The Modus Operandi of Urban Agriculture Initiatives: Toward a Conceptual Framework

Urban agriculture (UA) has turned into a diverse and complex
movement. Important challenges will be to set accurate expectations by civil
society in relation to UA development, and to find ways to discuss UA in
governance and collaboration networks from an aggregate point of view.
However, analytical tools that allow comprehensive study of UA initiatives
(UAIs) are absent. This article elaborates on a conceptual framework from
the COST Action Urban Agriculture Europe (Prové et al. 2015) and evaluates
findings that result from applying the framework to four UAIs. We found
that, analytically, the framework generates in-depth information on UAIs,
and argue that it can be a useful tool in networks that are responsible for
collaboration, support, or governance within the UA movement. We also
discuss its usability issues and discuss future research.