b. 1944 · Japan
進士五十八 / Isoya Shinji
Landscape scholar; advocate of 'environments with farming'; former president of Tokyo University of Agriculture
He argued, again and again, for the meaning of restoring 'landscapes with farming' to the city.
Isoya Shinji (born 1944) is a landscape scholar with a doctorate in agriculture from Tokyo University of Agriculture, where he also served as president. He has chaired the Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture and the City Planning Institute of Japan, among other roles.
He systematised an environmental and landscape scholarship grounded in farming, consistently arguing for the value of 'environments with farming' — at once places of production, scenery, ecology, education and community. His view of repositioning agriculture within urban and green-space planning influenced Japan's debates on urban farming and green policy.
His idea of seeing urban farmland not as land-in-waiting for development but as an environmental foundation for life and culture resonates deeply with the conservation of productive green land and the promotion of urban agriculture.
Key contributions
- Proposed 'environments with farming,' positioning agriculture within landscape and city planning
- Led debates on green space and urban farming as head of Japan's landscape and planning societies
- Underpinned the significance of urban farming and green-space conservation from academia