The change in the concept of urban agriculture has been driven by social, political and economic factors, changing the role of agriculture in the urban environment. From the second half of 20th century topicality and practices of urban agriculture are growing widely not only in social initiatives but also in scientific research (the number of articles in scientific databases has increased 18-30 times since 2000). Growing interest has identified various variations and tendencies in the interpretation of the concept of urban agriculture, having regard to the current United Nations definition that is broad, but in research works and case studies researchers adapt the definitions to the local characteristics and aim of the study, thus creating a number of risks in the interpretation of the concept, including limited possibilities for quantitative comparisons between studies. The aim of the article is to identify the historical development stages of the concept of urban agriculture and to determine the main research tendencies in its application. To achieve this aim, the method of monographic and descriptive analysis was used for theoretical discussion, analysis, synthesis and deduction - for information gathering, logical systematization and classification. As a result of the study, it was identified that the concept of urban agriculture is developed in three different stages - originally associated with the technical solutions of urban planning for providing food for city dwellers, it is currently developing in tendencies of different directions: analysis of agriculture’s role in urban areas (including mitigating climate change risks), classification of types of urban agriculture, opportunities for adapting innovations and technological solutions to urban agriculture, the place and context of urban agriculture for sustainable development in the circumstances of urbanization. Such in-depth research of the experience and impact of urban agriculture on sustainable development could increase dynamically due to environmental considerations, aspect of the circular economy, and new paradigms in planning urban and peri-urban areas.

The economy of Latvia lags behind economically developed nations approximately fourfold in terms of labour productivity in the tradable sector, which is the key constituent of a modern economy, thereby affecting future sustainable development in the entire country, including the rural areas. The economic backwardness is characteristic of the entire Central and Eastern Europe. This is the heritage of a communist regime that lasted for about half a century and the economic system termed a (centrally) planned economy or a command economy. However, such a term for the communist-period economy is not correct, as it does not represent the purpose it was created for. Accordingly, the paper aims to assess the effect of the communism period on the economic backwardness of the Central and Eastern European region of the EU. A planned economy that existed in all communist countries, with the exception of Yugoslavia, was not introduced to contribute to prosperity. It was intended for confrontation or even warfare by the communist countries under the guidance of the USSR against other countries where no communism regime existed, mostly Western world nations with their market economies. For this reason, it is not correct to term it a (centrally) planned economy or a command economy; the right term is a mobilised (war) economy. An extrapolation of a geometric progression for GDP revealed that during the half a century, Latvia as part of the USSR was forced to spend on confrontation with the West not less than EUR 17 bln. (2011 prices) or approximately one gross domestic product of 2011. The research aim of the paper is to assess the effect of the communism period on the economic backwardness of the Central and Eastern European region of the EU.