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Abstract
Urban and peri-urban vegetable production and marketing systems have the potential to contribute to poverty reduction, food and nutritional security, local economic and community development, social inclusion of marginalized groups and women in particular, as well as to enhance urban environmental management by increasing biodiversity and the productive reuse of organic wastes. This project looked at 4 components of the overall food system: Smallholder vegetable producers, community gardeners, markets, consumers and street vendors. To better understand the linkages and importance of each of these components a so-called pilot Collaborative Research Environment (CRE) was developed. The core of the CRE consists of a central, spatially enabled database and a range of associated tools for distributed data entry, for remote and real-time monitoring of the incoming data, for data analysis, and last but not least for data presentation. The tools include the required Geographic Information System (GIS) functionality for spatial analysis and map-based visualization. In the pilot study the data included in the CRE comprises empirical data from different sources such as questionnaires and surveys, spatial information on production areas in relation to vegetable diversity as well as information on producers, traders and consumers. Some results of study concerning the different target groups show that: The producer survey shows the importance of market demands and prices influencing the decisions on which kind of crops and vegetables are grown. Other important factorshere are farmers’ skills and habits as well soil and water conditions. All those are strongly interrelated. Plant diseases and pests as well as climate and weather conditions are identified as major challenges for the vegetable producers. However, 47% of the producers produce more than ¾ of their self-consumed vegetables. For the community gardeners’ urban gardening in Bangkok is not about food security in thesense of essential food provision: More than 70% of the interviewees never face difficulties in providing enough food for their family and around 20% rarely do, mainly because of poor harvests. However, a lot of the interviewed people refer to the problem of chemical pollution of market vegetables. Wholesale markets play a big role for the food security in the Greater Bangkok. About 52% of products from Si Mum Muang Market stay in the Bangkok Metropolitan Area and 85% in the Greater Bangkok Area (including surrounding provinces). Many products come from the North and Northwest of Thailand but aconsiderable share is also grown in the periurban area around Bangkok. A number of perishable products like e.g. lettuce and kale are mostly grown in the proximity of the megacity. This once again proves the importance of periurban agriculture for food security in Bangkok. More than 70% of the local markets and over 50% of street vendors and restaurants buy at wholesale markets Si Mum Muang and Talad Thai. Regarding consumption the survey identifies clear differences between men and women. Vegetables are eaten by 65% of male and 80% of female participants. 41% of the male and 51% of the female interviewees eat fruits. For milk products the distribution can be grouped into 32% male and 41% female consumers. 65% of menand 70% of women eat meat minimum every day. Fish/seafood are eaten 24% by menand 28% by women. It is noticeable that women are consuming all food groups more frequently. Other differences get obvious looking at different age groups. It gets clearthat food habits are changing. Regarding food purchase and consumption, local markets are of extraordinary importance in Bangkok. The most common challenge for consumers in vegetable usage is the price.