Growing vegetables in backyards and in community gardens gained importance as an alternative policy for the reduction of poverty and the increasing of household food intake since the final years of the late century in Brazil. The Brazilian experiences have been reported in different scientific publications but until now, there has not been an attempt to evaluate those results. For that purpose, Brazilian scientific publications were sought in the sites www.google.com.br, www.scielo.com.br, www.periodicos.capes.gov.br and in the Lattes platform from CNPq. The results showed that the majority of publications were available to download free. The number of publications increased between 1996 and 2009 and most of them were published in Congresses and Meetings. Vegetable cultivation contributed to increase of the welfare of population. Nonetheless, several difficulties were reported: chiefly among these, the lack of social organization, lack of access to technical assistance, capital, land and water. Until now, the majority of these projects have been of short duration (less than three years); therefore it is necessary to carry out long term researches in order to evaluate strategies for overcoming these difficulties.
Urban agriculture; survey; evaluation; sustainability
