The role of urban community gardens in the food system in Brisbane, Australia

Urban community gardens are often discussed as part of a suite of measures to enhance food security and promote community and resilience within urban food systems. Some studies have cast doubt on the productive capacity of urban community gardens to provide an efficient supply of produce to enhance food security. This research investigated how people derive value from their involvement in community gardens in relation to the food system using a reflexive thematic analysis based on semi-structured interviews with 16 community garden members and participant observation conducted across four recently formed urban community gardens in Brisbane, Australia. Three key themes emerged: (1) why people participate, with sub-themes of community, food production, learning, nature, and composting; (2) factors that shape decision-making and plant choice, with sub-themes of availability, familiarity, suitability to climate, native plants, personal motivations, and aesthetics; and (3) impact of threats and challenges to the gardens, which included flooding, reallocation of land, and volunteer numbers. The findings reveal that while urban community gardens alone cannot address food security needs, they provide spaces where participants use collaborative food growing to build community and generate social capital, connect to nature and engage in place-making, and develop critical food systems education. These benefits are largely provisional on the urban community gardens’ ongoing existence and may largely extend only to those with the capacity to participate. Community gardens provide a vital opportunity to reconnect food with social and environmental relationships in a way often absent from the industrial food system.