Future of Food: Journal on Food

The case for citizen science in urban agriculture research

G. Pollard
School of Natural and Built Environments, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
P. Roetman
School of Natural and Built Environments, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
J. Ward
School of Natural and Built Environments, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

In an uncertain future of climate change and constrained resources, urban agriculture is widely viewed as a sustainable and scalable approach to improving food security. While its social, health and wellbeing benefits are well documented, there is a major knowledge gap in terms of the financial accessibility of urban food production for all households. The implications are far-reaching: if urban agriculture is purely a middle-class discretionary activity, then it will play a limited role in improving food security on a city-wide scale. While community gardens are relatively well studied, research into the inputs and productivity of individual household food gardens presents profound practical challenges, notably the sheer number of geographically separated gardens, the enormous diversity of garden sizes and types, as well as highly variable cultivation and irrigation techniques. In this paper, we demonstrate that a citizen science approach offers a unique method to overcome many of these research challenges. We report on the Edible Gardens project in South Australia, a citizen science project developed to investigate the inputs (labour, costs and water use), and outputs (produce yields and value) of urban food gardens. Citizen science enables a large cohort of gardeners to measure these inputs and outputs and report on a wide variety of production methods over an extended period of time. We conclude that citizen science is an effective approach for future urban agriculture research.

Keywords : Citizen science ,public participation ,urban agriculture ,quantitative measurement ,economics ,food production .

Myanmar High School Students’ Perceptions of College and International Readiness in Western Society

Mark Speckien
Louisiana Tech University
Mark Speckien
Louisiana Tech University
International students are more likely to experience mental health issues and increased stress. Mental health is often surrounded by negative societal stigmas that act as barriers to seeking support and tend to lead to greater mental health concerns. International students tend to seek socioemotional support from other international student peers rather than seeking out counseling services. However, this study shows that LGBTQIA+ international students were less likely to seek socioemotional support from other international student peers due to fear of their sexual orientation being discovered and their families finding out about their identity. This study examines how LGBTQIA+ international students talk about their experiences on and off campus in relations to their socioemotional well-being. Specifically, this study sought to better understand the complexities of LGBTQIA+ students’ identities, and the challenges they faced in terms of their socioemotional well-being. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
Keywords : international students, socioemotional well-being, mental health, identity development, intersectionality, LGBTQIA