As participation in urban horticulture grows, understanding the quality of urban horticultural soils is of increasing importance. Until now, case studies of individual cities or gardens have limited ...the potential of such studies to draw generalised conclusions. Here, we present the first national scale assessment of soil quality in allotments, a dominant form of urban horticulture in the United Kingdom. We sampled soils in 200 allotments in 10 urban areas across Great Britain. We assessed a range of soil quality indicators (carbon and nitrogen concentration, C:N ratio, bulk density, carbon density, pH) comparing them to the quality of soils in rural arable and horticultural land. We present the first estimate of nationwide carbon storage on allotments. We found that allotment gardeners consistently employ management practices conducive to high soil quality. Allotment soil quality differed significantly between soil types but in general soils were of a high quality: low bulk density (0.92 g cm−3) and high soil organic carbon concentration and density (58.2 mg g−1 and 58.1 mg cm−3 respectively). Allotment soil organic carbon concentration was 250% higher than in the surrounding arable and horticultural land. Covering only 0.0006% of Great Britain, allotments contribute a disproportionate 0.05–0.14% of nationwide total organic carbon stocks. This national-scale study provides compelling evidence that small-scale urban horticultural production, unlike conventional horticulture, does not degrade soil quality. Indeed, allotments hold a small but previously unaccounted for carbon stock nationally. Urban horticultural land is a vital part of the urban landscape with effectively functioning soils that should be protected. As public demand for urban horticultural land rises and policy-makers from local to trans-national levels of governance advocate for urban food production, our findings demonstrate that urban horticulture can protect or enhance the ecosystem services provided by soils in cities and towns where the majority of people live.
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•We investigated the quality of urban horticultural soils in the United Kingdom.•Soil was analysed for indicators including organic carbon and bulk density.•We estimate of the contribution of allotment soils to national carbon stocks.•Allotment soils were of higher quality than commercial horticultural soils.•Urban horticulture can enhance ecosystem services provided by soils in cities.
Urban horticulture (UH) has been proposed as a solution to increase urban sustainability, but the potential risks to human health due to potentially elevated soil heavy metals and metalloids (HM) ...concentrations represent a major constraint for UH expansion. Here we provide the first UK-wide assessment of soil HM concentrations (total and bioavailable) in UH soils and the factors influencing their bioavailability to crops. Soils from 200 allotments across ten cities in the UK were collected and analysed for HM concentrations, black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC) concentrations, pH and texture. We found that although HM are widespread across UK UH soils, most concentrations fell below the respective UK soil screening values (C4SLs): 99 % Cr; 98 % As, Cd, Ni; 95 % Cu; 52 % Zn. However, 83 % of Pb concentrations exceeded C4SL, but only 3.5 % were above Pb national background concentration of 820 mg kg−1. The bioavailable HM concentrations represent a small fraction (0.01–1.8 %) of the total concentrations even for those soils that exceeded C4SLs. There was a significant positive relationship between both total and bioavailable HM and soil BC and OC concentrations. This suggest that while contributing to the accumulation of HM concentrations in UH soils, BC and OC may also provide a biding surface for the bioavailable HM concentrations contributing to their immobilisation. These findings have implications for both management of the risk to human health associated with UH growing in urban soils and with management of UH soil. There is a clear need to understand the mechanisms driving soil-to-crop HM transfer in UH to improve potentially restrictive C4SL (e.g. Pb) especially as public demand for UH land is growing. In addition, the UH community would benefit from education programs promoting soil management practices that reduce the risk of HM exposure - particularly in those plots where C4SLs were exceeded.
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•We assess heavy metals (HM) concentrations across UK urban horticultural soils.•We identify the major factors influencing soil HM bioavailability to food crops.•Soil total HM concentrations are generally below UK soil screening values.•Soil HM concentration available to food crops are low.•Soil black carbon influences both total and bioavailable HM concentrations.
The process of urbanization has detached a large proportion of the global population from involvement with food production. However, there has been a resurgence in interest in urban agriculture and ...there is widespread recognition by policy-makers of its potential contribution to food security. Despite this, there is little data on urban agricultural production by non-commercial small-scale growers. We combine citizen science data for self-provisioning crop yields with field-mapping and GIS-based analysis of allotments in Leicester, UK, to provide an estimate of allotment fruit and vegetable production at a city-scale. In addition, we examine city-scale changes in allotment land provision on potential crop production over the past century. The average area of individual allotment plots used to grow crops was 52%. Per unit area yields for the majority of crops grown in allotments were similar to those of UK commercial horticulture. We estimate city-wide allotment production of >1200 t of fruit and vegetables and 200 t of potatoes per annum, equivalent to feeding >8500 people. If the 13% of plots that are completely uncultivated were used this could increase production to >1400 t per annum, feeding ~10,000 people, however this production may not be located in areas where there is greatest need for increased access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The citywide contribution of allotment cultivation peaked in the 1950s when 475 ha of land was allotments, compared to 97 ha currently. This suggests a decline from >45,000 to <10,000 of people fed per annum. We demonstrate that urban allotments make a small but important contribution to the fruit and vegetable diet of a UK city. However, further urban population expansion will exert increasing development pressure on allotment land. Policy-makers should both protect allotments within cities, and embed urban agricultural land within future developments to improve local food security.
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•Urban agriculture provides important ecosystem services to people living in cities.•Allotment gardening in 1.5% land within a city provides fresh produce for 3% of population.•Crop yields achieved by own-growers were similar to commercial crop yields.•Availability of land for own-growing has significantly declined since the 1950s.•Urban food security could be increased by providing more allotment land.
Between Stalin's death in 1953 and 1960, the government of the Soviet Union released hundreds of thousands of prisoners from the Gulag as part of a wide-ranging effort to reverse the worst excesses ...and abuses of the previous two decades and revive the spirit of the revolution. This exodus included not only victims of past purges but also those sentenced for criminal offenses.
InKhrushchev's Cold Summer, Miriam Dobson explores the impact of these returnees on communities and, more broadly, Soviet attempts to come to terms with the traumatic legacies of Stalin's terror. Confusion and disorientation undermined the regime's efforts at recovery. In the wake of Stalin's death, ordinary citizens and political leaders alike struggled to make sense of the country's recent bloody past and to cope with the complex social dynamics caused by attempts to reintegrate the large influx of returning prisoners, a number of whom were hardened criminals alienated and embittered by their experiences within the brutal camp system.
Drawing on private letters as well as official reports on the party and popular mood, Dobson probes social attitudes toward the changes occurring in the first post-Stalin decade. Throughout, she features personal stories as articulated in the words of ordinary citizens, prisoners, and former prisoners. At the same time, she explores Soviet society's contradictory responses to the returnees and shows that for many the immediate post-Stalin years were anything but a breath of spring air after the long Stalinist winter.
In recent years historians have paid growing attention to the religious dimensions of the Cold War. These studies have largely focused, however, on the capitalist world, particularly the rise of ...evangelicalism and fundamentalism in the USA. This article turns the spotlight on the communist adversary, asking whether the USSR also participated in a ‘religious Cold War’. Given the atheist convictions on which the Soviet state was founded, this might appear counter-intuitive, but religious dynamics were of growing importance in the USSR too. Soviet officials sought to create what was called an ‘ecumenical movement’, inviting religious actors to become advocates for the Soviet peace message. Protestants, in particular, were important figures on the international stage because of the large communities of co-believers in the West. At the same time, however, the authorities were alarmed about various grass-roots phenomena at home which seemed to be on the rise as the Cold War escalated, such as pacifism and apocalyptic prediction. Faced with such threats, state tactics included the arrest of believers and hostile press campaigns. Even though the inconsistencies were readily visible to all, this dualistic approach was not abandoned and the ultimately self-defeating engagement with the ‘religious Cold War’ continued.
Societal Impact Statement
Own‐grown fruit and vegetable production in urban areas is increasingly assumed to increase food security, however, the evidence‐base to support this assumption is lacking. ...By integrating remotely sensed Geographic Information System data, fieldwork, and a citizen science project (MYHarvest) we will estimate the current levels of UK own‐grown fruit and vegetable production and how this could be increased if more urban land was made available for own‐growing. This will provide the first comprehensive UK dataset on own‐grown production for use by research scientists, policy‐makers, and the public, and will highlight the importance of urban horticulture to local and national food security.
Own‐grown fruit and vegetable production in urban areas is increasingly assumed to increase food security, however the evidence‐base to support this assumption is lacking. By integrating remotely sensed GIS data, fieldwork and a citizen science project (MYHarvest) we will estimate the current levels of UK own‐grown fruit and vegetable production and of how this could be increased if more urban land was made available for own‐growing. This will provide the first comprehensive UK dataset on own‐grown production for use by research scientists, policy‐makers, and the public and will highlight the importance of urban horticulture to local and national food security.
In this article, I use the transcripts of interviews carried out under the auspices of the Institute of Scientific Atheism in the mid-sixties. Informants were asked about diverse aspects of their ...religious practice and belief, allowing scholars—both then and now—to consider the nature of Soviet “secularization.” Following Charles Taylor, I suggest that this was not simply “a story of loss, of subtraction”; instead, informants’ rather heterodox conceptions of the afterlife indicate moments of individual creativity. In particular, I find that among the poor and marginalized, visions of the afterlife sometimes articulated a desire for social equality considered missing from Soviet society. I also probe the Soviet state’s problematic dependency on atheism. The regime’s legitimacy rested on its claim to ensure progress and modernity, and religion— the epitome of backwardness—was a useful antithesis. The interview was a ritual that enacted the superiority of Soviet values (reason, rationality, and enlightenment). And yet the encounter between atheist-interviewer and “believer” could often prove unpredictable, suggesting that the religion-atheism binary was in practice rather more brittle than the authorities might have hoped.
The blood libel is normally associated with anti‐Semitic traditions, but in Soviet atheist propaganda of the 1950s and early 1960s it was evangelical Christians who were accused of ritually killing ...young children. In the existing scholarly literature, the anti‐religious campaigns of the Khrushchev era tend to be explained in terms of a quest for scientific, rational modernity, but by focusing on the blood libel I uncover a rather more sensationalist dimension to them. The shocking and emotive stories and images found in the press and other published materials had a powerful impact on the popular imagination, and even when the Soviet government criticized such approaches after 1964, fears of a “sectarian” conspiracy remained. Drawing on two case‐studies from the archives, I examine in detail the legal proceedings, the press coverage, and public reactions and I suggest that belief in the blood libel should be understood not only in terms of concerns over religious boundaries but also, and perhaps primarily, in relation to anxiety about the safety of children.
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