Abstract
A significant natural disaster such as urban earthquake may deprive substantial numbers of people access to food or the means to prepare food. To mitigate nutritional risk and possible food panic resulted from the striking of earthquake, local governments encourage every household to stockpile food and water for at least three days.
This paper assesses the supply of emergency food stored at household level, and identifies socio-economic factors affecting households' decision-makings on emergency food preparation. We conducted a large scale survey in Sendai City, Miyagi, where earthquakes of magnitude 6 or above have been occurring periodically.
The results show that only 16 percent of the respondents keep a three-day supply of emergency food as recommended and that nearly 30-40% of the respondents are projected to be food insecure when lifeline utilities become unavailable. Emergency foods are more likely to be prepared by those (1) who take other prevention activities, (2) who live in a house, (3) who are concerned about earthquake disaster, and (4) who are careful about nutrition and health in an ordinary diet.
To strengthen local food supplies in emergency, the involvements of local community and food related industry would be needed in anti-disaster management, thereby making food system more invulnerable to natural disaster.
