TY - JOUR
T1 - Who Gardens and How in Urban USA
T2 - Informing Social Equity in Urban Agriculture Action Plans
AU - Das, Kirti
AU - Ramaswami, Anu
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was funded by an Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture at the United States Department of Agriculture (Grant No. 2019-67019-30463). Additional funding was provided through an internal research grant at Princeton University.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Das and Ramaswami.
PY - 2022/7/6
Y1 - 2022/7/6
N2 - Urban agriculture, is increasingly incorporated into food system policies to address social equity. However, assessing its effectiveness requires primary data on the demographics of agricultural gardeners and the type of gardening pursued, which are limited. This paper reports on a first detailed survey of 6,152 representative urbanites in three US cities, enabling a detailed demographic analysis of agricultural gardeners. We find low engagement in community vs. household agricultural gardening (~2% vs. ~27%). Indoor and outdoor household agricultural gardening was generally dominated by higher-income, White, males (24–44%). Community agricultural gardening appears more diverse; however, participation is low, hence, benefits may not scale up. Designing urban agriculture to address social equity requires gathering data on who gardens and how, for which our paper provides a first template.
AB - Urban agriculture, is increasingly incorporated into food system policies to address social equity. However, assessing its effectiveness requires primary data on the demographics of agricultural gardeners and the type of gardening pursued, which are limited. This paper reports on a first detailed survey of 6,152 representative urbanites in three US cities, enabling a detailed demographic analysis of agricultural gardeners. We find low engagement in community vs. household agricultural gardening (~2% vs. ~27%). Indoor and outdoor household agricultural gardening was generally dominated by higher-income, White, males (24–44%). Community agricultural gardening appears more diverse; however, participation is low, hence, benefits may not scale up. Designing urban agriculture to address social equity requires gathering data on who gardens and how, for which our paper provides a first template.
KW - community agricultural gardening
KW - household agricultural gardening
KW - multi-city
KW - participant demographics
KW - social equity
KW - sustainable food systems
KW - urban agriculture
KW - urban agriculture policy
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U2 - 10.3389/fsufs.2022.923079
DO - 10.3389/fsufs.2022.923079
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85134464848
SN - 2571-581X
VL - 6
JO - Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
JF - Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
M1 - 923079
ER -