Research & reports

佐藤 光泰 · NOMURA Food & Agri Business Review Vol.14 · Japan

A Nomura Securities Food & Agri Business white paper presenting revenue simulations and cross-sell strategies for rental-farm businesses as urban agriculture entry opportunities for real estate and service firms, discussing private developer kitchen-garden business models.

一般財団法人都市農地活用支援センター · 都市農地活用支援センター 事例集 · Japan

A 2024 casebook on urban farmland use after the 2022 productive-green-area milestone, compiling 40 national examples including UR housing-district Kleingarten, rooftop farms, and private vacant-land community gardens, organizing latest private developer and corporate entry trends.

川崎市 · 川崎市 行政規程・実施要綱 · Japan

Kawasaki's implementation guidelines for city-established and city-managed citizen farms, defining land leasing under the Special Farmland Lease Act, plot recruitment and use conditions as the official basis for municipally operated rental gardens.

横浜市 環境創造局 · 横浜市 都市農業振興基本法に基づく地方計画 · Japan

Yokohama's latest five-year local plan under the Urban Agriculture Promotion Act, organising policies for sustainable farming, farmland preservation, citizen farms, harvest experiences and local consumption building on Midori Up and Megumi-no-Sato programmes.

Chika Takatori, Yulu ZHENG, S.M. Asik Ullah · Urban and Regional Planning Review · Japan

This research proposed a spatial design framework for urban open and green spaces in Japan, focusing on urban agriculture amidst a declining and aging farming population. The study first analyzed and mapped the supply of land available for urban agriculture using GIS, population mesh data, and interviews. Secondly, it calculated and mapped the spatial distribution of demand for urban agriculture based on surveys and statistical information. Finally, a framework was constructed to compare, evaluate, and match the supply and demand of urban agriculture.

Runan Yang, Hironori Yagi · Cities · Japan (Tokyo)

A study investigated the occupational values of 89 certified urban farmers in Tokyo using both Likert scale and Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) methods. Analysis revealed that farmers highly prioritized relationships with consumers, while values related to nature and the environment were less emphasized. The BWS method offered deeper insights into farmers' values, uncovering subtleties that Likert scales may obscure.

Ahmya Ayaka, Fujita Hanako, Hide Haruka · Techno Agriculturae Studium of Research · Japan

This study explored the impact of verticulture technology on urban agriculture in Japan using a mixed-methods approach, including field experiments, farmer surveys, and production record analysis. The findings indicated that verticulture technology significantly improved crop yields by up to 30% per square meter and reduced water usage by 50% compared to traditional urban farming. It also lowered greenhouse gas emissions and minimized land use, demonstrating its potential for enhancing food production efficiency and sustainability in urban settings.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 · Japan

According to Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, farmland is classified into general farmland and urbanization-area farmland for fixed-asset tax purposes. General farmland is valued by comparable sale prices and taxed as farmland; urbanization-area farmland is generally valued at a rate comparable to residential land (minus development-cost equivalents), with 'general urbanization-area farmland' taxed similarly to farmland and 'designated urbanization-area farmland' taxed like residential land. Urbanization-area farmland (excluding productive green space) gets a one-third taxable-value reduction, and a burden-adjustment mechanism applies adjustment rates of 1.025, 1.05, 1.075, or 1.1 depending on whether the prior year's burden ratio was 0.9+, 0.8–0.9, 0.7–0.8, or below 0.7.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 · Japan

This MAFF document chronicles the institutional history of urban farmland policy in Japan. The 1968 City Planning Act (Showa 43) defined 'urbanization promotion areas' (shigaika kuiki) as areas that should be urbanized preferentially and systematically within roughly 10 years. In 1970 an Agricultural Land Act revision changed farmland conversion in these areas from a permit system to a notification system, and in 1972 fixed asset tax began being assessed at residential-land rates on farmland there. The 1974 Productive Green Space Act (Seisan Ryokuchi Ho) exempted farmland designated as productive green space from that residential-rate taxation, and a 1975 inheritance-tax deferral system (with a 20-year deferral period) was created. In 1991, the tax deferral for the three major metropolitan areas' designated cities was narrowed to apply only to productive green space.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

MLIT's national survey of rooftop and wall greening construction results for FY2023 found about 15.7 hectares of new rooftop greening (roughly three Tokyo Domes) and 5.0 hectares of new wall greening that year, bringing the cumulative totals since FY2000 to about 615 hectares of rooftop greening and 125 hectares of wall greening. The survey was mailed to 560 companies nationwide with 284 responses (a 50.7% response rate).

環境省 · 環境省 (Ministry of the Environment, Japan) · Japan

On 21 June 2024, Japan's Ministry of the Environment published its estimate of national food loss for FY2022 (Reiwa 4), totaling approximately 4.72 million tonnes (2.36 million tonnes from businesses, 2.36 million tonnes from households), down about 510,000 tonnes from FY2021's 5.23 million tonnes (2.79 million business, 2.44 million household). The government's goal is to halve food loss by FY2030 relative to FY2000 levels.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan) · Japan

On 21 June 2024, Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries announced that business-sector food loss for FY2022 fell to 2.36 million tonnes, meeting the national target of halving business food loss from the FY2000 baseline of 5.47 million tonnes to 2.73 million tonnes by FY2030. This is a decrease of 430,000 tonnes (15.4%) from the prior year's 2.79 million tonnes.

内閣府 · 内閣府 · Japan

A nationwide survey report on Japan's specified nonprofit corporations (NPO houjin), published by the Cabinet Office in March 2024 and covering fiscal 2023. It tabulates corporate profiles (location, year of establishment, age and gender of the representative), activity (field of work, volunteer numbers, problems faced, partnerships with companies, international activity), accounting, disclosure and digitalisation practices, and financial realities such as main income sources, borrowing and membership-fee revenue, separating certified from non-certified corporations. Responses are organised into seven regional blocks from Hokkaido-Tohoku to Kyushu.

一般財団法人 日本民間公益活動連携機構 · 一般財団法人 日本民間公益活動連携機構（JANPIA） · Japan

JANPIA's evaluation guideline for the intermediary distribution organisations, activity-support organisations and executing organisations that deliver Japan's dormant-deposit-funded programmes, first issued in July 2019 and revised in May 2024. It sets out the basics and purpose of evaluation within the dormant deposits scheme, who evaluates and when, and the governing principles, then devotes a separate chapter to social impact evaluation and its structure. The document shows how evaluation is built into every tier of the funding chain as a condition of the money.

Kishimoto K., Yan W. · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (Cambridge), 38:e54 · Japan

Quantitatively classifies roughly 430 registered allotment gardens in Tokyo by number of plots, plot size, price, contract duration, and facilities, mapping their spatial distribution and providers. Most allotments were founded after 2000 and are owned by local governments, yet demand for plots exceeds supply across much of the metropolis.

神戸市 · 内閣府地方創生推進事務局（地域再生計画認定） · Japan

A regionally certified revitalization plan that Kobe City submitted to the Cabinet Office. Building on the Gastropolis Kobe 2020 vision, it sets KPI targets for local-food consumption, exchange population, new farmers and food-business startups through programs such as EAT LOCAL KOBE, farmers markets, citizen and tourist farm experiences, and student-farmer product development.

Nakajima Y., Akita N. · 都市計画論文集 58(3):767-773 · Japan

Addressing urban farmland repositioned from 'land to be converted to housing' to 'land that should exist' under the 2015 Urban Agriculture Promotion Plan, the study examines how municipalities should strategically position productive green areas and operate the purchase-request system to preserve them, using Setagaya Ward—an early adopter of such purchases—as a case study.

松井 崚, 栗山 尚子, 水野 優子 · 日本都市計画学会関西支部研究発表会講演概要集 21巻 pp.49-52 · Japan

Typologizes private-sector housing-district regeneration including Daiwa House's Livnest Town project (Midorioka Neopolis), showing that in developer-responsibility types, firms lead diverse initiatives such as community hubs and cultivation businesses.

株式会社Tryfe, 農林水産省 · 農林水産省 農山漁村振興交付金事例 · Japan

Fukuoka case report on using MAFF grants for exchange markets linking urban farmers and citizens, promoting local food and interest in citizen and experience farms with municipal collaboration.

一般社団法人KOBE FARMERS MARKET, 農林水産省 · 農林水産省 農山漁村振興交付金事例 · Japan

Kobe grant case report on youth-oriented farmers markets using urban agriculture function grants, documenting city-farmer-civic collaboration to secure urban farmers and activate citizen farms and direct sales.

神奈川県 · 神奈川県 調査報告書 · Japan

Kanagawa prefectural tabulation of citizen farms by municipality — including 285 in Yokohama and 64 in Kawasaki — enabling comparison of public, cooperative and farmer-led setups across the prefecture.

川崎市 経済労働局 都市農業振興センター · 川崎市 調査報告書 · Japan

Kawasaki status report on farmland area, producers, productive greenbelts, tourism farms, citizen farms and regional exchange farms, quantifying small-scale urban production and publicly supported experience farms.

Ryo Sakurai, Takuro Uehara · Sustainability Science · Japan (Kyoto)

A contingent-valuation study at Ritsumeikan University, Japan, measuring the monetary value students place on student-led farming activities using double-bounded dichotomous-choice surveys of 375 students in 2016 and 356 in 2020, comparing each respondent's own willingness to pay (WTP) with the value they inferred other students would pay. In 2016 mean WTP was ¥1,613.6 (median ¥1,101.3) against a mean inferred value of ¥1,056.6 (median ¥742.4); in 2020 mean WTP was ¥2,376.8 (median ¥1,408.8) against ¥1,814.5 (median ¥1,150.6). Confidence intervals overlapped in both years, so the differences were not statistically significant, indicating less social-desirability bias than earlier research found. Estimated total utility was about ¥2.51 million, enough to fund the student-led agricultural project. Limitations: a single institution, no examination of the mechanisms behind inferred values, and hypothetical rather than actual donations.

王 文倩, 大島一二 · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · Japan

A paper on the Kashiwabara House Grape Shippers Association, a member organization of JA Osaka Nakakawachi in Japan, examines what activities the member organization undertakes to demonstrate the cooperative's organizational strength, its functions and issues, and its future direction, based on a review of prior research and field interviews. JA Osaka Nakakawachi has natural conditions suitable for agricultural production but has been strongly affected by the urbanization of Osaka Prefecture; as a result, its agricultural management has developed in the form of urban agriculture, with farmland and management scale considerably smaller than the national average. Its main agricultural products are vegetables and fruit trees such as grapes.

Kiminami L., Furuzawa S., Kiminami A. · Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science (Springer), 6(2):541-569 · Japan

Uses a mixed-methods approach to clarify how shared value is created in Japan's urban agriculture, focusing on the cognitive innovation of social entrepreneurs and urban residents' perceptions and behaviors. It argues that multifunctional urban farming can generate combined social, economic, and environmental co-benefits.