REVIEW article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Urban Agriculture
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1624426
Urban Agriculture in a Changing World: A Thematic Review of Global Trends, Innovations, Governance, and Pathways to Sustainability
Provisionally accepted
- VIT University, Vellore, India
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Urban agriculture (UA) has emerged as a key strategy to address food insecurity, climate change, and urban sustainability. This review synthesizes global evidence on the historical evolution, regional variations, and multifunctional roles of UA. It examines technological innovations, governance frameworks, and socio-economic impacts, with attention to the Global South and India. By integrating case studies and policy models, the review highlights how UA contributes to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while recognizing its limitations in producing staples and animal protein at scale. A conceptual framework distinguishes formal vs. informal and low-tech vs. high-tech UA, underscoring diverse pathways of practice. The review concludes by identifying unresolved debates and proposing future research priorities, including longitudinal studies on climate resilience and cost–benefit analyses of smart farming in low-income contexts. UA is best understood as a complement to rural agriculture, offering both ecological services and social resilience within rapidly urbanizing landscapes.
Keywords: Urban agriculture 1, Global South 2, Technological innovations 3, Socio-economic impacts 4, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)5, Climate resilience 6, Policy and governance 7
Received: 07 May 2025; Accepted: 24 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 R and P. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Anbarasan P, anbarasan.p@vit.ac.in
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