Abstract:  Urban food-growing initiatives, ranging from community gardens to networks of backyards, have gained attention within urban food policy as nature-based solutions (NbS) capable of delivering food security, social, and environmental benefits. Yet as the 2030 horizon for global sustainability and urban food governance agendas approaches, concerns persist that existing governance arrangements remain ill-equipped to address deep-seated power inequalities, food insecurity, and social injustice. This article examines how justice and resilience materialise through co-governance in food-growing NbS. Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyse 390 NbS projects from the Urban Nature Atlas NATURESCAPES dataset to identify patterns across food-growing NbS and combine these findings with qualitative insights from two emblematic cases: the backyard garden network Patios Productivos in Cartagena (Colombia), and the Horta Nova Horticultural Park in Lisbon (Portugal). These cases embody the predominant bottom-up and multi-actor governance dynamics identified across food-growing NbS. Drawing on the five A’s co-governance framework—Authority, Agency, Arrangement, Alignment, and Accomplishment—we examine how power, recognition, and justice are negotiated over time. Our findings reveal that food-growing NbS overwhelmingly emerge as community-led responses to socio-economic vulnerability and exhibit distinctive governance patterns shaped by context-specific collaborations, long-term partnerships, and the balance between community autonomy and institutional recognition. We argue that community-led food NbS function as transformative social infrastructures, and that justice and resilience are co-produced through contested governance arrangements. By foregrounding power and co-governance, this article contributes to debates on urban food politics and helps advance a just post-2030 urban food governance agenda.

Keywords:  co‐governance; collaborative governance; community‐led initiatives; food security; justice; nature‐based solutions; resilience; urban agriculture; urban food governance

Published:   27 October 2026

Issue:   Vol 15 (2027): Urban Food Governance Beyond 2030: Resilience, Justice, and the Politics of Sustainability Transitions (In Progress)