Urban Agriculture Initiatives Research Articles

Nourishing the Mind: How Food Security Influences Mental Wellbeing.

Food insecurity is a significant public health problem worldwide and critical to mental health. There is a complex relationship between food security and mental health. We carried out a narrative review study aiming to address how food insecurity impacts mental wellbeing by focusing on the mental health repercussions of food insecurity, recognizing its pivotal role in attaining Sustainable Development Goals 2 (on hunger) and 3 (on enhancing global wellbeing). A comprehensive search was conducted on PubMed and Google Scholar, incorporating Google searches for pertinent reports and policy documents. To address these questions, we emphasized and elucidated the interconnectedness between food security and mental health. The review shows that food security and mental health share a profound relationship influenced by multifaceted factors like socioeconomic conditions, access to nutritious food, and societal inequalities. We then provide recommendations for integrating food security into mental health strategies based on the insights and conclusions drawn. Strategies ranging from sustainable farming practices to urban agriculture initiatives and digital mental health services demonstrate avenues for enhancing food safety and mental wellbeing. This highlights the need for collaborative interdisciplinary efforts and systemic reforms to address these interconnected challenges.

Fostering Empowerment of Urban Community Gardening Through Urban Agriculture Initiatives in Malaysia

Fostering Empowerment of Urban Community Gardening Through Urban Agriculture Initiatives in Malaysia

Consumption and production of edible insects in an urban circularity context: Opinions and intentions of urban residents

The success of emerging urban agriculture initiatives is partly determined by the acceptance and active involvement of residents. Edible insects can contribute to urban agriculture and to the transition to a circular economy by converting organic side flows into high-value biomass. This explorative online survey (N = 750) assessed the opinions and intentions of residents of Amsterdam city, the Netherlands (18–75 years old) about consumption and production of edible insects for food on household, neighborhood (i.e., centralized facilities for neighbored households), and industrial scales utilizing various side flows. Of the proposed scenarios, industrial insect production was perceived as more attractive (24.9 % of all respondents), than neighborhood (16.3 %) and household (6.7 %) production. Respondents indicated a higher preference for drivers (environmental, economic, expert support, and safety) related to purchasing industrially produced insects (median-5 of 7-point scale) than to participating in neighborhood or household production. Accordingly, most barriers were associated with household production (e.g., inconvenience, economic reasons, lack of knowledge and available information, median-5-6) rather than neighborhood (safety concerns, median-5) and industrial (no defined barriers, median 4) production. Nature (vegetal, animal, or mixed) and source of insect feed were considered important to the respondents, and >80 % of the respondents prefer feed mentioning on the labels of insect-containing food products. The findings suggest that urban initiatives on insect production should consider the current state of acceptance of this idea and the willingness to participate in it, as well as ensure its simplicity, safety, and low monetary cost. Relevant information and expert support should be made available to residents. Moreover, as edible insects are still a novel food concept in Amsterdam, further introduction of insects into the diet might make all proposed scenarios more attractive and meaningful for residents, contributing to the development of circular urban ecosystems in the future.

Reviving Urban Greening in Post-Industrial Landscapes: The Case of Turin

This paper explores the strategies for reviving urban greening in post-industrial landscapes through nature-based solutions (NbSs). The case of Turin was selected to investigate peri-urban farming practices at the old FIAT premises in the Mirafiori Sud area. Starting in the 2010s, the City of Turin launched new urban regeneration projects to transform degraded post-industrial landscapes into creative urban living labs (ULLs) for experimentation. The data were collected by reviewing the literature available from public sources, including project documents (deliverables, public reports, MOOC content, scientific articles, etc.). Interviews and focus groups with policymakers (municipality), volunteers (NGOs), and inhabitants were carried out to gather insights as primary sources. A qualitative thematic analysis was adopted to determine how NbS can be a force for enhancing multi-functionality in post-industrial areas by incorporating ULLs and green tourism as a co-creation model to connect with nature. The results showed that (1) Mirafiori Sud became a remarkable hub for co-creation projects to foster the transformation of brownfields into experimentation sites capable of hosting sustainable and inclusive solutions, (2) regenerative art practices in shared spaces play a crucial role in community engagement, (3) the support for urban agriculture initiatives could improve the ability of cities to provide alternative food (and cultural) networks. In sum, NbSs drive change in urban landscapes and promote green tourism via agricultural production.

Understanding urban agriculture in context: environmental, social, and psychological benefits of agriculture in Singapore

ABSTRACT The purported environmental, social, psychological, and economic benefits of urban agricultural initiatives (UAIs) are context-dependent. However, little research has been done on UAIs in Asia, and to our knowledge, no research conducted in Singapore. This study investigated the benefits perceived by employees and volunteers at an UAI in Singapore, an Asian city–state, and how these benefits were achieved or impeded. A secondary aim was to examine differences in participants’ perceptions. To address these aims, in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 employees and volunteers, followed by a Q-sort of 36 interview statements delivered to the same participants. The results suggested that the UAI had environmental, social, and psychological benefits which include fostering a genuine connection with nature and facilitating pro-environmental behavioural spillover; enabling friendships and learning to communicate with diverse peoples; and increasing self-awareness and gratitude, respectively. These are facilitated through tactile involvement with nature, exposure to pro-environmental behaviours, a culture of open-mindedness that encourages social interaction and encouragement of reflection. On the other hand, the UAI’s economic impact in terms of employment and food production was impeded by its financial difficulties. While both volunteers and employees perceived the psychosocial benefits, it was employees who emphasised the UAI’s financial difficulties. These benefits and impediments and how they manifest reflect Singapore’s communitarian worldview and accompanying social norms, and demonstrate the local and global relevance of situating UAIs in context. Relevant areas of future research are suggested. (234 words)

The role of Design Thinking to promote a sustainability transition within participatory urban governance: Insights from urban agriculture initiatives in Lisbon

This article contributes to research into new forms of participatory urban governance aimed at creating more sustainable cities. Focused on food security, which has, like ‘sustainability’, economic, ecological and socio-political dimensions, our research examines how urban agricultural initiatives have been promoted in Lisbon and how connecting and integrating them in urban planning strategies could contribute to the progressive transformation of the city into a more sustainable one. This integration is viewed as a complex, ‘wicked’ problem in that it encompasses various interdependent problems that are hard to solve due to the conflicting goals of involved actors. For this reason, we suggest that Design Thinking could help urban planners in addressing it, since it offers flexible, iterative and participatory ways of generating development insights based on users’ needs and contexts. The way this methodology is used is illustrated here to carry out the literature review on these issues in Lisbon. From this, the centrality of food systems in concerns related to urban sustainability emerged, as well as suggestions on ways to adjust urban planning so that it takes better account of them in the future. Our research aligns with recent studies on the use of Design Thinking in urbanism, some of them dealing with the food-energy-water nexus, and provides, through urban agriculture, a practical focus of study that urban citizens might feel more capable to comment and participate on.

O papel da agricultura urbana e periurbana na segurança alimentar global do pós-guerra à crise da covid-19: novas perspectivas em justiça alimentar, saúde global e sustentabilidade,

Abstract The current global syndemic, amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, highlights the collapse of current food systems. Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) initiatives have been recognised as strategies of opposition to the dominant food system model based on their multiple positive impacts. Thus, the aim of this article is to discuss the evolution of the concept of food and nutrition security (FNS) at the international level from its proposition (in the post-World War II period) to the COVID-19 crisis, understanding the contributions of UPA in this agenda. To this end, the document is based on a critical literature review. The FNS field has evolved, and different dimensions have been included in its characterisation; however, institutional responses are concentrated in times of crises, whose impacts affect it and favour the maintenance of globalised and unsustainable food systems. The UPA practices, on the other hand, appear with peaks of rise and decline, as their contributions gain new contours, evolving along with the FNS agenda. With a view to broadening and adding to the current discussions on FNSand UPA, we finally discuss the need to incorporate the concepts of justice, global health, and a multidimensional view on sustainability.

DEVELOPING SPATIAL TYPOLOGY FOR URBAN AGRICULTURE INITIATIVES TO ACHIEVE FOOD SECURITY IN JORDAN

The study investigates the current Urban Agriculture (UA) initiatives in Jordan on multiple spatial typology scales, addressing their different stakeholders and identifying the produced crops compared to their sufficiency level across the country, which is crucial to understanding the role of Urban agriculture in achieving food security and sufficiency in Jordan. The study is based on extensive desk research covering around 105 sources to identify the crucial dimensions of Urban agriculture. The study uses diagrammatic representations to analyze these dimensions and stimulate discussions through interviews conducted later with 12 key members. The study also uses thematic analysis to generate relevant themes that target Urban agriculture's main issues and opportunities in Jordan. The study discusses the levels of integration and continuity between the different Urban agriculture scales to achieve food security, the reasons for such distribution and spread, provided opportunities and faced challenges, as well as the key factors that resulted in success or failure along with the potential risks facing Urban agriculture in Jordan. Four themes were identified as a result of the interpretations of these discussions covering the needs and sufficiency, ownership, coordination between stakeholders, and the nature of products. The study addresses the main aspects, problems, and opportunities related to Urban agriculture in Jordan and integration between scales, stakeholders, and crops and provides recommendations for the key stakeholders on how to emphasize their contribution to the required level of Urban agriculture to achieve sufficiency and ensure local food security as an outcome. The study also provides a standing point to stimulate further research in these areas.

The challenge of urban food production and sustainable water use: Current situation and future perspectives of the urban agriculture in Brazil and Italy

• Tap water use in urban agriculture albeit climate change/urban water risk scenarios. • No studies addressed impacts of urban agriculture on public water supply systems. • Research need on urban agriculture policies and practices towards water security. • Fruit trees and wild edible plants are water-saving options. Urban agriculture (UA) initiatives have been increasing in recent years as a nature-based solution for achieving many of the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, climate change is expected to have effects on rainfall patterns, which are likely to impact urban food production. The main aim of this paper is to evaluate how issues related to water sources for UA have been addressed in the scientific literature from two different socioeconomic and environmental realities, Brazil and Italy. The method involved a systematic literature review, considering the PRISMA guidelines. The Web of Science database and papers' reference lists were used for retrieving original articles, published in 2000–2020 interval, indexed on scientific databases, and containing data on the typology and quality of water sources used in UA studies. After applying the eligibility criteria, 191 papers were selected – Brazil (108) and Italy (83). The last five years have seen an intensification of studies into issues involving water. Tap water has been identified as an important source of irrigation water for UA, if not the main one. No studies were found that addressed the impact of UA on public water supply systems. The findings point towards more sustainable practices involving the reuse of water and adaptive practices towards water security. We identified that innovative production systems like container farming, aquaponics and indoor agriculture, as well as cultivation of fruit trees, wild edible plants and varieties with low water requirements can represent water-saving options.

Mobilizing ‘impermaculture’: Temporary urban agriculture and the sustainability fix

This paper addresses the alliance between some urban agriculturalists, developers, and the local state in promoting a certain type of ‘green urbanism’ through what we call ‘impermaculture’. Impermaculture is a model of urban agriculture whereby some urban farmers approach their impermanence – the possibility of their operations being replaced by higher value developments – less as a threat to be avoided, as traditionally understood in the literature, and more as an intended modus operandi to which they are committed. We discuss how they use lightweight and portable growing containers, planter beds, greenhouses, and livestock pens to operate within and enhance contemporary regimes of development in global North cities. We identify a spatio-temporal impermanence that stands in contrast to classic understandings of sustainability fixes as either a form of greenwashing or as spatial fixes involving the sinking of capital into construction of a ‘greener’ built environment. In what follows, we develop a conceptual framework that will facilitate these contributions and provide a language for discussing cases of impermaculture in Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia. We discuss how urban agriculture is mobilized as part of the sustainability fix in the two cities. We first demonstrate how impermaculture emerges as a means of stabilizing the fix which is always prone to coming apart, or fracturing. We then draw on two examples – goat husbandry in Portland and temporary gardens in Vancouver – to demonstrate how urban agriculturalists are embracing and leveraging impermanence. This ‘impermaculture by design’ not only marks a new form of urban agriculture in the neoliberal city but shores up and temporally rescales the sustainability fix while providing urban agriculture initiatives stability.

Social capital in urban agriculture initiatives

PurposeThe study aims to investigate urban agriculture in the city of São Paulo from the perspective of social capital. The specific objectives are (1) to identify the effects of social capital on urban agriculture and (2) to investigate social capital formation (its sources and challenges imposed onto its development).Design/methodology/approachInitially, a review of the literature was carried out in order to understand the main concepts used in the field of study. Semi-structured interviews were also carried out with people from urban agriculture initiatives, and they were analyzed under the lens of social capital.FindingsAspects of social capital were recognized and organized in a framework including sources, effects and challenges. The first deals with consummatory or instrumental sources that generate social capital. The second deals with the following effects: generation of human capital, citizenship, engagement, access and mobilization of resources, and access to information. The third deals with the challenges to its formation related to homophily and the perception of benefits from this form of capital.Originality/valueUrban agriculture plays an increasingly important role in relieving the pressure generated by the food production system, being part of the solution to food security and sustainability issues. Many researchers recognize important social aspects acting on the dynamics of the movement and the effects of activities on the generation of social capital. The contribution of this work is to deepen the understanding of this type of capital in the context of urban agriculture.

Community gardens as feminist spaces: A more‐than‐gendered approach to their transformative potential

AbstractIn recent years, research in urban agriculture (UA) initiatives has adopted a more critical and transdisciplinary approach, proposing that UA enables shifts in socio‐economic, community, environmental and urban paradigms. Following this critical agenda, this paper draws attention to the multi‐scalar transformative potential that participation in community gardens (as a form of UA) can provide to volunteers, informed by a feminist approach. Firstly, we review the literature on the diverse gendered benefits, and degrees of empowerment women have experienced from working in community gardens, both individually and collectively. Examples from the literature review are informed by concepts from feminist geographies that support the exploration of community gardens as sites of embodied, relational and multi‐scalar experience. Following that, we expand the discussion to review opportunities community gardens offer individuals to gain greater awareness of symbolic forms of oppression, and envision alternatives for social change, drawing on feminist geographies in ways that move ‘beyond gender’. These benefits are mostly informed by conscientisation, decolonial and feminist political ecology approaches. Finally, the paper suggests that community gardens can be conceptualised as feminist spaces, given their fluidity and capacity to enable critical perspectives in volunteers, which may result in alternative forms of political action. The paper concludes with suggestions for further critical research on UA spaces.

INCENTIVOS À AGRICULTURA URBANA? ANÁLISE DO PLANO DIRETOR DO MUNICÍPIO DE PASSO FUNDO-RS

The great challenge facing food production extends greatly beyond rural areas, where urban agriculture is gaining more and more space in academic research. The objective of the research is to analyze the Master Plan of the municipality of Passo Fundo as an instrument for managing and promoting urban agriculture development initiatives. For this, a qualitative and exploratory research was carried out. As a data collection instrument, a semi-structured script composed of 14 open questions was used. The research participants were accessed by the criterion of convenience sampling and, thus, 8 interviews were carried out. As significant results, it is emphasized that urban agriculture initiatives in the studied municipality are still insignificant, with only one actor who develops this practice being identified. In relation to the actors of the municipal public power, it can be seen that the interest in the subject is not revealed in the priorities of municipal management and especially in the elaboration of public policies that meet these new forms of production.

The Heuristic Method applied to Design for Sustainability in Urban Agriculture

This article presents a study to identify heuristics that allow expanding social cohesion in urban agriculture initiatives. For this, two ex-post-facto case studies were carried out from Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Geneva (Switzerland). Another objective of the research is to reflect on the use of these heuristics in Service Design and Design for Social Innovation. The Heuristic Method is presented with the grounded theory approach and the steps of the method for identifying the heuristics. Finally, the contribution of this research is in the proposal of meta-actions for its conversion into Design actions based on the ten identified heuristics.

Goals and persistence of sustainability experiments in divergent urban contexts: urban agriculture and a geodemographic classification in London

ABSTRACT This paper critically engages with the increasingly prevalent concept and practice of “urban experimentation” and associated transformations towards sustainability. Too often, the paper argues, urban experiments are assessed from a diffusion-oriented perspective which foregrounds questions of how to replicate lessons from (similar) experiments across (similar) places. This common perspective implies an over-emphasis of unifying visions and rationales at the expense of diverging interpretations of “sustainability”; a neglect of “unsuccessful” experiments and questions of persistence; and an over-focus on certain types of – “green” or “creative” – places while disregarding the emergence and characteristics of experiments in more ordinary urban geographies. To address these issues, the paper introduces a novel methodological approach, combining a metropolitan geodemographic typology with qualitative data on 166 active and inactive urban agriculture initiatives across London. Varying socio-spatial patterns of experimentation are discussed, illustrating how contextual differences at neighbourhood levels matter. The paper demonstrates that neglecting the diversity of urban socio-economic, demographic, and physical contexts may lead to the erroneous suggestion that only places privileged by certain demographics can “achieve” sustainability and points to the significance of experiments beyond narrow ideas of novelty and innovation.

The Multiple Benefits of Urban Agriculture

Urban agriculture has emerged as a solution to food insecurity and other issues faced by underserved communities in urban areas. This study compares four urban food initiatives to highlight differences in implementation and success across different agricultural practices. The study also examines the varying levels of support for these initiatives in the United States and Cuba. The comparison shows that different initiatives within the urban food movement meet a unique intersection of multifaceted societal needs beyond the main goal of hunger alleviation. The main intersecting social needs that urban food initiatives can address are food accessibility, public health, and sustainable development. Moreover, different forms of governmental or non- governmental support for these initiatives influence their success and the scope of their outreach. Broader implications of this study include the importance of utilizing urban food not only as a remedy to hunger and food insecurity problems but also as a way to address public health and sustainable development goals in cities. The main findings imply a necessity for local governments to include urban agriculture initiatives in sustainability and food security plans for cities to encourage sustainable development, health, and increased food access for city residents.

Territorial Education through Urban Agriculture: Contributing to Building Sustainable Cities in Times of a Pandemic

The multi-dimensional damages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have highlighted the fragility of our economic systems and their lack of resilience. People are starting to question globalisation, and debates on alternative modes of development are back and alive. If economic paradigms need reforming, we also need educational systems that will equip people to build more sustainable societies. With this in mind, this article focuses on two crucial components in ‘current issues in comparative education’. One relates to the emergence of a so-far under-explored area of research in education, that of Territorial Education (TE), and places it in the context of both the 1990s educational reforms, intended to create a standardised ‘world class education’, and of ‘education for sustainability’. The second one focuses on the experiential nature that skill-orientated Territorial Education can provide, in contrast to other types of ‘education for sustainability’ approaches that are more conceptual. Using Urban Agriculture initiatives in Lisbon as illustrative examples, the article shows that such practical approaches might help to make cities sustainable and resilient in the future.

Assessing urban agriculture’s development in Central Jakarta

In Central Jakarta, grassroots movements and government institutions have implemented several households and community-scale urban agriculture (UA) initiatives to improve urban food security. However, there is a gap between the bottom-up initiative and formal support from policy planners. This study proposes system dynamics modeling as a viable approach to assess food production’s diverse reality in an urban context. We seek to analyze UA’s contribution to sustainable urban development in Central Jakarta through UA modeling. We developed our model’s structures from our UA practice findings that we gathered from questionnaires, focus group discussions, and field observations. From therein, area of productive green open space, social cohesion from social interactions from farming activities, and potential savings from growing foods were identified as main driving factors of the model, whereas land limitation was identified as a limiting factor. An intervention scenario was simulated to achieve Jakarta’s 2018-2030 UA roadmap target for installing productive green space in all child-friendly integrated green public space. Limitations of the models were acknowledged, and suggestions for model development were discussed.

Reflecting on the Potential and Limitations of Urban Agriculture as an Urban Greening Tool in South Africa

Urban green spaces have been researched extensively for their contribution towards livable, sustainable and resilient cities. Studies illustrate increasing awareness of the multi-functional roles such spaces can fulfill in addressing urbanization pressures and associated impacts such as increasing stress on global food systems, notably by accommodating practices of urban agriculture (UA). This paper investigates the potential for UA in South Africa as a citizen-led urban greening strategy, considering potential and limitations for the increased application of UA in spatial planning. The paper provides a review of core concepts and illustrates potential and certain limitations via UA cases studies in two leading South African provinces and a review of the national policy and legislative framework pertaining to UA. Findings highlight particular issues for consideration to augment the implementation of UA in South Africa, including opportunities to draw on existing citizen-led initiatives and increasing awareness of UA among communities, authorities, non-governmental organizations and the private sector; the potential to utilize skilled and knowledgeable rural migrants; and possibilities to capitalize on a growing market for UA related opportunities to stimulate economic growth and employment creation whilst addressing food security concerns. Limitations highlighted in the paper, include many current UA initiatives not being self-sustaining and fully citizen-driven, requiring constant support and resources from multiple stakeholders; a cultural stigma attached to UA activities, hampering more uptake, especially among the youth; limited national support as no dedicated national policy on UA exists to direct the spatial planning community; and lastly, that South African spatial planners exhibit limited knowledge of UA and green infrastructure in general. The paper concludes with broad recommendations for the international planning community to advance the implementation of UA as a citizen-led urban greening strategy, drawing on the South African experience.

Local food policies – their constraints and drivers: Insights from Portuguese Urban Agriculture initiatives

Abstract Two interconnected questions are addressed in this paper: (i) why urban agriculture (UA) and food-related initiatives take usually years to materialise in Portugal; and (ii) why resilient initiatives do not scale up and shift from practices to local food policies. We argue that existing initiatives are viewed as single events and therefore garner quite limited long-term political commitment and support. Based on interviews with food champions and a literature review, four Portuguese UA initiatives are analysed and these highlight the constraints that hinder their scaling-up. We conclude that drivers to lead to scaling-up are a combination of factors, with an enabling environment the most relevant one. On the other hand, constraints are related to limited democratic governance and poor policies, insufficient funding and weak participatory processes. Such findings are quite in line with existing literature. The limited integration of Portugal within the international UA and food debates might partially explain why UA is still struggling to find its proper place in Portuguese cities and their peripheries. Raising awareness among decision makers is critical to scaling-up UA initiatives and turning them an integral component of local food systems. A national observatory able to gather relevant data and produce knowledge, assess and monitor on-going initiatives may be the key step to gather different stakeholders together, that can then better advocate and then lead to higher political support, not only in Portugal but in any country where UA and food issues are emerging.