The Fruits of Labor: Home Food Procurement and Mental Health in the Time of COVID-19

We examine the relationship of home food procurement (HFP) during COVID-19 to emotional eating and stress using a statewide representative survey (n = 600) in Vermont. Women and people with a job change since COVID-19 were more likely to experience higher stress and emotional eating. Engaging in HFP, especially gardening, is associated with less emotional eating. However, people who fished, hunted, or canned more since the pandemic began were more likely to eat for emotional reasons and experience higher stress. These results suggest that gardening, even during a pandemic, may contribute to stress reduction, more so than other nature-based food production activities.Copyright © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Migration Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of New England Showing Movements down the Urban Hierarchy and Ensuing Impacts on Real Estate Markets

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the United States, the media began reporting stories of people leaving cities for rural destinations, setting off frenzied real estate activity in receiving communities. This article builds a case study of New England using nonconventional data collected from mobile devices as a proxy for population to explore the temporal and spatial patterns of movement down the urban hierarchy since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two research questions guide the analysis: (1) How have urban–rural migration systems in New England shifted since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) In what ways have real estate markets been affected by these apparent migration shifts? The analysis reveals shifts of population away from metropolitan core areas of the region and into micropolitan and noncore counties. These population shifts were most pronounced in late summer and fall 2020 with loosening travel restrictions. By the end of 2020, migration systems in New England once more resembled prepandemic patterns. Further, these places down the urban hierarchy consistently showed more substantial increases in real estate activity as reflected in rising prices, reduced inventories, and increased sales volume. These real estate dynamics suggest urban to rural migration during the COVID-19 pandemic might be initiating new waves of rural gentrification. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] A medida que la pandemia del COVID-19 afectó por todo lado los Estados Unidos, los medios empezaron a informar sobre historias de gente que dejaban atrás las ciudades por destinos rurales, desencadenando una frenética actividad inmobiliaria en las comunidades receptoras. Este artículo construye un estudio de caso de Nueva Inglaterra, usando datos no convencionales recogidos de dispositivos móviles, como un proxy por la población para explorar los patrones temporales y espaciales del movimiento descendente desde la jerarquía urbana a partir de la aparición de la pandemia del COVID-19. El análisis se guía por dos preguntas de investigación: (1) ¿Cómo han cambiado los sistemas de migración ciudad–campo en Nueva Inglaterra desde el comienzo de la pandemia del COVID-19? (2) ¿De qué manera se han visto afectados los mercados inmobiliarios por estos cambios aparentes de migración? El análisis revela desplazamientos de población fuera de las áreas del núcleo metropolitano de la región hacia condados micropolitanos y no nucleados. (Spanish) [ FROM AUTHOR] 随着COVID-19流行病席卷美国, 媒体开始报道人们离开城市前往农村、在农村引发疯狂的房地产活动。本文构建了美国新英格兰地区（New England）案例, 使用来自移动设备的非常规数据替代人口数据, 探索了COVID-19流行病发生以来由城市迁移到农村的时空模式。研究分析了两个问题：（1）自COVID-19发生以来, 新英格兰地区的城乡迁移体系如何变化？（2）这些显著的迁移变化, 对房地产市场产生了哪些影响？分析表明, 人口从新英格兰大都市核心区域迁移到小城镇和非核心县。随着旅行限制的放松, 人口迁移在2020年夏末和秋季最为显著。到2020年底, 新英格兰地区的迁移体系, 再次呈现出类似于COVID-19之前的模式。处于城市等级体系底层的地区, 房地产活动持续大幅增长, 这反映在价格上涨、库存减少和销售量增加。房地产变化表明, 在COVID-19流行病期间, 城市到农村迁移可能会引发新一轮的农村中产阶级化。 (Chinese) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Professional Geographer is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Does the absence of zoo visitors during the COVID-19 pandemic impact Gorilla behavior?

Whether or not primates are behaviorally affected by the presence of visitors in a zoo setting is a question of great relevance to zoo animal well-being. The situation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic provided an unusual opportunity to examine how the absence of visitors impacts behavior. We took advantage of this opportunity to study the behavior of a gorilla troop during periods of no-visitors compared to our long-term database on gorilla behavior during normal zoo operations. While there were notable individual differences in response to visitors, we found no significant relationship between presence of visitors and behavior. These results suggest that the presence of visitors does not have a significant impact on behavior and well-being of zoo-housed gorillas.

A Garden of Marvels: Tales of Wonder from Early Medieval China by Robert Ford Campany (review)

The category of zhiguai (accounts of the strange) texts is diverse, encompassing a wide variety of anecdotes, historical records, memoirs, letters, temple inscriptions, and biographies, among others, that recount encounters with sacred, ordinary, and apotropaic objects, shapeshifting animals, ghosts, demons, local gods, and numinous beings such as Daoist transcendents or the Buddha, Buddhist practitioners, deities and supernatural creatures;visits to otherworldly places such as the court of judgment in the afterlife, hidden villages of immortals or enlightened beings à la James Hilton's Shangri-la or the Tibetan mythical kingdom of Shambhala, or even heaven or hell;and unaccountable phenomena such as bizarre dreams, premonitions, and miraculous occurrences, including surviving entombment and the return from death (xxviii). Mordicai Gerstein's children's book Carolinda Clatter (2005), with its description of a giant's sleeping body becoming a mountain with forests, caves, and waterfalls, mirrors the cosmogonic myth of Pangu, whose body parts become the world in item 85 (58 and 59). The eerie feel of the scene in C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew (1955), where Digory Kirke enters the Garden to pluck an apple from the Tree of Knowledge to protect Narnia, is highly reminiscent of item 47 (35), where uninvited intruders eat their fill of otherworldly fruit from a remote orchard but are admonished by an unseen voice in midair to drop the fruit they intended to take with them.

A Poetry Lifeline Across Hemispheres Through Crises. Conversation/Interchange: Some Days The Bird

When I picked it up at AWP 2016 (the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference held each year in the U.S.), I fell in love with the dozen poems they published as part of their exchange. [...]when Heather approached me about a poetry collaboration just before Christmas of that annus horribilis we were all racing to adios, how could I decline? I swept aside the teetering pile of work and doctoral deadlines, shut the door on the clamouring domestic to-do list and neatly packaged up the most pressing obstacle in a small envelope sealed with sticky-tape and shoved into a bottom drawer. Surely not an obstacle in the writing of a book centred around gardens, I hypothesised as the carrot of conversing in verse with Heather dangled so tantalisingly. Because of these missives across the Pacific, I could imagine her father's garden in Ireland and the pain of her separation from him during Australia's lengthy lockdown, and she could empathise with my care and concerns for my own beloved father, whom we lost earlier this year.

Conditions and perspectives of transformation of urban space related to the liquidation of allotment gardens - a case study of Szczecin (Poland)

Despite the growth in popularity of allotment gardens during COVID-19 pandemic, they still are perceived as potential investment areas to develop residential, service or industry buildings in urban areas. Local authorities often decide to fully or partially liquidate objects in order to transform them into areas having different functions. These kinds of decisions have also been made in Szczecin (Poland), where there are over 100 allotment gardens, as revealed in the inventory carried out. The purpose of this paper is to present selected conditions and directions of transformation of areas connected with the liquidation of allotment gardens, which have taken place in Szczecin in recent years. The location of allotment gardens was also presented in the paper along with defining the intended use of areas as specified in one of Szczecin's main planning documents. Due to the analysis of locational and legal aspects it was possible to highlight legal and location conditions regarding allotments gardens functioning in Szczecin.

"Hello, garden eel here:” insights from emerging humanature relations at the aquarium during COVID-19

Over one billion people worldwide were under social isolation restrictions between April and May 2020. While humans felt the weight of being isolated under lockdown, nonhuman animals accustomed to continuous human connection had minimized exposure at different animal tourism sites and institutions – such as zoos and aquariums. One interesting case comes from garden eels, which according to their caretakers, were particularly susceptible to isolation from humans and required immediate action: Facetime calls with humans. In this research insight, I explore the new technologically mediated humanimal communication practice between humans and garden eels at the Sumida Aquarium in Tokyo, Japan. "Remembering humans” is explored as a humanature cultural discourse that emerged from humanity's social distancing phenomena, seemingly bridging humanature connection amidst the multitude of discourses that removed humanity from nature. This discourse also functions within a form of tourist gaze in tourism institutions. Even though small in scope, this cultural discourse analysis brings to surface one way we have discursively engaged with our solitude during quarantine: mirroring it on more-than-human animals' experiences. Further investigations about this, and other humanature emerging communication practices, are needed to better understand how the social isolation phenomena impacted communication meanings about humanature relations.

Peri-urban home gardens in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico are fundamental spaces of resistance

Objective: To determine the effects of neoliberal policies (including the Green Revolution), the urban sprawl (as a consequence of population growth), and the reduction of agricultural areas on peri-urban agriculture;however, the main focus is the forms of resistance against these pressures from the dominant system. Design/Methodology/Approach: Through participant observation, surveys, collection, and botanization we identified plant species, their diversity, uses, and richness. Home gardens in San Felipe Ecatepec, Chiapas, Mexico are a system, which consists of subsystems, functions, composition, and management, as well as a high number of species, high to moderate richness, and a surface that oscillates between 600 m2 and 2500 m2. Growing products next to the house provides healthy and fresh food, creates a useful and productive space, and preserves agrobiodiversity. It is an agroecosystem where each family and sitio or home garden interact with other families and other home gardens, integrating local knowledge and offering a space for families to live together. They can be considered spaces of resistance based on traditional knowledge, which also help to control their resources and to bolster individual and collective food sovereignty. Results: Home gardens in San Felipe Ecatepec, Chiapas, Mexico are a system, which consists of subsystems, functions, composition, and management, as well as a high number of species, high to moderate richness, and established on surfaces that oscillates between 600 m2 and 2,500 m2. Study Limitations/Implications: The research was carried out during the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, which posed an extra challenge to the field work. Findings/Conclusions: Growing products next to the house provides healthy and fresh food, creates a useful and productive space, and preserves agrobiodiversity. It is an agroecosystem where each family and sitio or home garden interact with other families and other home gardens, integrating local knowledge and offering a space for families to live together. They can be considered spaces of resistance based on traditional knowledge, which also help families to control their resources and to bolster individual and collective food sovereignty.

COVID-19, mobility, leisure, and travel around the world

The paper uses daily data from Google to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people's mobility around the world regarding three types of leisure and travel activity: retail shopping and recreation;participation in open spaces, such as parks, beaches, gardens, and marinas;and food and medicine. These types of activity reflect important leisure and travel choices of people under conditions of epidemiological risk. We use the daily mortality rate as a key predictor. The results show that higher rates of mortality are associated with a lower mobility in shopping and recreation activities, higher mobility in open space activities, and rather insignificant changes in mobility regarding necessities. The effect depends on the stringency of the lockdown policies. The results remain robust after applying endogeneity analysis and country-level controls.

Encouraging pro-conservation intentions in urban recreational spaces: a South African zoo perspective

PurposeZoos are important urban tourism attractions. The challenge for zoos is finding a balance between attracting visitors and enhancing education and conservation management. This research contributes to a greater understanding of the conservation intentions of zoo visitors and how zoos can emphasise conservation management principles sustainably. This study aims to identify the variables that encourage conservation intentions among visitors to a South African zoo.Design/methodology/approachA destination-based survey was conducted in 2019 at the Johannesburg Zoo, and 445 questionnaires were administered through convenience sampling.FindingsExploratory factor analyses identified visitors' conservation awareness because of zoos (pre-conscious, conscious and unconscious), behavioural intentions (advocating and supporting), motives (engagement, edutainment and escapism) and satisfaction (interaction and facility quality, and service and interpretation quality). The behavioural intentions were the dependent variables. Advocating conservation intentions (ACI) is an active role where zoo visitors feel a strong responsibility towards conservation and encourage others to the conservation cause. Supporting conservation intentions (SCI) relates more to loyalty towards visiting the zoo and subsequently supporting conservation. Stepwise linear regression analyses revealed that enhancing ACI relies on SCI, edutainment, conscious awareness, service and interpretation quality and total spending. However, enhancing SCI relies on ACI, interaction and facility quality and the motive, escapism, while engagement revealed a negative relationship.Originality/valueThe results show that zoos can encourage SCI to ACI by using interactive and entertaining interpretations to teach visitors about the zoo's mandate and the importance of conservation while balancing their need to escape.

Review and Analysis of the Motivations Associated with Urban Gardening in the Pandemic Period

This paper examines people's motives for urban gardening during the pandemic waves of 2020 and 2021. Interest in this practice has often ebbed and flowed in response to changing socioeconomic conditions and depended on positive effects in terms of social integration, community and individual health, urban regeneration, and food security. While several studies have documented these effects well with reference to the pre-pandemic period, few have detailed their existence—and eventually variations—during the lockdowns. These periods have probably reignited interest in this practice. Unlike other recreational activities, urban gardening was not restricted by regional and national governments because they considered this practice to be beneficial for food provisioning. To explore the motivations behind this newfound interest, this paper illustrates the results of a literature review on the articles published on this topic in the period from early 2020 to mid-2022. Findings reveal that the most widespread motivations are those related to personal and community wellbeing as well as food supply security and include the opportunity to spend time having fun outside the home. In addition, community resilience is a motivation that had not been detected in the past. © 2023 by the author.

A qualitative analysis of lived experiences of community garden participants in local food deserts

Community gardens were designed to bring communities together while providing an area of comfort and solace, social interactions, and a physical place for those living in apartments or areas in which they are not able to garden. Often, community gardens are started by nonprofit organizations looking to solve problems that plague urban areas. An abundance of literature described and analyzed the role of community gardens in addressing food insecurities, but little has been done in understanding the experiences of participants in the garden. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to gather and identify the perceptions and thoughts of community garden participants in food deserts, and to recommend additional resources that would be beneficial for these areas. By using a qualitative phenomenological methodological approach, the research question for this study addressed discovering the lived experiences of those participating and volunteering in the community gardens and their impacts in areas such as food deserts. This was completed following the theory of reasoned action, which examined a person's behaviors and intentions to behave a certain way. Participants were interviewed in-depth regarding their experiences working and participating in the gardens. Findings indicated participation provided mental and social health benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic and a sense of "community." Results gained from the interviews provide suggestions to community leaders and activists who play a key role in the community for positive change as to how to raise awareness of food insecurity and food deserts to outlining areas. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Urban agriculture in walkable neighborhoods bore fruit for health and food system resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic

Urban agriculture is the key to creating healthy cities and developing resilient urban food systems in uncertain times. However, relevant empirical evidence is limited. This study quantitatively verified the association of access to local food through urban agriculture with subjective well-being, physical activity, and food security concerns of neighborhood communities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The target was Tokyo, Japan, where small-scale local food systems are widespread in walkable neighborhoods. We found that diversity in local food access, ranging from self-cultivation to direct-to-consumer sales, was significantly associated with health and food security variables. In particular, the use of allotment farms was more strongly associated with subjective well-being than the use of urban parks, and it was more strongly associated with the mitigation of food security concerns than the use of food retailers. These findings provide robust evidence for the effectiveness of integrating urban agriculture into walkable neighborhoods.

Community gardens and urban agriculture: Healthy environment/healthy citizens.

Studies are showing that urban community gardening can improve people's psychological and physiological health in myriad ways. Community gardens increase social capital, provide opportunities for altruism, and create accessible and sustainable food sources in urban environments. The purpose of this study was to explore the mental, social, and physical health benefits of participation in an urban community garden in Edmonton, Canada. A focused ethnography was conducted with surveys and semi-structured interviews. Surveys were sent to volunteers and customers of the Green and Gold Garden (GGG). This was followed by focus group interviews with eight volunteers and four customers. The interview format comprised open-ended questions that encouraged participants to share their perceptions of the health and well-being benefits from being at the GGG. Data were coded via inductive coding, and subsequently categorized into themes via an iterative, reflective process. Four health-related themes were generated from thematic analysis: physical health, social health, mental/emotional health, and connection to the global community. Spending time at the GGG improved the respondents' mental health, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they reported feelings of altruism, serenity, and connection with nature. Their social health was improved through gathering with other garden members in a sheltered urban green space within the city limits. This study supports the idea that participation in an urban community garden confers health benefits and engenders a greater awareness of, and appreciation for, the local environment and expands one's scope of care to incorporate planetary health.

Urban reflections through home gardening, Does Gender Matter?

In the current global pandemic, actions are taken to prevent Covid-19 spread, residents are embracing small-scale gardening activities in their homes;especially in low to middle income communities, 3rd world countries as in Africa, depending on individual activities.Despite that, there is a lack provided by literature review about home gardening, the paper then shifts to the exploration of the gender influence on home gardening, poses questions;how do gender roles influence home gardening habits, and how would such activities potentially benefit the gardeners, and are the benefits equally distributed or are they potentially skewed to one gender over the other?Using an imperical quantitative approach through a survey, the results imply hypotheses and test them using WarpPLS, to verify their validity.This paper highlight effects on the connection between gender, gardening activities, and their potential benefits. The findings can help urban authorities to create a fair and inclusive environment. CO 2022 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncnd/4.0/).

Urban Farming: The Reluctant Utopia

The old conceptual dichotomy between the city and the countryside has often been a historical stumbling block for architects and urban planners. Whilst there have been many attempts to bring the city closer to the natural environment, some on grand scales, more modest experiments have often gleaned better results. Daniele Belleri is a partner at design and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, where he is in charge of all editorial and curatorial projects. He and the practice's founder, architect and engineer Carlo Ratti – who is director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – together explore our contemporary options. Copyright © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Cultivating Connections with Farm to School Activities During School Closures

To engage youth and their families in a web-based hybrid club for farm to school activities as an alternative to school-based activities when schools closed due to the pandemic.Farm to school programs increase children's access to and knowledge of fresh and local foods primarily through experiential learning (Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory) such as gardening, tasting food and field trips.Youth, grades 2-6, and their families who experienced disruption in usual learning and social activities due to COVID-19 restrictions.Experiential activities are the hallmark of farm to school education. In March 2020 all hands-on, school based activities planned by Extension faculty were cancelled due to the pandemic. Faculty responded by offering garden-cooking clubs using a web-based hybrid approach independent of schools. Faculty facilitated bi-weekly virtual meetings of 30 minutes for 6-8 weeks for youth and their families. Asynchronous activities were also offered via a website, kits, video demonstrations, farmers market vouchers and when possible, farm tours.Adult caregivers received a survey at the end of the 6-8 week club sessions to evaluate their child's and family's level of engagement including queries on how much time they spent using web-based tools and how likely they were to start a garden.One hundred and ninety youth, grades 2-6, and their families participated in 4 virtual and/or hybrid clubs delivered by Extension faculty from March 2020 to October 2020. Caregiver responses from the survey (n = 46) indicated 83% of families expanded or started a garden. On average youth and/or families spent 47 minutes per week engaged in program activities including online learning.It appears that virtual programming can actively engage youth and their families in farm to school education and may be a tool to supplement resource intensive hands-on strategies in the future. Further research is need to determine which components are best suited for web-based delivery vs in person delivery.

A qualitative analysis of lived experiences of community garden participants in local food deserts

Community gardens were designed to bring communities together while providing an area of comfort and solace, social interactions, and a physical place for those living in apartments or areas in which they are not able to garden. Often, community gardens are started by nonprofit organizations looking to solve problems that plague urban areas. An abundance of literature described and analyzed the role of community gardens in addressing food insecurities, but little has been done in understanding the experiences of participants in the garden. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to gather and identify the perceptions and thoughts of community garden participants in food deserts, and to recommend additional resources that would be beneficial for these areas. By using a qualitative phenomenological methodological approach, the research question for this study addressed discovering the lived experiences of those participating and volunteering in the community gardens and their impacts in areas such as food deserts. This was completed following the theory of reasoned action, which examined a person's behaviors and intentions to behave a certain way. Participants were interviewed in-depth regarding their experiences working and participating in the gardens. Findings indicated participation provided mental and social health benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic and a sense of "community." Results gained from the interviews provide suggestions to community leaders and activists who play a key role in the community for positive change as to how to raise awareness of food insecurity and food deserts to outlining areas. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Call home gardening for enhancing the resilience of household food security post-pandemic COVID-19

Food is a basic need and essential in human beings. COVID-19 pandemic challenges us from food and nutrient security, and thus resilient food system is necessary. Home gardening may improve our self-sufficiency level and have a sustainable food system to cope with the challenging situation. Between, home gardening brings many benefits to human health, including physical, mental, and social. Nevertheless, the most significant challenges of home gardening, especially in urban areas, are the substrate properties, light intensity, and temperature. Therefore, further investigation should investigate the impact on food crop yield on a household level, especially in urban areas in different countries.

Micro and small farms – element from the model for revitalizing of rural areas

The structural defining elements of the socio-economic model for the sustainability of rural development are closely related to the revitalization of the activities, processes and results of the functioning of economic units/actors in rural areas. We have used a double matrix socio-economic model that has the aim to determine what role do the micro and small farms have in socio-economic environment in Bulgaria, as well as how implementation of EU politics and national legislation affect them. Bulgarian agriculture has experienced major structural changes as a result of the restoration of ownership of agricultural land and in recent years, CAP policy the green deal, combined with COVID19 and the war in Ukraine has influenced heavily the processes happening to small and micro farms in Bulgaria and their role/place in agriculture. © 2022, Agricultural Academy, Bulgaria. All rights reserved.