Abstract:Given the expansion of urban agriculture (UA), we need to understand how this system provides ecosystem services, including foundational societal needs such as social cohesion, i.e., people's willingness to cooperate with one another. Although social cohesion in UA has been documented, there is no framework for its emergence and how it can be modeled within a sustainability framework. In this study, we address this literature gap by showing how the popular cascade ecosystem services model can be modified to in… Show more
“…Community gardening brings residents together in the sharing of seeds, tools, recipes, and produce [92]. Furthermore, these spaces create opportunities for people to meet and interact with others through the organization of group work days and social events, volunteering, conversation, gathering, and learning with others [93,94]. These social interactions are key to promoting neighbor-to-neighbor connections, collective efficacy, and one's sense of place within communities [43].…”
Purpose of Review Recent reports of a "loneliness epidemic" in the USA are growing along with a robust evidence base that suggests that loneliness and social isolation can compromise physical and psychological health. Screening for social isolation among at-risk populations and referring them to nature-based community services, resources, and activities through a social prescribing (SP) program may provide a way to connect vulnerable populations with the broader community and increase their sense of connectedness and belonging. In this review, we explore opportunities for social prescribing to be used as a tool to address connectedness through nature-based interventions. Recent Findings Social prescribing can include a variety of activities linked with voluntary and community sector organizations (e.g., walking and park prescriptions, community gardening, farmers' market vouchers). These activities can promote nature contact, strengthen social structures, and improve longer term mental and physical health by activating intrapersonal, interpersonal, and environmental processes. The prescriptions are appropriate for reaching a range of high-risk populations including moms who are minors who are minors, recent immigrants, older adults, economically and linguistically isolated populations, and unlikely users of nature and outdoor spaces. Summary More research is needed to understand the impact of SPs on high-risk populations and the supports needed to allow them to feel at ease in the outdoors. Additionally, opportunities exist to develop technologically and socially innovative strategies to track patient participation in social prescriptions, monitor impact over time, and integrate prescribing into standard health care practice.
“…Community gardening brings residents together in the sharing of seeds, tools, recipes, and produce [92]. Furthermore, these spaces create opportunities for people to meet and interact with others through the organization of group work days and social events, volunteering, conversation, gathering, and learning with others [93,94]. These social interactions are key to promoting neighbor-to-neighbor connections, collective efficacy, and one's sense of place within communities [43].…”
Purpose of Review Recent reports of a "loneliness epidemic" in the USA are growing along with a robust evidence base that suggests that loneliness and social isolation can compromise physical and psychological health. Screening for social isolation among at-risk populations and referring them to nature-based community services, resources, and activities through a social prescribing (SP) program may provide a way to connect vulnerable populations with the broader community and increase their sense of connectedness and belonging. In this review, we explore opportunities for social prescribing to be used as a tool to address connectedness through nature-based interventions. Recent Findings Social prescribing can include a variety of activities linked with voluntary and community sector organizations (e.g., walking and park prescriptions, community gardening, farmers' market vouchers). These activities can promote nature contact, strengthen social structures, and improve longer term mental and physical health by activating intrapersonal, interpersonal, and environmental processes. The prescriptions are appropriate for reaching a range of high-risk populations including moms who are minors who are minors, recent immigrants, older adults, economically and linguistically isolated populations, and unlikely users of nature and outdoor spaces. Summary More research is needed to understand the impact of SPs on high-risk populations and the supports needed to allow them to feel at ease in the outdoors. Additionally, opportunities exist to develop technologically and socially innovative strategies to track patient participation in social prescriptions, monitor impact over time, and integrate prescribing into standard health care practice.
“…Urban agriculture is perceived as one way to counter some of the negative impacts of urban growth and development. Indeed, urban agriculture has potentially important and diverse functions, such as improving social cohesion [1], food production [2][3][4], urban waste valorization [3], improved nutrient cycling etc. The multi-functionality of urban agriculture could help to tackle several societal challenges of urbanization [5].…”
Urban agriculture is sprouting throughout the world nowadays. New forms of urban agriculture are observed such as rooftop farming. In the case of low-tech rooftop farming projects, based on recycled urban waste, one of the key issues is the type of substrate used, as it determines the functions and ecosystem services delivered by the green roof. Using a five year experimental trial, we quantified the food production potential of Technosols created only with urban wastes (green waste compost, crushed wood, spent mushroom), as well as the soil fertility and the potential contamination of food products. Regarding food production, our cropping system showed promising results across the five years, in relation with the high fertility of the Technosols. This fertility was maintained, as well as the nutrients stocks after five cropping years. Most of the edible crops had trace metals contents below existing norms for toxic trace metals with nevertheless a concern regarding certain some trace metals such as Zn and Cu. There was no trace metal accumulation in the Technosols over time except for Zn. This study confirmed that constructing Technosols only from urban wastes is a suitable and efficient solution to design rooftops for edible production.
“…A bottom-up structure is necessary to protect vulnerable groups, especially for small-scale urban food production, and people's demand should be the starting point of urban planning and policies (Petit-Boix & Apul, 2018). Informal food systems involve different actors such as informal settlements, food producers, and street vendors.…”
Modern food systems have achieved great success in efficiency and productivity. Long food chains with many food miles and nodes emphasize food processing, packaging, and marketing. These activities have threatened the sustainability of food systems. Many countries have carried out various urban agriculture activities to respond to challenges such as food security issues and climate change. However, small-scale farming and local food vending that support the lower socioeconomic population groups in China are ignored by legislation and urban planning. This study aims to improve informal food systems by involving informal food production and marketing in spatial planning. In this paper, informal food systems, which refer to the combination of food chains that contain informal activities, are identified based on the Chinese social background. The spatial typologies of production, marketing, and consumption in informal food systems are summarized. Typomorphology is applied to analyze the typology evolution of spaces for informal food systems in the Qinhuai District in Nanjing. The results show that the morphological regions for food production changed more than construction land in 58 superblocks from 2005 to 2019.Agricultural land decreased, and the most common types of change were from fragmented agricultural land (Type P2) to fragmented and temporary arable land (Type P3) to construction land with isolated vegetable plots (Type P4). In this evolution process, the informal food system reflects the deviation between diversified needs in cities and urban planning. A bottom-up structure is necessary to protect vulnerable groups, especially those involved in small-scale urban food production.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.