malta (events +5).
Published column 'Urban farming in France'
Country report, adopted from the policy/institutions angle: how the City of Paris — which does not farm itself — turned land into farmland through institutions, from the 1896 worker gardens to the 2016 Parisculteurs.
Research added (50 events, 100 DIY)
Added 50 studies on urban-farm events and activities (festivals/markets, education programs, horticultural therapy, seed swaps) and 100 studies on DIY growing equipment (raised beds, hydroponics/aquaponics, self-watering/irrigation, composting rigs, low-cost sensors/IoT, rooftop/green-wall/indoor, mushroom/propagation/solar-drying). All with DOIs.
2026-07-13 Research added (100 urban-agriculture papers on Germany & China)
Added 50 papers on urban agriculture in Germany and 50 on China; research +100, all with verified DOIs.
Added local urban-farming events from Chile, Czechia, Malaysia, South Africa and South Korea
Added two Chilean seed-exchange gatherings (Chillán, Ancud), a small permaculture community garden open weekend near Prague, twice-weekly volunteer days at a Kuala Lumpur community garden, a Johannesburg garden club open day, and the opening of a district-run allotment garden in Incheon — all small, local events rather than large festivals.
Published column 'Urban Farming and Community: The Social Capital that Soil Grows'
Science x Society. Leads with the mechanism of social capital (bonding/bridging), covers health, resilience and the shadows, grounded in P-Patch, GreenThumb, UK allotments, Incredible Edible and Japan's citizen farms. Adopted draft A (25 pts) after a 3-way comparison.
Published column 'Urban farming in Singapore — 30 by 30, a city-state that made farming national policy'
Country Report series. Institutions-and-policy angle adopted after comparing three drafts (score 25, highest factuality). Covers 90% imports, 30 by 30, SFA, HDB car-park rooftop tenders, Sky Greens and Community in Bloom.
Added 100 US urban-farming research papers to the database
Added 100 peer-reviewed papers on US urban agriculture, community gardens, food justice, vacant-land reuse and soil contamination. Every entry is built from real CrossRef metadata with DOI resolution and title/year verified.
New events: local grassroots events in Turkey, New Zealand, Canada, UK, and Australia
Added grassroots local events: a seed exchange festival in Istanbul, a community garden fundraiser in Warkworth NZ, a recurring sharing-garden volunteer program in North Vancouver Canada, an allotment seed/plant swap in Bridge near Canterbury UK, and a recurring community food forest working bee in Perth Australia. All are small, single-organizer local events.
Daily routine: add cases, research, policies
Added 16 new entries (6 cases, 5 research papers, 5 policies) from East Africa, Southeast Asia, and USA, including Nairobi garden-in-a-sack and Thailand sustainable farming models.
Free newsletter signup opens; latest columns now free to read
The weekly Urban Farm DB digest is now available to everyone via free email signup. The three newest exploration columns are free to read in full; older columns move into the members' archive.
Domestic urban agriculture and compost events added
Added 15 new sessions of Kobe Compost Project workshops (July 21 - August 22, 2026) and Tono Hop Harvest Festival in Iwate (August 21-23, 2026).
Added local garden events from South Korea, Colombia, South Africa, Czech Republic and Vietnam
Added 6 grassroots local events from under-covered regions: citizen-farm programs in Suwon and Incheon (South Korea), a seed workshop at Bogotá's botanical garden (Colombia), a Mandela Day garden volunteer day (South Africa), a community garden open day in Prague (Czech Republic), and a new circular-economy community garden in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam).
2026-07-06 New data added
cases +1 (Detroit urban farming grant program) / research +2 (compost and urban agroecology studies) / policies +1 (Nairobi County urban farming policy)
Added grassroots urban-farming events (events +11)
Added allotment-garden open days, seed swaps, composting workshops and a herb harvest in Finland, Norway, Czech Republic, Romania, Morocco and Zambia, plus two grassroots events in Kochi and Nagano, Japan.
Published column 'Food loss: the science and the societies — prevent, share, return'
Science × Society. Adopted the principle-first draft (A) after comparing three angles.
2026-07-04 Routine: Add new data
Added 5 new policies: Philippines NUPAP, Mexico LGAAS, Indonesia Jakarta urban farming regulation, Thailand Bangkok City Farm Program, and EU EPBD green roof requirement. Added 2 new case studies: Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm, Incredible Edible Todmorden, and AeroFarms Newark vertical farm. Added 4 new research articles covering global trends, food systems strengthening, vertical farming systems, and sub-Saharan Africa food security.
Domestic events added / Kobe Compost Workshops
Added domestic compost workshops in Japan. Two sessions from Kobe Compost Project (Kobe City) on 2026-07-21: Minnanoueen Zenshouji farm (Suma Ward, 11:30~) and Marutto Garden Asobiba (Tarumi Ward, 14:30~).
2026-07-02 New data added: urban farming cases, policies, research from under-represented regions (Austria, Mexico, Turkey, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Hong Kong)
Collected new data from under-represented regions to expand global coverage. Added 9 new cases from Austria (Zukunftshof), Mexico City (Miravalle, El Terreno), Istanbul (rooftop initiatives, Peninsula), Cairo (Urban Greens, Schaduf), Palestine (Planting Hope), Jordan (Greening the Camps), Hong Kong (Rooftop Republic). Added 6 new policies from Turkey, Egypt, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Taipei, UAE, Singapore. Included 13 research papers covering urban agriculture economics, composting, biodiversity, and climate adaptation.
Added 26 local grassroots events (small-scale events across Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia)
Added small local events (community garden open days, seed swaps, composting workshops, volunteer farming days) from Uruguay, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, South Africa, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, Ireland, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, Israel, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, China, and Vietnam.
New column 'Disaster and the Urban Farm,' 3 new pioneers, and a new history chapter
A new exploration column on crisis and resilience; pioneer profiles for Jac Smit ('father of urban agriculture'), Karen Washington and Antonio Lattuca; and a new history chapter on urban farming in the Global South.
Filled major coverage gaps: +22 cases, +16 research papers, +10 policies
Added 22 cases across Europe (DE/FR/IT/Nordics/Central Europe) and the Global South (Latin America, Africa, MENA), 10 policies incl. Korea's 2011 Urban Agriculture Act and the UK's 1908 Allotments Act, and 16 papers on pollinators, elderly gardening, compost, food loss and DIY.
Added 12 local/grassroots events from Switzerland, Greece, Poland, India, Argentina, Mexico, and Chile
Added grassroots, small-scale events not previously covered: community garden days, seed exchanges, and composting workshops in Zurich, Thessaloniki, Athens, Warsaw, Chennai, Bengaluru, Rosario, Carmen de Patagones, Mexico City, and Niebla (Chile).
Published column 'Urban farming in Germany — 150 years from Schreber's garden'
Country Report. Selected the history-and-culture angle after scoring three drafts. Traces German urban farming from the 1860s Schreber movement through the Federal Allotment Gardens Act to today's intercultural gardens, Prinzessinnengärten and Andernach's edible city.
Added 91 papers from 24 previously-missing countries
Added 91 peer-reviewed papers and institutional reports on urban and peri-urban agriculture from 24 countries previously absent from the database; all links verified (78 cross-checked against CrossRef metadata).
Added 58 papers across 7 newly created fields: urban–rural linkage, food miles, CSA, peri-urban agriculture, climate change, food sovereignty, and digital agriculture
Filling previously thin research areas: urban–rural linkage (URCA, UN-Habitat guiding principles, Tacoli's classics), food miles & supply chain (Nature Food 2022, Coley 2009), CSA & Teikei (incl. 50 years since the 1971 Kobe origin), peri-urban multifunctionality, climate adaptation, food sovereignty & justice, and digital/smart agriculture. Also adds Osaka/Kobe empirical studies (Hara 2013/2018, Hirano Co-op Farm). Seven new theme tabs were added to the research page.
Added 12 local urban-farming events from Germany, Belgium, France, Brazil, Colombia, Sweden, South Africa, and South Korea
New entries: Berlin seed exchange (ZLB/VERN), Aktion Offener Garten (SH & Hamburg), Velt Zadenfest in Kalmthout and Reclaim the Seeds in Oedelem (Belgium), Châtillon community-garden open day (France), Casa de Sementes at SESC Piracicaba and Cultiva Comunidades in Recife (Brazil), Bucaramanga native-seed exchange and Bogotá roving urban-ag fair (Colombia), Tusen Trädgårdar national open-garden day (Sweden), Noordhoek Open Gardens (South Africa), Gangdong-gu urban allotment season opening (South Korea). All small-scale grassroots events.
Added reports and records on 'Minna no Uen' to the research database (+4)
大阪・北加賀屋発のコミュニティ農園「みんなのうえん」に関する実在文献を探索し、国土交通省のコミュニティ農園活用調査報告書(2017)、環境省グッドライフアワード受賞記録(2014)、greenz.jpの取材記事(2020)、UR都市機構の湊川PARK報告(2023)の4件を追加。専論の学術論文はほぼ存在せず、公的報告・受賞記録・媒体記事が中心であることを確認。
Added local community garden events in Netherlands, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Germany, Australia, and the US
Added 9 local grassroots urban farming events across 8 countries: Reclaim the Seeds seed fair (Amsterdam), East Vancouver Seedy Saturday, Jardins Abertos Lisbon (community allotments open day festival), Festival Regador Lisbon (community garden festival), Appuntamento in Giardino Italy (national open gardens day), Vienna community garden open day, Erdfest compost event at StadtAcker Munich, Sydney City Farm volunteer working bees, and Marra Farm Seattle volunteer work parties.
Published column 'Pollinators and Urban Biodiversity — Building a City for Pollinators, Starting from the Ground'
Science × Society. Adopted the cases-first draft built around real field practice (Oslo's bee highway, Ginza rooftop hives, No Mow May, B-Lines), anchored on the caveat that keeping honeybees is not the same as conserving pollinators.
Published column 'Hitler and Migge: subsistence gardens in the age of Blood and Soil' (+19 papers)
ワイマール期の造園家レーベレヒト・ミッゲの自給菜園思想と生産的ジードルング、バウハウス・近代主義の社会住宅、そしてナチスの『血と土』イデオロギーへの語彙の流用と断絶を、歴史研究19本をもとに論じる歴史×社会コラムを新設。関連論文19本も研究データベースに追加。
Added 98 research papers on corporate involvement and on poverty/hunger/food-deserts in urban agriculture
Added ~50 papers on corporate/commercial urban agriculture and ~50 on urban agriculture for poverty, hunger and food deserts, collected from around the world and verified as real.
Added all Kobe Compost Project events (events +18)
Comprehensive coverage of Kobe City's Kobe Compost Project (Environment Bureau Resource Recycling Division / Ondo). Added 17 touring composting-workshop sessions across Kobe wards from the official workshop listing, plus one project-overview entry.
Made Exploration Columns more prominent (homepage feature + nav promotion)
Added two pathways to surface the Exploration Columns across the site. In the header, 'Columns' was promoted from the 'Learn' group to a top-level standalone link (always visible). On the homepage, a new feature band right after the hero presents a large spotlight card (Composting: the science and the societies) plus a compact three-item list (care farming / Japan country report / water and soil) and a callout to the new ten-country Country Report series, all in the existing terracotta-accented editorial UI.
Added 5 local events from France, UK (Newcastle), Netherlands, Denmark and Taiwan
Added Rendez-vous aux Jardins 2026 (France, first French event), Newcastle Allotment & Garden Festival 2026 (UK, first non-London city), Farmsterdammers 2026 neighbourhood plant swap (Amsterdam), Øens Have monthly volunteer working days at Copenhagen's largest urban farm (Denmark, first Danish event), and Zuozheng Four-Season Agritourism food-ag education programme (Tainan, Taiwan — first Taiwanese event)
Launched the 'Country Report' series in Exploration Columns with ten countries at once
A new 'Country Report' category that digs into each country's urban-farming situation. Ten pieces — Japan, the US, Canada, South Korea, China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, the UK and South Africa — published bilingually on a template of overview → history → who-and-how → policy → regions → featured cases (linked to the DB) → outlook. Each article was drafted in three editorial angles (policy / field / history), compared and selected, then fact-checked by an independent review pass (factual errors, sources, translation) before release. The opening is free; the full article is for the Pro plan.
Added 158 domestic urban-farming, garden and lecture events
みんなのうえん（北加賀屋・神戸湊川ほか）、関東・関西・地方の農園マルシェ／収穫体験、都市農業・食育・コンポスト・在来種の講演・シンポジウム、種交換会・援農・棚田オーナーなど、過去開催分を含む国内イベントを158件追加。
Published Exploration Column #4, 'Food education and school gardens,' completing the four-part series
The fourth piece in the Exploration Columns (Pro) series. The science covers the science of taste (the instinct for bitterness, neophobia, repeated exposure) and of learning (experiential learning, crossing subjects); the society half surveys the US Edible Schoolyard, Japan's school lunch and Basic Act on Food Education, Europe's slow-food lunches and FAO's school gardens. As the close, it ties the four pieces — composting (return), care (heal), water-and-soil (support) and food education (connect) — into a single cycle. The opening is free; the full article is for the Pro plan.
Published Exploration Column #3, 'Water and soil in the city'
The third piece in the Exploration Columns (Pro) series, a long-form on soil and the water cycle. The science covers soil crumb structure, how water moves through soil (infiltration, retention, evapotranspiration), how cities break water and soil (imperviousness, compaction, contamination) and the restoration of healthy soil; the society half surveys Japan's rainwater use and paddy dams, US green-infrastructure cities and soil lead, China's sponge cities and Europe's decentralised rainwater management. The opening is free; the full article is for the Pro plan.
Published Exploration Column #2, 'Care farming and horticultural therapy'
The second piece in the Exploration Columns (Pro) series, a long-form on the link between farming and health/welfare. The science covers stress physiology (cortisol, attention restoration theory), the soil-microbiome hypothesis (M. vaccae, hygiene hypothesis), the benefits of exercise/sunlight/manual work, and the limits of the evidence; the society half surveys Dutch care farms (PGB), Japan's agriculture–welfare collaboration, UK social prescribing and Nordic green care. The opening is free; the full article is for the Pro plan.
Launched Exploration Columns (Pro) with the first piece, 'Composting: the science and the societies'
A new long-form series taking urban-farming themes from scientific principles to social systems worldwide. The first piece covers composting — microbiology, C/N ratio, aerobic vs anaerobic and the phases of composting, plus the collection-and-composting systems of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the US, Europe and the Global South. The opening is free; the full article is for the Pro plan.
Added 7 local urban-farming events: seed swaps in Turin & Milan (IT), spring tool swap in Primiero (IT), Japan's first Compost Enjoyment Day, Community Growing Conferences in Victoria & Queensland (AU), and Amsterdam West open-garden day (NL)
Added seed exchanges in Turin (Una Babele di Semi) and Milan (Siamo seMI), a spring tools-and-seeds swap in the Dolomite village of Primiero (all IT), Japan's inaugural Compost Enjoyment Day by LFC Compost, Community Growing Conferences for Victoria and Queensland (AU), and the Open Tuinen West neighbourhood garden open day in Amsterdam (NL). Focused on grassroots, small-scale local events rather than large national festivals.
New urban-farming data added (Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Greece and more)
Added 4 citizen-led cases (Chant des Cailles in Brussels, Quartierhof Wynegg in Zurich, Lisbon's municipal horticultural park, PER.KA in Thessaloniki), 3 events (Singapore Garden Festival 2026, London Food Growing Conference 2026, Seedy Sunday in Brighton), 3 policies (Lisbon municipal horticultural parks, Argentina's ProHuerta, Berlin's community garden programme), and 2 research entries.
Added 8 local community garden events from UK, US, Australia, Spain, Germany and Canada
Added Kew Community Open Week (UK), Crop Swap LA Weekly Farm Stand (US), Pocket City Farms monthly working bee (AU), Rochester Urban Agriculture Seed Swap (US), Madrid allotments San Isidro open day (ES), TMU Urban Farm workbee Wednesdays (CA), Jardin de Libros Nomadas monthly open day (ES), 58th Koelner Pflanzentauschboerse (DE)
Added citizen-led urban farming data (cases in Sweden, Poland, Spain and more)
Added 3 cases (Botildenborg in Malmö, the MOST cooperative farm in Warsaw, Madrid's community gardens network), 2 research entries, 5 events worldwide, and 3 policies (Poland's allotment-gardens act, Barcelona's Pla BUITS, Singapore's Community in Bloom).
Added global urban-farming data (Australia & NZ cases, events and policies)
Added citizen-driven cases (Pocket City Farms in Sydney, Kelmarna Gardens in Auckland), events (International Compost Awareness Week, UK National Allotments Week, Oxford Real Farming Conference 2027, Australia's Community Growing Conference), and policies (Brazil's 2024 national urban & periurban agriculture law, Cuba's national urban agriculture programme, and Vancouver's urban-agriculture guidelines).
Refreshed the site-wide visual design (typography, emoji removal, accent colour)
Switched headings to a serif display face (Fraunces / Mincho) with a subtle paper texture, removed all decorative emoji in favour of numbered indices and typographic hierarchy, introduced a terracotta accent colour, and restyled the changelog as a node-marked timeline.
Added overseas community-garden cases, policies and global events (2026-06-16)
Added four citizen-driven urban-farm cases from Europe — including the previously uncovered Denmark and Italy (NoordOogst in Amsterdam, Barcelona's urban-allotment network, ØsterGRO in Copenhagen, Zappata Romana in Rome). Also added five national/municipal policies (Germany's Federal Allotment Garden Act, Hull's 'Right to Grow', Florida SB 82, the repealed Miami Shores front-yard vegetable ban, and Rome's shared-gardens regulation) and four global urban-farming events (UFSS 2026, National Seed Swap Day, Atlanta's Soil Festival, London's Good to Grow).
Added theme tabs to the Research page
Added theme filter tabs (with article counts) below the keyword search on the Research page, ordered by count.
Added Japanese pioneers (Yoshimatsu Kato, Isoya Shinji)
Added Yoshimatsu Kato, who created the Nerima 'experience farm' model, and Isoya Shinji, a landscape scholar who championed 'environments with farming'; also added Alice Waters's portrait.
Pioneers: added portraits and Alice Waters
Added portraits for Migge, Liz Christy, Will Allen, Pam Warhurst and Ron Finley (Howard and Pingree use free-licensed images), and added Alice Waters, founder of the Edible Schoolyard, to the pioneers.
Added 'Pioneers of urban farming' (in-depth profiles)
A new section listing people who advanced urban farming, each with a deep-dive article: Leberecht Migge, Ebenezer Howard, Hazen Pingree, Liz Christy, Will Allen, Pam Warhurst and Ron Finley — written from verified sources.
Added 'A history of urban farming' (long read)
From 19th-century Schrebergärten and Detroit's potato patches to wartime Victory Gardens, 1970s NYC community gardens, Cuba's crisis-born urban agriculture, Japan's productive green land and allotments, and today's rooftops and policy — a narrative, era-by-era read on citizens growing food in the city.
New section: urban-farming policy & law (11 entries)
Added a Policy & law page covering Japan (urban-agriculture acts, productive green land), the US (USDA office, California AB 551, Detroit/NYC ordinances), Singapore's 30 by 30, Seoul's urban-agriculture ordinance, Paris's Parisculteurs and Toronto's green-roof bylaw. Repealed instruments are kept with their period in effect and reason for repeal.
Added urban-farming events from around the world
Added 5 citizen-driven events — Japan's National Urban Agriculture Festival, Australia's Urban Agriculture Month, the UK's Apple Day and London Open Gardens, and NYC GreenThumb's GrowTogether conference — on the new Events page, listing upcoming events and recent past ones.
Filled in Japan's map — from Hokkaido to Okinawa
Added citizen-driven cases across prefectures that previously had none — Hokkaido, Tohoku, Hokuriku, Chugoku, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa — so Japan now covers nearly every prefecture.
Major expansion of cases worldwide and in Japan
Added citizen-driven cases from previously thin regions — China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Russia, South America, Africa and Canada — plus more from Osaka and Kobe (Minna no Uen sites and others), reaching 231 cases across 47 countries.
Added Start guide, Topic summaries and Significance pages
An FAQ for first questions about starting a farm, topic-by-topic digests, and pages explaining urban farming's social effects (21 lenses) from the database.
Public submissions with moderation (hybrid) added
Anyone can submit a case; it is published after moderation.
Insight layer added (aggregates, situation-based entry, related cases)
World map of cases added