Master of Science / Department of Horticulture, Forestry, and Recreation Resources / Cary L. Rivard / As populations of cities continue to increases, communities in the United States are implementing urban food systems including locally-cultivated produce. Urban and peri-urban farmers apply intensive production systems, including high tunnels, to better utilize limited space. Grafting tomato with vigorous rootstocks provides the potential for higher yields. Our first objective was to identify tomato rootstocks that improve productivity in high tunnel environments with no soilborne diseases in the Central U.S. Eight replicated high tunnel trials were conducted at four sites in northeastern Kansas in 2013 and 2014. We selected 'BHN 589' scion for all sites and evaluated seven rootstocks. Grafting with ‘Maxifort’, ‘Multifort’, ‘Arnold’, ‘DRO 131’, and ‘Colosus’ rootstocks resulted in significant increases in total fruit yield, which ranged from 40% to 73% when compared to nongrafted plants (P<0.05). No significant increases in yield were observed for ‘RT-1028’ and ‘RST-04-106’ rootstocks. Our results suggested that tomato growers that utilize high tunnels should be strategic when selecting rootstocks. Our second objective was to develop simple propagation techniques that yield high quality grafted transplants for small-batch propagators. Formation of adventitious roots (AR) from the scion can result in poor quality plants and loss of rootstock function/benefit. Greenhouse studies were designed to investigate how leaf removal (LR) affects AR formation and plant growth post-grafting. We applied three treatments, 0% LR, 50% LR, and 90% LR, to the ‘BHN 589’ scion and then grafted them onto ‘Maxifort’ rootstock. The experiment included 4 replicated blocks and was conducted in three different healing chambers. Our results indicate that both 50% and 90% LR significantly decreased AR formation in the low humidity chamber, but only 90% LR reduced AR formation in the chambers with high humidity (P<0.05). We measured plant growth 24 to 52 days post-grafting to understand how leaf removal affects transplant quality, growth, and development. Plants with 90% LR had significant growth reduction at day 24 but at day 52, only had reduced stem diameter and height compared to 0% LR. Total flower count was the same for all treatments. Leaf removal during grafting may be a viable method for propagating high quality, grafted transplants.

Case studies from Cuba's Urban and Peri-Urban agriculture (UPA) revolution show that urban growing can fuel locally driven production of essential foods with minimal inputs, creating unprecedented opportunities for community food sovereignty. The fact that Cuba produces 60-70% of its vegetable needs on 25% of the land shows that the barriers that UPA faces are more sociopolitical than agronomic. As an agricultural hub with an abundance of rural land within close proximity of the city, the need for UPA in Burlington, VT may not be as readily apparent. When compared to nearby small vegetable growers through the lens of a typical agronomic analysis, UPA nearly always comes out at a disadvantage. Yet community gardens and urban growers are multiplying in the small city. Research suggests this boom is owed to numerous multi-functional benefits provided by community gardens, including the potential for UPA to allow communities who may otherwise have limited agency in food choice with an opportunity to access culturally preferenced produce. However, while extensive evidence identifies the social benefits of community gardens, these results remain disparate from the economic analyses that most often find their ways into the hands of decision makers. This research proposes a valuation metric called Crop Value Index (CVI), and uses it to evaluate which crops and management techniques best take advantage of limited urban space in Burlington community gardens. This tool ranks crops by their ability to save gardeners money or profit and by their perceived cultural value by the gardener, and combines the two to identify which crops are the most successful in producing overall value. Through demonstrating the high functionality of UPA in the production of certain crops, CVI contributes to findings that indicate that UPA may be better able to serve niche community food needs than commercial growers, while simultaneously providing urban growers with food security and creating food sovereignty and food justice.

To meet the rising food demands of communities in Accra,Ghana, urban agriculture has been popularized as a way to increase food security and improve nutrition (Donovan et al., 2012). Urban agriculture is defined as "the cultivation of crops at both the subsistence and commercial levels including the keeping of livestock in open spaces in urban areas (Adjaye, n.d.). In Accra, urban agriculture covers 1,091 hectares, employs over one thousand people, and supplies residents with 90% of its vegetables ("Accra Metropolitan", n.d.). Further, 60% of households in Accra participate in backyard farming ("Accra Metropolitan", n.d.). Although urban agriculture provides many benefits for communities in Accra, it has been linked to the creation of suitable habitats for Anopheles gambiae complex larvae. In Accra, a spatio-temporal distribution of An. gambiae complex larvae and larvae habitats has not been established. A larval study in two urban agriculture and two non-urban agriculture sites was conducted in the months of May, July, August, and September 2014. When combined together, 3,807 An. gambiae complex larvae were collected from the urban agriculture sites of Korle Bu and Opeibea over the period of the study. When combining the urban non-agriculture sites of Madina and Ashaiman, 2,484 An. gambiae complex larvae were collected over the same period. The results of this study in Accra show that Korle Bu, an urban agriculture site, was the most productive site, with 2,604 An. gambiae complex larvae collected for the months of May, July, August, and September. July was the most productive month for Korle Bu, with 1,653 An. gambiae complex larvae collected. Further investigations of An. gambiae complex larval habitats are necessary to better understand malaria transmission attributes unique to Accra, Ghana.

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Landscape Architecture

Rooftop gardens are an important tool within sustainable urban agriculture (UA) that can contribute towards food security. This paper explores the barriers, benefits and incentives of rooftop gardens which have documented environmental and social benefits, including use as a tool towards combating climate change and for creating community within cities. Significant barriers exist, with opportunities for mitigating such barriers and creating incentives for participation in rooftop UA including grant programs specifically designed to guide businesses through implementation of gardens on commercial buildings, rooftop restaurants for increasing tourism potential, change in policy for support of UA, awards for businesses who are leaders in using roof space for food production, innovations in design, and education and training. Rooftop UA has potential for growth in Vancouver, if impetus comes from various sectors, including government, non-profit organizations and the City of Vancouver, with specific emphasis on making rooftop UA exciting for business and profitable.

Thesis (M. Env. St.)--University of Adelaide, Mawson Graduate Centre for Environmental Studies, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-107).

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Detroit Mercy, 2008. / "28 April 2008". Includes bibliographical references (p. [106]).

Written for the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2009/06/29). Includes bibliographical references.

There is a fundamental shift in the way people are living on the planet. Over half of the world's population now lives in cities, yet many of these cities continue to struggle to provide basic services, infrastructure and food security for the billions of people who live in cities. Despite decades of intervention by international and national development agencies, cities in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly framed in apocalyptic and dystopian terms, serving as a warning of the dangers of overurbanization while being criticized for their lack of urban development. This contradictory framing poses the question of how a city and the people who live there actually survive. Building on emerging work in critical urban studies, this research examines how narrow definitions of what counts as urban hinder the understanding of cities in different regional contexts and limit our imaginations of how people survive and thrive in the face of the challenges that cities provide. To examine the idea of what is urban in the context of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, I use the lens of urban open space farms, large lots of land in the built-up environment of the city used for farming, to explore what makes farming urban, how the practice of farming contributes to and is embedded within urban systems, and how farms and farmers can illuminate the material practices and ephemeral experiences that constitute the reality of people's daily life in cities. I employ a methodology based on interviews, photo voice, mental mapping, and observation over time to explore the dynamics of farms as spaces and farmers as agents in constructing these spaces over time. The purpose is to contribute to a definition of the urban that moves past associations with capitalism and industrialization as the defining processes of the city towards one more inclusive of the way people experience these spaces, how they remake them to fit the city, and what this means for interventions that focus on the marginalization of people and the ways that cities fail, rather than how they actually work.

In this dissertation, I make an argument for strong sustainability, which emphasizes environmental and social justice concerns, by distinguishing it from weak sustainability. I critique the global neoliberal sustainable development project, a weak form of sustainability that prioritizes economic growth, using Marx's theory of metabolic rift. However, I find this theory lacking in its ability to engage forms of oppression outside of class, such as gender. Because of this, I employ theories on gender and environment and environmental justice to explore systemic and cultural aspects of oppression. I use qualitative cross-national comparative methods to examine two alternatives to neoliberal sustainable development. The two cases working toward strong sustainability are an urban ecovillage in the United States and an urban farm in Havana, Cuba. I assess the viability of these projects and their strengths and weaknesses toward a rigorous theory of strong sustainability. I find that the structure of society matters in determining the opportunities for equity and sustainability projects. As postulated by metabolic rift theory, my cases suggest that capitalism is a structural barrier to sustainability, but eliminating capitalism is an insufficient condition for nations attempting to attain equity or environmental protection. While structural change is necessary, any discussion of structural power dynamics that fails to consider real people embedded in on-the-ground social power dynamics would be incomplete. Specifically, I find that in Cuba--a nation where capitalism was disbanded over fifty years ago in favor of more equal economic relations--gender equity is limited by cultural expectations of gender roles and government suppression of democratic processes. My findings suggest that if the goal is to create socially just environmental change, it must be done deliberately. The instituting of laws is important but insufficient because cultural factors may restrict minorities' participation in democratic processes. Inequality and disregard for the environment are culturally entrenched social processes that must be addressed simultaneously and with specialized attention in order for lasting change to occur. Goals toward economic restructuring, equality, and environmental reform should be methodically phased in with constant democratic discussion and progress assessment. This dissertation contains previously published and unpublished co-authored material.