Urban Gardens

Gardening performed in the cities is considered urban, so both allotment and community gardens belong to this category, along with home gardens, and other forms of non-professional food cultivation in urban settlements. It is a broad term, which covers food production in cities in private and/or commercial production (^{Sovová & Krylová, 2019}). Therefore, they are alternatives for food supply, which, in addition to valuing the property, raise pride in the region and support urban aesthetics and community cohesion (^{Jiwon & Jeong, 2020}).

For horticulturists, growing plants create places where participation is valued, stops for the recovery of community life, where dwellers establish a productive role without abandoning their crops, and spaces of mental peace due to the contact with nature (^{Philpott et al., 2020}), alternatives capable of supporting the biodiversity of cities whose objectives and results are shown in Table 1.

The goals and outcome of the reference surveys show social indicators for the activity that can be framed in the objectives and goals of the 2030 agenda, as they demonstrate the positions of the gardeners themselves, ensuring that the execution of agricultural activities in the city there is relevant and conscious information for the sustainable development and their lifestyles are in harmony with nature, according to SDG 12, target 12.8.

In Brazil, awareness comes from traditional memory, where the arrangements and meanings of planting in the backyard go beyond the rural/urban, creating places that trigger affections and memories, producing ways of life between the rural and urban (Silva et al., 2019).

In Cascais (Portugal), vegetable gardens have been spaces of equity, where the most disadvantaged sections of the population, who live in more degraded environments, can adhere to land to produce food, playing a facilitating role in social relations by promoting social cohesion and sense of community (^{Barata et al., 2019}) sustainable development in close harmony with nature.

In California in the United States, gardens have been used for ecological studies since 2013 where investigations focus on awareness information for sustainable development and a harmonious lifestyle with nature (^{Philpott et al., 2020}). The person who manages the garden influences the richness and composition of the plants, in the case of the gender, as women plant more species than men, depending on the region of origin, the time spent in the garden and personal motivations play a role in measuring abundance and the distribution of plants.

A point of intersection between Switzerland and Chile, in terms of the social environment, is the motivation of horticulturists, which contributes to the restoration of living spaces due to the inclusion of recreational spaces (^{Home & Del Rio, 2020}). Privately managed gardens represent large proportions of green space in cities, with the potential to serve the food supply chain.

In Switzerland, in the face of shrinking green space, urban gardens reduce inequalities, provide food to residents of low socioeconomic status and address ecological and public health issues (^{Young et al., 2020}) by promoting gardens rich in plant species.

The motivations and interests mobilized in Málaga, Spain, vary, according to lifestyles and age group, creating a diversity of typologies and social groups, in the more than 1000 horticulturists based in 19 plots (^{Vargas et al., 2020}), translating into a movement of consolidation, organization, involvement, and strengthening. In Seville, practices validate the issues of exchange with nature, highlighting the pleasant productive experience, insofar as it takes place in a strongly “naturalized” space, even for the use of forced, imaginative, and/or creative solutions for the recreation of nature.

In Spain, gardening controls eating habits, increases social identity, controls behaviors, and raises awareness of the impact of participatory actions, in addition to introducing food literacy (^{Puigdueta et al., 2021}). In Malaga, it offers opportunities for recreation and restoration, produces safe food, provides social functions for different population groups (^{Vargas et al., 2020}), and recovery of unhealthy places, giving the city a new identity.

Poles meet the requirements for the use of plants and water, solving urgent problems on a local scale by including the environmental, social, and economic pillars of sustainable development (^{Sowińska-Świerkosz et al., 2021}).

In Kerala, India, gardening supported by the government and popular initiatives, based on social media, has become a broad social movement (^{Pinheiro, 2022}). Government interventions were essential for urban dwellers to start a home garden, as in addition to reviving the traditional practice, public subsidies lead to low financial investment.

The examples in the previous paragraphs seem closer to the new sustainable development goals (SDGs), which have as a global and universal goal, comprehensive, far-reaching, and people-centered transformations, which are the focus of this investigation.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 12, target 12.8)

The Heads of State, Government, and High Representatives gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in September 2015, for the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the UN and decided on the new global sustainable development goals (SDGs) with the aim not only of including people but make them actors in the process.

According to the UN, it was a historic decision with universal and transformative comprehensive, far-reaching goals and objectives, and grounded in people, who point to varied meanings in their activities, extrapolating the technical-rational dimension of the act of growing, reorienting the act of consuming food (Jordi-Sumanchez & Deuaz-Aguilar, 2021) to emphasize its economic, environmental, and social benefits.

The interest in this research is the social benefits, motivating the people who manage and perform the activity, perceived from the variety of social factors, diversity, and biodiversity, which form the ecological basis of urban gardens in their descriptive characteristics (^{Philpott et al., 2020}), informing that urban horticulture contributes to valuing communities by offering places for recreation and environmental awareness (^{Aguiar Pedro et al., 2020}).

The UN's goals for people are the determinations to end poverty and hunger, in all its forms and dimensions, ensuring that all human beings fulfill their potential with dignity and equality in a healthy environment (United Nations Brazil, 2022). The SDGs illuminates a universal agenda for 2030, which is nonetheless ambitious, as the goals are integrated, indivisible, and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social, and environmental.

Effortlessly, the quality of life of farmers is directly linked to these objectives, accepting that urban agriculture contributes to making the 2030 Agenda possible, so this review is focused on objective 12 SDG/UN that ensures production standards and consumption, specifically in item 12.8, which ensures that people everywhere have relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.

References Places of Social Benefits to the Gardeners

About the social benefits to horticulturists, it can be seen in Figure 2 that the articles involved 18 countries: South Africa, Germany, Benin, Brazil, Chile, South Korea, Costa Rica, Cuba, Spain, USA, France, India, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, and Switzerland. Three regions were also studied: North America, Latin America, and Western Europe. The results indicate that both in the 18 countries and in the three regions there are relevant cases of social benefits linked to SDG 12, target 12.8.

Important Countries and Geographic Location

It is highlighted in Figure 2 the locals where relevant information on social benefits was found, particularly Spain with the largest number of works, six. Most places are shown only as a reference.

Source: Research Data, (2022) 

In Malaysia, farmers see improvement in human psychology. In Italy, they feel more socially integrated. In Portugal, the emphasis is on mental health. In Málaga, Spain, the mentioned benefit is the promotion of diversity (^{Barata et al., 2019}; ^{Abdullah et al., 2020}; ^{Cattivelli, 2020}; ^{Vargas et al., 2020}).

The social benefits highlighted in Switzerland and Chile were recreational activities; in Brazil, the promotion of traditional knowledge; in India, knowledge about social collectives; in the United States, farmers reported they felt mentally nourished; in Seville, Spain, quality of life was highlighted; and, in Switzerland, stress restoration, which is also a reality in the USA and India (^{Home & Del Rio, 2020}; ^{Philpott et al., 2020}; ^{Young et al., 2020}; Jordi-Sumanchez & Deuaz-Aguilar, 2021; ^{Pinheiro, 2022})

Social integration, community health, urban regeneration, and food security emphasize the social role of urban gardens for horticulturists in Malaysia and Italy, who see an opportunity to leave the house to socialize (^{Abdullah et al., 2020}; ^{Cattivelli, 2020}) in spaces that positively impact human psychology, mitigating the effects of depression (Abdullah et al., 2020).

In Italy, activities strengthen ties and build social relationships between farmers, alleviating loneliness (^{Cattivelli, 2020}), raising people's motivation, due to group conscience and the feeling of belonging, even if the land is public, the basket of vegetables is less important than the integration of the community that needs a more leisurely life, willing to escape the hectic city of Portugal (^{Barata et al., 2019}), the interest is to get closer to nature.

In Brazil and Chile, in addition to offering quality food, gardens are settings for meetings, conversations, experimentation, and games, a space for interaction (Silva et al., 2019; ^{Home & Del Rio, 2020}). Vegetable gardens growing to connect human beings with nature, increasing individual well-being and improving quality of life and health (Silva et al., 2019), designing a clean and safe environment, harmonizing the neighborhood, and reducing criminality (^{Cattivelli, 2020}), using the advantages and power of farmers to exercise doing something important (^{Young et al., 2020}).

Thus, there is a therapeutic perspective as urban gardens are places where people can get together and get away from the pressure of everyday life, a release valve for stress, increasing health and well-being levels (^{Barata et al., 2019}; ^{Cattivelli, 2020}).

Not to mention that the produced food promotes food and nutritional security by being fresher and without pesticides. In research carried out in Portugal and Spain, horticulturists design their products free from chemical treatments and fertilizers, illustrating the relationship between food, nutrition, health, and food safety (^{Barata et al., 2019}; Jordi-Sumanchez & Deuaz-Aguilar, 2021).

Farmers see an opportunity to acquire skills to grow vegetables and conserve unavailable medicinal plants in grocery shops (^{Philpott et al,, 2020}) and consume freshly harvested whole food, improving eating habits by increasing the consumption of fruits and vegetables (^{Cattivelli, 2020}). They reorient consumption and see an opportunity to practice physical activities (Jordi-Sumanchez & Deuaz-Aguilar, 2021).

Awareness of global issues influences behaviors and promotes living habits compatible with natural ecosystems, promoting local sustainable development and the diversity of social composition (^{Vargas et al., 2020}), including social differences of ethnicity, age, and social factors and respect for biodiversity, working on urban landscapes (^{Philpott et al., 2020}), in such a way that preserving gardens and cities is a way of taking care of the urban disadvantaged people and offering more equal spaces (^{Young et al., 2020}).

Gardening activities in Brazil contribute to the individual and collective recognition of the sociocultural importance of food, facilitating the involvement of people with the food system, and developing a commitment to sustainable practices, arising from ancestral histories, which trigger traditional knowledge, feelings, and practices (Silva et al., 2019).

The thesis that urban horticulture practiced in the reference countries is a modality of agriculture that has contributed to ensuring awareness of sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature, according to SDG 12, target 12.8 , is tested in this article, and the theoretical variables are shown in Figure 3.

Source: Research Data (2022) 

To improve the quality of life in Brno, Czech Republic, non-urban features are incorporated into the gardens, which appear to be rural in the city and farmers consider themselves peaceful and quiet, contrasting with the anonymous and busy urban environment (^{Sovová & Krylová, 2019}) while driving the evolution of Malaysian horticulturists (^{Abdullah et al., 2020}).

The collective relationships in the environments where the projects are carried out stand out in the convenience of social interaction that reconnects people with food production (^{Sovová & Krylová, 2019}), sharing knowledge and harvests, inspiring continuity in the Mutiara Gombak neighborhood, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in times of Covid 19 (^{Abdullah et al., 2020}), leading to the transition to sustainability in the city of Malaga, where urban agriculture is emerging as an evolving phenomenon, giving new meanings to agricultural practice (^{Vargas et al., 2020}).

Social inclusion and entrepreneurship are illuminated when horticulturists captured the diversity of appearance and design of 92 urban home gardens in the municipality of GaRankuwa, Tshwane City, Gauteng Province, South Africa, where people who grow home gardens and live in poor urban settlements predominate (Vuuren et al., 2020).

Social entrepreneurship was instituted in times of crisis, where radical political demands brought social innovation, conceiving in Barcelona a laboratory of horticultural initiatives in vacant lots, mobilizing radical demands or incorporating a new post-crisis rhetoric (^{Calvet-Mir & March, 2019}), thus, the reconstitution and/or reinforcement of the social fabric is a contribution of agricultural practice, where countries have collective spaces of urban production that strengthen community bonds, social and labor reintegration, including campaigns for the sustainable management of spaces (^{Sanchez, 2019}).

The stimulus to citizenship is remarkable when it is observed that urban garden initiatives go beyond any rhetoric, as horticulturists alone can exercise decision-making (^{Calvet-Mir & March, 2019}) due to the evolution of participation in other community projects, which contributes to empowerment, making them opinion-makers for the surroundings (^{Barata et al., 2019}). They do not follow parameters or logic based on individual gains, they collectively combine dreams, crossing different and non-exclusive meanings, metamorphosing social and urban transformation (Calvet-Mir &March, 2019), which is nothing more than the exercise of citizenship, strengthening relationships, promoting cohesion and inclusion, and, by intertwining the neighborhood, it validates the acquisition of skills and stimulates citizenship (Barata et al., 2019), a scenario that promotes the generation of social capital, making communities cohesive, resilient in dealing with challenges of current generations and safeguarding the future.

Regarding the awareness of sustainable development, the formulation of public policies with strategies for the insertion of sustainable food production is essential in promoting agrobiodiversity, benefiting communities and the environment (^{Cunha et al., 2020}) a process of evolution of environmental, social, and economical needs (^{Rusciano et al., 2019}), through public and private initiatives, sustainable lifestyles are adopted (^{Tharrey et al., 2020}), following the global trend of promoting better habits (^{Barata et al., 2019}), a “kick” to the reversal of the trend of social and environmental degradation of the urban centers.