Data from: Social Context Influence on Urban Gardener Perceptions of Pests and Management Practices

Community gardens are important urban green spaces with a variety of social and ecological benefits, one of which is access to healthy food. Similar to rural agriculture, the quantity and quality of the food produced can be compromised by pest damage. In fact, many urban gardeners report crop damages caused by vertebrate and invertebrate pests. Yet, because the food produced in community gardens is mostly for self-consumption and thus not under market quality standards, the damage thresholds and the point when gardeners perceive a pest problem and how they decide to manage it, may greatly vary from gardener to gardener. Here, we investigated how socio-demographic factors and experience affect whether gardeners report having a pest problem and which pest management practices they use. We surveyed 187 gardeners from 18 different urban community gardens in three counties in the California central coast, USA. We also collected information about gardener socio-demographic factors (age, gender, ethnicity), as well as education, and years of experience in agriculture. The majority of gardeners reported having pests in their plots but their ethnicity, the amount of time they spend in the gardens, and whether they work in agricultural-related employment or not influenced the likelihood of reporting pests.We found that themajority of gardeners use curative, non-synthetic practices for managing pests, but that some use preventive practices and some don’t do anything to control pests. The likelihood of using practices that are curative depended on gardeners’ ethnicity, the amount of time they spend in the gardeners, and their gender. Our results suggest that the agricultural knowledge of urban community gardeners and the practices they use varies greatly and that, in order to be successful, extension programs may need to take this diversity into account when promoting the agroecological paradigm in urban agricultural (UA) systems.

社区花园（community gardens）是兼具多重社会与生态效益的重要城市绿地，其核心效益之一便是为民众提供健康食品的获取途径。与乡村农业类似，社区花园所产农产品的数量与质量均可能因虫害侵袭而受损。事实上，不少都市园丁均报告称其作物遭受过脊椎动物与无脊椎动物害虫的侵害。然而，由于社区花园产出的农产品大多用于自用，并未遵循市场质量标准，因此不同园丁之间的虫害防治阈值、察觉虫害问题的节点以及虫害治理决策逻辑均可能存在显著差异。
本研究旨在探究社会人口统计学因素与从业经验如何影响园丁是否报告存在虫害问题，以及他们所采用的虫害治理手段。我们针对美国加利福尼亚州中部海岸三个郡的18处都市社区花园的187位园丁开展了问卷调查，收集了园丁的社会人口统计学信息（年龄、性别、族裔）、受教育程度以及农业从业年限等数据。
多数园丁均报告称其种植地块存在虫害问题，且园丁的族裔、在花园中投入的时长，以及是否从事农业相关职业，均会影响其报告虫害问题的概率。
研究结果显示，多数园丁采用治理性非合成防治手段开展虫害防控，但也有部分园丁使用预防性防治手段，另有部分园丁未采取任何虫害控制措施。采用治理性防治手段的概率，与园丁的族裔、在花园中投入的时长以及性别均存在显著关联。
本研究结果表明，都市社区园丁的农业知识与所采用的治理手段存在显著差异；若想推动都市农业（UA）系统中的农业生态范式落地，相关推广项目或许需要充分考虑这一多样性。