For urban farmers working on sites adjacent to residential areas, not only sales at typical farmers’markets but also other forms of direct sales can be important, depending on their personal circumstances. Mobile farmers’markets are a form of direct sales that involves the following steps : the farmer loads agricultural produce into a truck, travels to more than one site per day, and sells agricultural produce to customers face-to-face. Such mobile farmers’markets are noteworthy, as they can potentially meet the needs of consumers who have limited access to shopping facilities, a growing problem in recent years. Thus far, no study has investigated the efficiency of this practice by farmers in urban areas, the location of sales territories, and the suitable conditions for supporting this practice.
Therefore, in this study, I seek to clarify the suitable conditions for mobile farmers’markets by analyzing sales strategies and the location of sales territories. The subjects of my investigation in 2012 included eight farmers who lived in or adjacent to Urbanization Promotion Areas in Japan (the City Planning Act defines Urbanization Promotion Areas as those urban areas that have already been formed and where urbanization should be implemented preferentially and in a well-planned manner approximately within the next 10 years). As of 2012, six of these farmers continued working in mobile farmers’markets and two did not. These farmers were located in Kanagawa Prefecture.
The following are the sufficient conditions for mobile farmers’markets in urban agriculture.
(1) A farmer travels to several sections within 4.8 kilometers of his/her home, and the total number of households live in these sections is over 14,000.
(2) A farmer travels to many sites in the section where the number of households is 600 or more, household density is above 4,000 households/square kilometers, and the ratio of households with people 65 years and older is 19％ or more.
(3) A farmer travels to several sites where the nearest fruit and vegetable store is more than 400 meters away and the difference in elevation between the site and the store is 10 meters or more.
(4) A farmer travels to many sites (from 40 to 60 places) on certain days of the week, has many customers (from 150 to 240), and achieves a sales turnover of over JPY 13,000 per working hour.
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