The Reality of Food Deserts in a Large Japanese City and Their Resolution Using Urban Agriculture

Abstract

The term “food desert” is a disadvantaged area with relatively poor physical and/or economic access to fresh food. Consumers in a food desert have difficulty accessing food retailers and nutritious food, so they may potentially have health risks from their limited physical access to fresh food. Currently, food deserts have occurred in many developed countries: the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This paper surveys whether food deserts have formed in a large Japanese city, Hodogaya ward in Yokohama City. To estimate how many people were in a food desert, we used GIS to map the precise locations of local food stores and residents: the food desert map. As a result of GIS analysis, roughly 78,000 people have poor access to fresh food, including 17,000 or so aged 65 years and over. This means that up to 35 % of residents in Hodogaya ward live in a food desert. Then, this paper proposes new resolution that utilizes local resources: urban agriculture and produce stand. To test the effectiveness of urban agriculture, we made the produce stand location map and estimated how many people in the food desert had easy access to fresh food from produce stands. As a result of this calculation, approximately 25,000 people, 5,500 of them elderly, can alleviate their limited access to fresh food using a nearby agricultural outlet. Therefore, urban agriculture can be effective against food deserts: urban agriculture is referred to as an “agri-oasis” against a food desert.