Sustainability of Agriculture and Urban Quality of Life in Japan : Economic Efficiency, Sociality and Environment Protection

Abstract

Urban agriculture in Japan has the problems such as reduction in farmland, aging of farmers, expansion of abandoned cultivated land and environmental pollution by stock raising waste or agricultural chemicals. Similarly, urban side has various social and environmental problems as well, for instance, the problems of garbage, river management, food safety, natural environment, etc.Function of urban agriculture is not only to supply agricultural goods but also to create landscapes, to ensure land conservation and sustainable management of renewable natural resources and to provide environmental benefits such as conservation of biodiversity. Therefore, urban agriculture can contribute to improve urban quality of life through supplying local public goods.Sustainability of urban agriculture is composed of three elements, i.e.: economic efficiency, sociality and environment protection. The relative importance of three elements changes along with regions and times, and the balance among them is always called for. The contribution of agriculture to the urban quality of life links to the sustainability of urban agriculture.Therefore, the sustainability of urban agriculture can be realized by building cooperative and bidirectional relations between the urban residents who highly concern about agriculture, food safety and environmental issues and the farmers who concern about sociality and environment protection.JEL classification: I31, Q15, Q56, R14