Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(7), 748; doi:10.3390/ijerph14070748
Post-Disaster Food and Nutrition from Urban Agriculture: A Self-Sufficiency Analysis of Nerima Ward, Tokyo
1
Graduate Program in Sustainability Science—Global Leadership Initiative, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 133-8654 Chiba, Japan
2
Department of Natural Environmental Studies, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 113-8654 Tokyo, Japan
3
Department of Urban Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 113-8654 Tokyo, Japan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 24 May 2017 / Revised: 28 June 2017 / Accepted: 7 July 2017 / Published: 10 July 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Public Health and Disasters)
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Abstract
Background: Post-earthquake studies from around the world have reported that survivors relying on emergency food for prolonged periods of time experienced several dietary related health problems. The present study aimed to quantify the potential nutrient production of urban agricultural vegetables and the resulting nutritional self-sufficiency throughout the year for mitigating post-disaster situations. Methods: We estimated the vegetable production of urban agriculture throughout the year. Two methods were developed to capture the production from professional and hobby farms: Method I utilized secondary governmental data on agricultural production from professional farms, and Method II was based on a supplementary spatial analysis to estimate the production from hobby farms. Next, the weight of produced vegetables [t] was converted into nutrients [kg]. Furthermore, the self-sufficiency by nutrient and time of year was estimated by incorporating the reference consumption of vegetables [kg], recommended dietary allowance of nutrients per capita [mg], and population statistics. The research was conducted in Nerima, the second most populous ward of Tokyo’s 23 special wards. Self-sufficiency rates were calculated with the registered residents. Results: The estimated total vegetable production of 5660 tons was equivalent to a weight-based self-sufficiency rate of 6.18%. The average nutritional self-sufficiencies of Methods I and II were 2.48% and 0.38%, respectively, resulting in an aggregated average of 2.86%. Fluctuations throughout the year were observed according to the harvest seasons of the available crops. Vitamin K (6.15%) had the highest self-sufficiency of selected nutrients, while calcium had the lowest (0.96%). Conclusions: This study suggests that depending on the time of year, urban agriculture has the potential to contribute nutrients to diets during post-disaster situations as disaster preparedness food. Emergency responses should be targeted according to the time of year the disaster takes place to meet nutrient requirements in periods of low self-sufficiency and prevent gastrointestinal symptoms and cardiovascular diseases among survivors.Keywords:
urban agriculture; disaster; preparedness; vegetable; nutrition; emergency; self-sufficiency; public health
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).
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Sioen, G.B.; Sekiyama, M.; Terada, T.; Yokohari, M. Post-Disaster Food and Nutrition from Urban Agriculture: A Self-Sufficiency Analysis of Nerima Ward, Tokyo. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14, 748.
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