A quantitative assessment of vegetable farming on vacant lots in an urban fringe area in Metro Manila: Can it sustain long-term local vegetable demand?

Abstract The aim of this study was to quantitatively assess vegetable production and consumption in an urban fringe area in Metro Manila, the Philippines. We conducted field investigations into vegetable production at a farm within a subdivision, monitored customers for 1 week at the farm's vegetable stand, interviewed customers of the stand, and conducted household monitoring and interviews to identify purchasing behavior. We also conducted an object-based WorldView-2 image analysis of a larger area to identify current and potential future vegetable farming plots and a spatial analysis using GIS to visualize the vegetable production/consumption ratio. We found that about one-third of current vegetable demand could be supplied by greater promotion of vegetable farming in vacant lots and by setting up more vegetable stands at spatial intervals less than 1-km. Subdivision regulations also influenced vegetable farming because of the level of social acceptance of caretakers of vacant lots. The current planning and institutional framework does not consider social contexts in land use and planning. We suggested that a new framework is necessary; it should consider balancing the formation of social capital and formalize planning and institutional procedures to support sustainable local vegetable production.

[1]  B. Ilbery,et al.  Distribution of local food activity in England and Wales: An index of food relocalization , 2006 .

[2]  E. Schlecht,et al.  Cross-Location Analysis of the Impact of Household Socioeconomic Status on Participation in Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture in West Africa , 2011, Human ecology: an interdisciplinary journal.

[3]  I. Malaque,et al.  Urbanization process and the changing agricultural landscape pattern in the urban fringe of Metro Manila, Philippines , 2007 .

[4]  M. Bail,et al.  Can farmers extend their cultivation areas in urban agriculture? A contribution from agronomic analysis of market gardening systems around Mahajanga (Madagascar) , 2011 .

[5]  C. P. Heidkamp,et al.  ‘Food desertification’: The loss of a major supermarket in New Haven, Connecticut , 2011 .

[6]  S. Brunn.  Gated minds and gated lives as worlds of exclusion and fear , 2006 .

[7]  E. Fèvre,et al.  Population-dynamics focussed rapid rural mapping and characterisation of the peri-urban interface of Kampala, Uganda , 2010, Land use policy.

[8]  Sara S. Metcalf,et al.  Growing Buffalo’s capacity for local food: A systems framework for sustainable agriculture , 2011 .

[9]  Andy Jones,et al.  An Environmental Assessment of Food Supply Chains: A Case Study on Dessert Apples , 2002, Environmental management.

[10]  Albert K. Chong,et al.  Object-Based Classification of Ikonos Imagery for Mapping Large-Scale Vegetation Communities in Urban Areas , 2007, Sensors.

[11]  Akinobu Murakami,et al.  Organic Waste Management and the Potential of its Local Recycle Use in the Suburbs of Metro Manila , 2009 .

[12]  S. Mann,et al.  Acting under spatial restrictions: success factors of German local food-marketing networks , 2010 .

[13]  Almudena Hospido,et al.  Testing the assertion that ‘local food is best’: the challenges of an evidence-based approach , 2008 .

[14]  Atsushi Tsunekawa,et al.  Trends in urbanization and patterns of land use in the Asian mega cities Jakarta, Bangkok, and Metro Manila , 2005 .

[15]  R. Honda,et al.  Impacts of housing development on nutrients flow along canals in a peri-urban area of Bangkok, Thailand. , 2010, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[16]  Y. Yamamoto,et al.  Quantitative assessment of the Japanese “local production for local consumption” movement: a case study of growth of vegetables in the Osaka city region , 2013, Sustainability Science.

[17]  Sarah Taylor Lovell,et al.  Mapping public and private spaces of urban agriculture in Chicago through the analysis of high-resolution aerial images in Google Earth , 2012 .

[18]  Satoru Okubo,et al.  Urbanization linked with past agricultural landuse patterns in the urban fringe of a deltaic Asian mega-city: a case study in Bangkok , 2005 .

[19]  Alberto Zezza,et al.  Urban agriculture, poverty, and food security: empirical evidence from a sample of developing countries. , 2010 .

[20]  D. Midmore,et al.  Supplying vegetables to Asian cities: is there a case for peri-urban production? , 2003 .

[21]  Peng Gong,et al.  Integration of object-based and pixel-based classification for mapping mangroves with IKONOS imagery , 2004 .

[22]  K. Takeuchi,et al.  Landform transformation on the urban fringe of Bangkok: The need to review land-use planning processes with consideration of the flow of fill materials to developing areas , 2008 .

[23]  K. Takeuchi,et al.  Beyond Greenbelts and Zoning: A New Planning Concept for the Environment of Asian Mega-Cities , 2000 .

[24]  Tao Chen,et al.  Identification of trace element sources and associated risk assessment in vegetable soils of the urban-rural transitional area of Hangzhou, China. , 2008, Environmental pollution.

[25]  A. Graves,et al.  Reducing greenhouse gas emissions with urban agriculture: A Life Cycle Assessment perspective , 2013 .

[26]  Hirotaka Matsuda,et al.  Mixed land-use planning on the periphery of large Asian cities: the case of Nonthaburi Province, Thailand , 2010 .

[27]  Chart Chiemchaisri,et al.  Municipal solid waste flow and waste generation characteristics in an urban—rural fringe area in Thailand , 2009, Waste management & research : the journal of the International Solid Wastes and Public Cleansing Association, ISWA.

[28]  H. Shaw.  Food deserts: towards the development of a classification , 2006 .

[29]  P. Carney,et al.  Impact of a Community Gardening Project on Vegetable Intake, Food Security and Family Relationships: A Community-based Participatory Research Study , 2012, Journal of Community Health.

[30]  F. Chaloupka,et al.  Field validation of secondary commercial data sources on the retail food outlet environment in the U.S. , 2011, Health & place.

[31]  Patricia Gober,et al.  Per-pixel vs. object-based classification of urban land cover extraction using high spatial resolution imagery , 2011, Remote Sensing of Environment.

[32]  Tracy L. DeLiberty,et al.  Local food practices and growing potential: Mapping the case of Philadelphia , 2011 .

[33]  K. Takeuchi,et al.  Distribution, Amount and Institutional Backgrounds of Green Spaces Prepared within Subdivisions in the Urban Fringe of Bangkok , 2009 .