Abstract:In recent years, urban agriculture has been asserting its relevance as part of a vibrant and diverse food system due to its small scale, its focus on nutrition, its contribution to food security, its employment opportunities, and its role in community building and social mobility. Urban agriculture may also be a tool to re-appropriate a range of abandoned or unused irregular spaces within the city, including flowerbeds, roundabouts, terraces, balconies and rooftops. Consistently, all spaces that present a lack of identity may be converted to urban agriculture areas and, more specifically, to urban horticulture as a way to strengthen resilience and sustainability. The goal of this paper is to analyse current practices in the requalification of vacant areas as urban gardens with the aim of building communities and improving landscapes and life quality. To do so, the city of Bologna (Italy) was used as a case study. Four types of vacant areas were identified as places for implementing urban gardens: flowerbeds along streets and squares, balconies and rooftops, abandoned buildings and abandoned neighbourhoods. Six case studies representing this variety of vacant areas were identified and evaluated by collecting primary data (i.e., field work, participant observations and interviews) and performing a SWOT analysis. For most cases, urban horticulture improved the image and quality of the areas as well as bringing numerous social benefits in terms of life quality, food access and social interaction among participants. Strong differences in some aspects were found between top-down and bottom-up initiatives, being the later preferable for the engagement of citizens. Policy-making might focus on participatory and transparent planning, long-term actions, food safety and economic development.

This symposium was organized to bring insights from the social sciences into the awareness of nutrition scientists committed to developing and implementing effective nutrition interventions internationally. The symposium explored three different areas in the field where a more precise analysis of culture could enhance the effectiveness of nutrition science: 1) in the implementation of nutrition science research in the field; 2) in the collaboration of multiple stakeholders working to enhance nutrition in a national setting; and 3) in the language and discussions used to frame proposed changes in large scale food and nutrition security policy transnationally. Three social scientists, Monique Centrone Stefani, Lucy Jarosz, and David Pelletier were invited to share insights from their respective disciplines and respondents from within the field of nutrition provided initial reflections to better understand such perspectives. The symposium's interdisciplinary nature was designed to illustrate the challenge of multiple perspectives and methodologies and to advance understanding that could derive from such an exchange for those in the field of international nutrition seeking to decrease global hunger and malnutrition.

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Using a sociological approach that elaborates on key observations of institutional entrepreneurs in international nutrition, this paper explores institutional boundaries and boundary work in international nutrition. Sociological concepts of "boundary making" and "situated knowledge" are applied to the boundaries between the nutrition sciences and lay nutrition knowledge in nutrition intervention. These concepts allow an analysis of how nutrition science creates boundaries between its field and other sciences and between nutrition as a science and other nutrition practices, providing additional perspective on current challenges in global food security and malnutrition. Analysis of boundary processes in international nutrition can also illuminate the development of "implementation" or "delivery science" in the field of international nutrition as it attempts to strengthen effectiveness of global efforts to reduce malnutrition. Although some risk taking in the academic world is rewarded, the analysis indicates that there are underlying processes that may inhibit full partnership with local people in the course of intervention work that builds scientific nutrition knowledge. As nutrition science becomes increasingly central to development, the boundaries that are reinforced by digging in heels over the implementation of programs with little local input or softened by inviting local stakeholders to publicly consider the problems in global nutrition together are important to consider in helping to create directions that favor viable solutions.

Background: Obesity and chronic disease are highly prevalent in the United States, particularly among low‐income Hispanic populations. Innovative approaches to changing social, behavioral and nutritional risk factors are crucially needed. Objectives: To implement and refine a pilot intervention to address chronic disease risk factors in an urban low income population. Methods: The New Haven Farms Fresh Produce Prescription program provided fresh produce, nutrition education, gardening education and cooking demonstrations weekly during sixteen weeks of the agriculture season. Participants were recruited through a community health center and came to a central urban agriculture site each week. Participants completed baseline and follow up assessments of dietary diversity, chronic disease risk, food security and physical activity, as well as weekly surveys on use of the fresh produce. Results: 51 people completed the baseline survey, and 40 people completed the follow up survey. Preliminary analyses show that approximately 30% show some food insecurity at baseline. Conclusions: This pilot study reports on the development of a complex intervention to address multiple chronic disease risk factors through agriculture‐based activities in an urban setting.