Urban Gardens Research Articles

Influence of ground cover and tunnels on production of Red Russian kale in urban gardes

Kale, Brassica oleracea L. var. acephala, is an important urban crop for human health and may potentially be grown year-round even in a temperate climate. We investigated black plastic and straw mulch compared to bare soil cover in low tunnels at 10 urban garden sites and in low tunnels within a high tunnel in the USA to ascertain the influence on yield and nutrients of Red Russian kale, soil temperature, air temperature, weed pressure, and aphid abundance. Kale had low yield in garden sites, likely because the outside environment was too cold for low tunnels to gain and retain heat. Cultivating kale in a high tunnel resulted in good yields, especially when paired with a low tunnel and plastic or straw mulch, which resulted in the highest air and soil temperatures. The amount of minerals in plants within the high tunnel largely did not vary across combinations of low tunnels and ground covers, except for copper and sulfur, which were lowest in plots with no low tunnel or ground cover. Also, dietary fiber was higher when no low tunnel or ground cover was used compared to plots with a low tunnel and no ground cover. Weeds were suppressed by straw and black plastic mulch, but none of the ground covers influenced aphid abundance. Overall, our work demonstrates that Red Russian kale can be grown in a temperate climate during winter with some combinations of tunnels and ground covers.

Citizens’ deliberation on solutions to fight urban household food waste and nexus with growing urban gardens: The case of porto metropolitan area in Portugal

Food waste is currently acknowledged as a major societal challenge, including the food waste at the household level estimated to be responsible for the wastage of one third of the food produced for human consumption. Hence, tackling household food waste (HFW) is gaining a momentum in societal and policy agendas accompanied by an increasing effort of the scientific community to deliver evidence to address the research gaps on the causes and on the solutions to address this multidimensional societal problem. The proposed solutions by published literature to mitigate HFW can be unfolded into four major types, actions to raise people awareness, participatory actions, economic incentives, and collective actions. However, there is little evidence on the household's assessment of the different types of actions and its combination. This paper contributes to this research gap by adopting an innovative participatory approach, using deliberative focus groups (DFG), and analyzing the collected data through content analysis resorting to the software Maxqda. We had conducted six DGF in the Porto metropolitan area before and during the pandemic COVID-19 crisis. Our results highlight the citizen's option for more holistic actions in comparison to separate actions as a way to effectively fight food waste at household level. Another finding of our study is that citizen's growing urban gardens found it the more effective way to reduce household food waste. These results suggest that urban policies and underlying legal frameworks should favor holistic solutions to incentivise fighting HFW and account for the urban gardens as a relevant part of the solution. In addition, the study has shown that qualitative deliberative citizen-led approaches show insightful to understand how common people perceive as alternative or complementary the different types of actions to fight HFW proposed by the literature review.

Questions of scale sensitivity, experience and branding culture in and beyond Hans Christian Andersen's House

With a new museum, Hans Christian Andersen's House, the Danish city of Odense has intensified the relationship between the nineteenth-century author, a son of the city, and the architectural spaces of today. The museum opened in 2021 but has drawn much attention since 2016 when Kengo Kuma and Associates were announced as winners of the competition to design this new house of fairy tales. The combination of Andersen, a cherished author whose works are read worldwide, and Kuma, an esteemed world-famous architect, seemed a perfect match to secure attention from a wider public and attract local and international visitors. The museum's architecture and urban garden form a focal point in the exhibition design but are also central elements in a larger transformation project in Odense. Entangled in all this is Andersen: his fairy tales, his personality, and the places he lived in Odense. The article explores how experiential visions and branding culture are balanced, and argues that the museum was created with a sensitivity towards different scales that form the relations with the museum's contexts. How such scale sensitivity is connected to the materiality, spaces, and bodily experiences of the museum is analysed through theories by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Celia Lury.

Urban food planning and management in Melbourne: current challenges and practical insights

ABSTRACT Over the last decades, local governments have begun to develop urban food planning instruments focused on improving public health and environmental sustainability, but shortcomings still exist. This paper builds on the case of the Melbourne Metropolitan Region (Australia) to elaborate on how urban food planning and management can address the challenges exposed by a systemic approach. Challenges include strengthening local food economies, developing a nexus between the urban environment, public health, and sustainability, and the circular management of food production resources. Our study contributes to urban food planning and management practice by identifying how policy instruments have successfully addressed these key challenges, and existing inconsistencies between policies and planning. Furthermore, policies should go beyond incentives for urban gardens and explore new areas of intervention, including integrating local producers and retailers into urban food planning, prioritizing fresh food commercialization over ultra-processed products, and integrating composting into waste management.

Organic compost belowground and floral diversity aboveground interactively shape beneficial insects in urban gardens

Abstract Plant diversity aboveground can exert top‐down pressure on herbivores by attracting predatory insects, while organic soil amendments rich in beneficial microbes can limit herbivores from the bottom‐up by enhancing plant defensive chemistry. Aboveground and belowground forces always operate simultaneously to shape herbivore pressure, but understanding how they interact is a longstanding and persistent challenge. Here, we examine how organic composts mediate the effects of plant diversity across trophic levels, using zucchini plants (Cucurbita pepo) as a study system. Over two field seasons, we manipulated vermicompost treatments in 18 experiments in school gardens that varied in surrounding plant and floral resource diversity and measured responses of insect herbivores and their natural enemies. Vermicompost strengthened a positive relationship between flower richness and foliar‐feeding omnivores, suggesting that robust reservoirs of omnivores at flower‐rich sites mounted stronger responses to compost‐treated host plants. Predators increased with flower richness, but were not affected by vermicompost. Net outcomes of vermicompost and plant diversity were neutral for herbivores. Synthesis and applications. Altogether, our results reveal that bottom‐up factors protecting plants are modified by their environmental context, and may more effectively attract natural enemies in landscapes with diverse floral resources. Therefore, we recommend augmentation of biodiversity aboveground (i.e. floral resources) together with biodiversity belowground (organic soil amendments) to strengthen crop protection.

Recommendation system using bio-inspired algorithms for urban orchards

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), climate change is exponentially affecting agricultural production worldwide, with food prices expected to increase by up to 90 percent by 2030 and hunger and malnutrition rates to rise by 2050. This paper presents the development of a platform based on the Internet of Things (IoT) for monitoring urban gardens as a strategy to mitigate hunger, promote food sovereignty and circular economy in areas of food shortage. To this end, an Internet of Things (IoT) architecture is proposed and implemented that involves a social design layer that allows an effective transfer of knowledge to communities and a recommendation system based on evolutionary computation to optimize and maximize the productivity of urban orchards, and thus contribute to the 2030 agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Finally, three experiments in urban gardens are shown to validate evolutionary computation and artificial intelligence models, such as multiple linear regression, genetic algorithms, ant colony algorithms and spatial estimation and inference algorithms such as the Kriging algorithm. The productivity of urban lettuce orchards is increased between 25 and 45%.

Social prescribing of urban agriculture: The importance of minimizing risks from soil contamination

The value of Green Social Prescribing (GSP) of Urban Agriculture (UA) is well proven, with many cities witnessing a rise in such activities. However, with burgeoning interest, there comes an increased need to understand the potential risks associated with these practices. City officials, from planners to policy makers, are keen to scale-up the concept, particularly through supporting a wide range of urban farms and community gardens to contribute within the built environment. Our opinion piece highlights potential barriers associated with a legacy of heavy metal enriched urban soils which underpin many UA activities in post-industrial regions, signposting the need for greater awareness of their use and management. In doing so, we provide a series of recommendations for increasing knowledge exchange around urban soils and risk in the context of GSP.

The Sustainable Micro-Landscape Urban Building Gardens: Case of Factory 4376, Sama Beirut and Tamlis–Tarik Jdideh

This paper tackles the sustainable micro-landscape urban building gardens, and aims to explore innovative planning and green design approaches, thus finding solutions to the depletion of green spaces in Beirut. This study is conducted on three buildings located within Beirut city, each having a different architectural typology. The first is Factory 4376 located in Sin EL Fil, the second is Sama Beirut located in Achrafieh, and the third Al Tamlis – Tarik Jdideh. Each building is either residential, commercial or both; and each is surrounded by different socio-economic neighborhoods. This study adopts a comparative methodology; it relies on detailed analysis of maps and aerial photographs, obtained from one of the local municipalities, as well as interviews with residents in the investigated areas, surveys, pictures, and similar case studies. Three solutions were suggested for the locations stated above:  First solution: the implantation of a metallic structure on an old building that forms an extension to preexisting balconies.  Second solution: the integration of the green sliding balconies on buildings with glass façades.  Third solution: the integration of prefabricated modules to buildings with no balconies. The paper concludes that green technologies, if integrated in the context of sustainability, can make a great difference, even if space is limited; hence overcoming the risk of losing greenery.

Microenvironment created by Plantago lagopus L. may affect cover and diversity of coexisting species in urban vegetation

Some plant species may exhibit new microenvironments which lead to significant changes in the cover and diversity of the coexisting species. In this investigation, we evaluated the effects of Plantago lagopus L. on the cover and diversity of the associated plant species in the urban vegetation. A total of 70 plots were conducted in sites with- and without this species in urban gardens. Cover of the associated species and different diversity indices including species richness, Shannon-Wiener, evenness, and Simpson indices were measured. The allelopathic potential of P. lagopus was verified using its rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soils on two target species existing within the same environment. Some soil criteria and seed sizes of the associated species were also determined. Most of the coexisting weeds were reduced in terms of their cover in plots with Plantago. The reduction of plant diversity depended on its cover. Besides, the aboveground biomass was reduced in sites comprising Plantago. The degree of inhibition was not related to the seed size of the species found. This species reduced the incident solar radiation and the local temperature over the soil surface. The locations exhibiting such species contained lower contents of available potassium and zinc. Rhizosphere soil of P. lagopus substantially inhibited germination and growth of Amaranthus viridis, but it didn't do so for Medicago lupulina. Reduction in cover, diversity, and biomass of the urban weeds associated with P. lagopus may be related to the reduction of received solar radiation, soil temperature, and nutrient availability. The allelopathic potential of P. lagopus may have a partial role in this reduction. These results suggest that P. lagopus may create a microenvironment of new conditions not favorable for most of the coexisting species.

Landscape image recognition and analysis based on deep learning algorithm

Garden landscape is the combination of nature and humanity, with high aesthetic value, ecological value and cultural value, has become an important part of people’s life. Modern people have a higher pursuit for the spiritual food such as garden landscape after the material life is satisfied, which brings new challenges to the construction of urban garden landscape. As an advanced type of machine learning, deep learning applied to landscape image recognition can solve the problem of low quality and low efficiency of manual recognition. Based on this, this paper proposes a garden landscape image recognition algorithm based on SSD (Single Shot Multibox Detector), which realizes accurate extraction and recognition of image features by positioning the target, and can effectively improve the quality and efficiency of landscape image recognition. In order to test the feasibility of the algorithm proposed in this paper, experimental analysis was carried out in the CVPR 2023 landscape data set. The experimental results show that the algorithm has a high recognition accuracy for landscape images, and has excellent performance compared with traditional image recognition algorithms.

Biowaste management by hydrothermal carbonization and anaerobic co-digestion: Synergistic effects and comparative metagenomic analysis

The feasibility of anaerobic co-digestion in semicontinuous mode of two major urban biowaste, food waste (FW) and garden and park waste (GPW) (75 % FW and 25 % GPW) as well as the co-digestion of FW with the process water originated from the hydrothermal carbonization of GPW (95 % FW and 5 % process water), both on a COD basis, has been assessed. The effect of varying organic loading rate (OLR) from 1.5 to 3.5 g COD/L·d on methane yield, gross energy recovery, and microbiome population was evaluated. For comparison, anaerobic digestion of FW was also conducted to determine the best strategy for sustainable biowaste management. This study showed an optimal OLR of 2.5 g COD/L·d. Acetic and propionic acid content increased as OLR raised for each condition studied, while methane yield decreased at the highest OLR tested indicating overloading of the system. The anaerobic co-digestion of FW and process water showed a 10 % increase on methane production compared to anaerobic digestion of FW (324 vs. 294 mL CH4 STP/L·d). Moreover, it enhances the process due to a greater abundance and diversity of hydrolytic and acidogenic bacteria belonging to Bacterioidota, Firmicutes, and Chloroflexi phyla, as well as promotes the hydrogenotrophic pathway under higher propionic concentrations which is not usually favoured for methane production. The integration of hydrothermal carbonization of GPW with the anaerobic co-digestion of 95 % FW and 5 % of process water results in the highest potential energy recovery and could be a good strategy for sustainable management of urban biowaste.

Oh My Gulay! Sa FNRI: Exploring the Potential of Workplace Urban Garden for Food Self-provisioning

This study explores the potential of workplace edible gardens in promoting food self-provisioning (FSP) and in helping enhance food security in the Philippines. In 2017, an urban edible garden or Oh My Gulay! Sa FNRI (OMG) was set up in front of the Department of Science and Technology–Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) Building to showcase the concept of an urban garden in a workplace. This is an example of FSP in the workplace. The study used primary and secondary data. Primary data included OMG vegetable volume harvested from 2018–2022 and the garden’s land area. Secondary data were the national vegetable volume harvested and area from the Philippine Statistics Office (PSA). The characteristics and practices of OMG were also used to measure the OMG’s productivity (yield and number of servings produced). The productivity of OMG was compared to the national productivity of 34 vegetable crops in the Philippines (PSA 2018–2022), except for 2020. The results demonstrate that an FSP in the workplace setting like OMG can provide adequate quantity to supply the vegetable recommendation for five adult individuals, following the WHO/FAO recommendation of consuming 400 g/d or 146 kg per adult individual per year of fruits and vegetables or a family composed of two adults and two children following the WHO/FAP recommendation of 1,300 g/d of fruits and vegetables. In addition, for every 71 m2 of land cultivated in a manner similar to the OMG, it can sustain an adult's vegetable needs for an entire year. Furthermore, with a larger area of 397 m2, the OMG garden can adequately supply a family with sufficient vegetables for a year, thereby showcasing its capacity to contribute to long-term food security at the household level. Study results provide evidence regarding workplace food provisioning to help address food insecurity in the country.

URBAN PLANNING APPROACHES TO PLANNING THE BEAUTIFICATION SYSTEM OF RESIDENTIAL AREAS DURING THEIR RECONSTRUCTION

The analysis of planning experience of inhabited localities urban beautification in view of reconstruction was undertaken in the article. The question of Ukrainian experience of urban beautification system in accordance with approved standards and State Constructional Standards was envisaged. Analysis of validation state of local documents in urban beautification field was carried out and it has shown deficient percentage of regulatory documents approval on local level, which is one of key issues of urban beautification development. Furthermore, detailed analysis of foreign experience of urban beautification planning and development trend of this system I such countries, as USA, Canada, France, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan was carried out. It is shown that first and critical stage of planning of effective urban beautification is preparing and approving corresponding certificates and standards. Emphasis added to functioning normative legal documents on issues relating to urban beautification, in accordance to which the territory reconstruction in mentioned countries is realized. It was established that reference direction of urban beautification development in mentioned countries lies in parking lots removing out of the borders of curtilage or underground parking arrangement, landscape gardening development and classification of such territories by levels of urban gardening, territory reconstruction in accordance with typical schemes of street infrastructure development, urban gardening, cycle paths, etc. It is shown that problem solution of habitable open grounds organization on city level resides in usage intensification of such territories, and on the level of residential compounds – in increasing exploitation properties of open grounds. As a result of undertaken analysis it was established that raised problem of increasing the effectiveness of residential area usage within residential areas imposes complex approach, including question of land development intensiveness, architectural and planning organization and open grounds beautification.

Urban Horticulture: A Cutting-Edge Strategy and Essential for the Future

Urban Horticulture is a key solution to rapid population growth, urbanization, food crisis and climate change. According to FAO reports, projections indicate that by 2050, the global urban population will exceed 9.7 billion, nearly doubling the current 3.5 billion. In the case of India, UN World Population Prospects foresee that by 2050, 40.76% of the country's population will inhabit urban areas. Considering the above statistics, we can estimate the burden on rural production system to meet increasing demands of fruits and vegetables in urban markets. So, urban horticulture could be the saviour to avoid food crisis and inflation of market. Urban horticulture, with its roots dating back to the mid-19th century, has gained momentum worldwide and can potentially mitigate the looming threats of food crises and market inflation. There are various types of urban agriculture like, kitchen gardening, rooftop gardening, vertical farming, container gardening, etc. Multiple auras of crops can be cultivated in the minimal available space, right from herbs, vegetables and fruits to aromatic and medicinal plants. There are considerable number of advantages of urban farming, like, providing employment and daily wages to poor farmers, educating children, strengthening the community, improving social and emotional wellbeing and environmental justice to tackle climate change. Many cities across the world are practicing urban farming and have achieved success in production, marketing and educating people. While numerous cities globally have embraced urban farming, achieving success in production, marketing, and education, India is still in the nascent stages of this practice. It is imperative for both governmental and private entities to accord greater importance to and invest in the promotion and harnessing of the profitability of urban horticulture in the country.

Pesticide Contamination Levels in the Stomach Contents of Wild Raccoons (Procyon lotor) and Masked Palm Civets (Paguma larvata) in Japan.

Pesticides, which are vital for agriculture, pose a significant threat to wildlife in transformed Japanese landscapes. Despite global reports of pesticide poisoning in animals, limited studies have examined current wildlife exposure in croplands or metropolitan areas in the region. Using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS), our study aimed to assess the contamination status of 368 commonly used pesticides. The stomach contents of raccoons living in croplands contained 13 pesticides, including six herbicides and 11 fungicides. Neonicotinoid insecticides, some fungicides, and previously banned insecticides (benzene hexachloride and dichlofenthion) were most frequently detected and found at the highest concentrations, suggesting direct soil-plant transfer and direct consumption by crop-eating species. In masked palm civets living in metropolitan areas, four insecticides and six fungicides were detected, indicating urban wildlife exposure from raided dustbins, urban gardens, and lumber from houses. Although the maximum measured concentrations of all pesticides were lower than the acceptable daily intake for humans, it remains unclear whether these concentrations may have toxic or adverse health effects on the species evaluated in these transformed landscapes. Our study is the first to examine recent pesticide exposures in wild mammals in Japan. Application of the method we developed will lay the foundation for the examination of pesticides in other wildlife species to assist conservation management efforts in the region. Environ Toxicol Chem 2024;43:943-951. © 2024 SETAC.

Local and landscape factors differentially influence predatory arthropods in urban agroecosystems

AbstractLike other urban green spaces, urban community gardens can act as biodiversity refugees, especially for small organisms like arthropods. In turn, arthropods can provide important ecosystem pest control services to these agroecosystems. Thus, an often‐asked question among urban gardeners is how to improve gardens and surrounding areas for natural enemies and associated pest control services. We examine how local vegetation and garden characteristics, as well as the surrounding landscape composition, affect ground‐dwelling beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae and Staphylinidae), spiders (Araneae), opilionids (Opiliones), and ladybird beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), all of which are important predators. In the summer of 2019, we collected predators, vegetation, ground cover, and garden and landscape characteristic data from 10 community gardens in the city of Seattle, Washington. We found that different groups of natural enemies are associated with different environmental variables and at different scales; probably related to differences in their dispersal capabilities, habits, and diets. Floral variables (number of flowers and number of species in flower) had a negative effect on nonflying natural enemies (spiders, opilionids, and ground‐dwelling beetles), but not on flying ones (ladybird beetles). The only taxon that was significantly affected by a landscape‐scale variable was Opiliones, the only group examined that exclusively disperses by ground. Our results show contrasting results to similar studies in different regions and highlight the need to expand the taxa and regions of study.

Green open spaces: climate mitigation of climate change in Indonesia

Introduction: The provision of microclimate for young people is an important prerequisite for outdoor thermal comfort in urban communities. The microclimate consists of four elements: air temperature, humidity, wind speed and solar radiation. The City Green area consists of urban landscape, urban forest green, urban recreational green, sports green and garden green. The green open spaces are classified according to the state of the region, not according to the shape or structure of the vegetation. The green land is intended to maintain land availability as a catchment area. Methods: in this study the authors tried to use a systematic literature review method. This method tries to collect existing literature and articles which are then reviewed to look for potential green open spaces as a solution to addressing microclimates. Finding: In the early 1990s, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was established as the body to address global warming: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation involves finding ways to slow, control or absorb greenhouse gas emissions from forests or other carbon "sinks". In response to global warming and climate change, the Government of Indonesia enacted Law No. 26 in 2007. Law No. 05/PRT/M/2008 on Spatial Planning and the Guidelines of the Minister of Public Works on the Provision and Use of Green Open Space in Urban Areas stipulate that green open space is defined as space that extends/expands and/or clusters, which is more open for human use, and is a place for plants to grow, both naturally and intentionally planted. Conclusion: Benefits of green space include supporting the health, welfare and safety of urban residents. Green spaces can also promote the production of natural resources, prevent natural disasters, protect the environment, promote health and safety, and promote entertainment activities and map development.

Erysiphe corylacearum as a New Pathogen of Hazelnut in the Czech Republic

In July 2021, leaves and shoot tops of the common hazel (Corylus avellana L.), with a whitish coating, were found in the Czech Republic (southern Moravia region). The infected hazel bushes were found along a road in a deciduous forest and in an urban garden. In most European countries, Phyllactinia guttata is found on the abaxial surface of the leaves in the form of a continuous whitish to light grey mycelium, possibly with large black chasmothecia. In our case, the mycelium was present on both sides of the leaves, but the symptoms and the incidence were much stronger on the adaxial side. The first symptoms usually appeared on the adaxial side of the leaves as small white radially expanding patches of mycelium. In the final stage, the spots merged and covered a substantial part of the leaf blade (50–85 % on the adaxial side, 5–25 % on the abaxial side). When the abaxial side of the leaves was infected, chlorotic spots were evident on the adaxial side. The spots of powdery mildew were small (3–15 mm), whitish, rounded to irregular, effuse eventually becoming confluent, and occurred primarily on the adaxial side of the leaves. Conidiophores (30–53×4–6 µm) grew on the amphigenic mycelium, were erect, consisted of 1–3 cells, i.e. cylindrical foot cell and followed 1–2 cells, from which hyaline ellipsoid to doliform-limoniform conidia (17–34 ×15–21) (n = 50) were individually detached. Single or in groups dark brown chasmothecia (77–116 µm in diameter) had up to hyaline 8–15 aseptate straight appendages (50–102 µm) with multiple (3–5×) dichotomously branched apexes and recurved tips. Chasmothecia contained 3–6 asci (42–62 × 34–55 µm) with 4–8 obovoid to broadly ellipsoidal hyaline ascospores (14–22 × 75 µm). Based on morphological characters, the powdery mildew was identified as Erysiphe corylacearum (2). Morphological identification was confirmed by molecular analysis of samples. DNA was extracted from symptomatic leaves tissue using the DNeasy Plant Mini Kit, (Quiagen, Hilden, Germany) and the rDNA internal transcribed spacer region of 2 isolates was amplified using primers PMITS1 and PMITS2 (Cunnington et al. 2003) and sequenced. BLAST analysis of our 720bp fragments (both identical and represented by GenBank accession no. OR432526) showed 100% sequence identity to ITS rDNA sequences of E. corylacearum other countries of Central Europe for example from Austria (MW031866), Italy (MW045428), Hungary (OQ411007), Germany (OP554268) or Slovakia (MT176105). Pathogenicity was verified on two-year-old plants of Corylus avellana. Healthy leaves were artificially infected by dusting conidia from infected leaves. Inoculated plants were incubated under controlled conditions (21–23 °C, 70–80 % relative humidity). Characteristic symptoms of powdery mildew appeared on the adaxial side of the leaves 9–12 days after inoculation. Control plants treated with distilled water remained symptomless. Powdery mildew isolated from inoculated leaves was morphologically identical to isolates from naturally infected leaves. The first record of E. corylacearum in Europe on cultivated hazelnut species was reported by Sezer et al. (2017) in Turkey in 2013. Within a few years, the E. corylacearum spread and was recorded on various species of Corylus in other European countries (for example Mezzalama et al., 2020; Rosati et al., 2021; Beenken et al., 2022; Boneva et al., 2023), East Asia (Arzanlou et al., 2018) and the USA (Meparishvili 2019). To our knowledge, this is the first report of Erysiphe corylacearum in the Czech Republic.

CULTIVATING FOOD JUSTICE: Redefining Harvest Sales for Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Low‐Income Cape Town post Covid‐19

AbstractIt is well established that urban community gardens (UCGs) can either challenge or reinforce neoliberal urbanism. This duality is especially evident among UCGs that sell garden harvests for income generation. In this article I therefore examine UCGs in low‐income areas of Cape Town, South Africa, to understand how they might sell their harvests while countering the neoliberal food system in cities of the global South. I draw on qualitative fieldwork, including observations and semi‐structured interviews with UCG representatives and civil society actors. Most harvests are currently sold to high‐end venues through intermediary actors in civil society organizations (CSOs) and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs). However, this approach disregards the local community's socioeconomic conditions and undermines community gardens’ nutritional objectives. Yet, under specific scenarios, the sale of garden harvests could mitigate the persistent food injustice in Cape Town's low‐income areas. In this article I introduce a model for harvest sales that advances sustainable urban agriculture and fosters food justice in neoliberal cities in the global South.

Growing Sustainably: Navigating Challenges and Opportunities in Urban Horticulture in India

In India's bustling terrain, peri-urban areas face neglect, unplanned growth, and environmental damage. As urbanisation encroaches on agricultural land, the competition for resources grows. This article delves into the complex tapestry of challenges and opportunities in urban and peri-urban horticulture, offering light on topics such as land-use disputes, food security, and environmental sustainability. The article also explores the durability of conventional growing methods such as home gardening and community gardens, as well as novel alternatives such as soilless cultures and indoor farming systems. Amidst the challenges, there are chances for revitalising urban settings with continuous productive landscapes, developing sustainable food sources, and improving general urban well-being. From the complicated dance of people, places, and food products to managing market dynamics, this research reveals urban horticulture's brilliant promise for crafting a healthier, more sustainable future for India's changing urban fabric.