PROJECT PROFILE: NJ Urban & Peri-Urban Agriculture
Unearthing the Urban Agriculture–Environment Connection: Implications for UA Planning, Practice, and Policy
About
Objective: This project aims to employ Earth Science data and a mixed-methods approach, encompassing earth science, machine learning, and social science methodologies, to investigate the relationship between urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) and built, natural, and social environments. The study will focus on two types of organized UPA practices—farms and community gardens, excluding backyard gardens, indoor or rooftop farms, or other green spaces or parks that may produce food.
Justification: Urban farming, with its multifaceted nature, holds potential as a viable approach to promote sustainable and resilient cities and food systems. Although urban farms' yields vary across contexts, efficiently managed farms have demonstrated the potential to match or exceed conventional yields, highlighting their significant impact and effectiveness. Despite many UA benefits, a lack of comprehensive data on UA practices, crop types, and crop yields impedes efforts to quantify the environmental impacts of urban farming and hinders the development of policies for sustainable food production in urban areas.
Methodology and Significance: This research harnesses high-resolution NASA Earth Science data, develops machine learning algorithms, and applies qualitative methods to construct three discrete UA models related to the built, natural, and social environments. The models will identify UPA projects, detect selected crop types, and calculate crop yield. We employ those models in various New Jersey municipalities. Based on the model outputs, we address additional social science questions. This research holds significance as it expands modeling efforts beyond the typical rural agricultural settings. We aim to have a comprehensive understanding of diverse UPA practices and trends across different city types, the identification of UPA project dynamics within specific neighborhoods and cities, the exploration of disparities in UPA practices between environmental justice and other communities, an assessment of UPA's potential to meet local food needs and generate economic benefits through sales, and an exploration of policies to optimize UPA for improving food access and enhancing economic opportunities.
The team was awarded a $300,000 grant from the NASA Research Initiation Award (RIA) program, 2024-2027.
Project Team
Mahbubur Meenar, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator, Rowan University)
Asif Ishtiaque, Ph.D. (Co-Investigator/Institutional PI, Missouri State University)
Md Shahinoor Rahman, Ph.D. (Co-Investigator/Institutional PI, Louisiana State University)
Garrett Broad, Ph.D. (Investigator, Rowan University)
Qian He, Ph.D. (Investigator, Rowan University)
Nicole Vaughn, Ph.D. (Investigator, Rowan University)
Research Collaborators
Hieu Nguyen, Ph.D. (Rowan University)
Ik Jae Lee, Ph.D. (Rowan University)
Community Partners
New Jersey Food Democracy Collaborative | Rambo Farm | Tuba Farm | Rowan West Campus Farm
Research Assistants
Nicole Abbott (Geography, Planning, and Sustainability, Rowan University), Cameron Connelly (Computer Science, Rowan University), Bidhan Dutta (Geography, Planning, and Sustainability, Rowan University), Graham Luther (Geography, Planning, and Sustainability, Rowan University), Carlos Martinez (Mathematics, Rowan University), Samiha Nuzhat (Geography, Missouri State University)
Research Questions
Ongoing Studies
Detection of Urban & Peri-Urban Agriculture Projects
Sattelite Imagery Based Orchard Detection
UPA Project Trend Analysis in Selected NJ Municipalities
UPA Crop Yield, UPA practice, and municipal policies
Drone Imagery Based Crop Detection
Fieldwork
