Research & reports

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.

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.

Bean Casey · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · Japan

This paper discusses the current status of the KIT Community Garden project, an honors project at Kanazawa Institute of Technology that began in 2016. The project aims to improve members' English language skills, gardening knowledge, environmental awareness, and establish a deeper connection to the community. The paper covers the garden's state, design principles, recent changes, feedback from current members, and outstanding challenges.

Rushi Wang, Shigeto YANAI · Land · Japan

This study surveyed school garden managers at public elementary schools in an urban area of Japan to analyze school garden characteristics and influencing factors. Findings indicated that school gardens inside schools offer better safety but less community connection, while external school farms provide more agricultural experience space. Schools with both types showed stronger community ties but decreased safety, and a notable lack of budget, teachers, supportive policies, and manager motivation was observed in operating school gardens.

Benjamin Schrager, Hiroki Ikeda, Takahashi Yukitsugu · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Japan

This article explores Utsunomiya University’s Eco-programs, which combine a pesticide-free community garden with an educational series, using ethnographic data. Findings indicate tensions between the Eco-programs' agroecological goals and other institutional goals at the university. Despite these conflicts, the programs provide a space for agroecological gardening and serve as an example of an alternative agricultural initiative in Japan.

瑞樹 荒毛, 昌弥 菊地, 明日風 清水, 洋一 松本, Mitsuyoshi KISHIGAMI · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · Japan

With the public "Cooperative Agricultural Extension Program" in Japan facing growing budget and staffing constraints, and prior research pointing to a need for JA (agricultural cooperative) farm-guidance services to compensate for or substitute it in scale and function, this study (2023, Japan) examined JAs that administer urban agriculture through a review of statistical data, interviews with farm-guidance staff, and content analysis of disclosure publications from three Osaka Prefecture JAs, assessing the current state and potential of their farm-guidance services as a substitute provider. The analysis found that even for urban-type JAs, which can relatively easily build market-driven production and sales models, their farm-guidance services remain unable to adequately compensate for or substitute the public extension program in scale and function.

練馬区 · 練馬区 調査報告書 · Japan

Final report of Nerima's review panel building on the World Urban Agriculture Summit, organising directions for publicly supported urban agriculture under four pillars — circulation, environment, fairness and collaboration — including farmland conservation, agriculture-welfare links, ward allotments and outreach.

新保 奈穂美 · 世田谷区 都市農業関連研究報告 · Japan

Analyses Tamaribatake, a community garden piloted under Setagaya's proposal-based partnership programme, clarifying conditions that secure participants' freedom without rigid rules and offering operational insight for municipally supported community farms.

横浜市 環境創造局農政推進課 · 横浜市 市民調査報告 · Japan

Results of Yokohama's e-survey on citizen farms, capturing user motivations, satisfaction and challenges as baseline data for municipal policy improvements including the citizen-farm map and stronger outreach.

福岡市 · 福岡市 農林業総合計画 · Japan

Agriculture chapter of Fukuoka's five-year comprehensive plan, covering subsidies for citizen farms, experience farms and refresh farms plus Agrichallenge and other municipally supported urban agriculture measures.

厚 板谷, 大輔 野上, 公文 佐藤 · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · Japan (Asahikawa)

This study, involving 20 preschool children from one kindergarten in Asahikawa city, Japan, examined how diversifying snow surfaces in a school garden affected physical activity intensity during winter outdoor play. Five trials were conducted in December and January-February. Activity intensity in snowy mountains was more prominent in the December control trial (less snow) than in the January-February experimental trials, but various play promotions increased activity in rough snow.

Hiroyuki Tsunashima · Impact · Japan

Dr. Hiroyuki Tsunashima of Osaka Metropolitan University, Japan, leads a project linking agriculture and social welfare to provide job opportunities for socially disadvantaged individuals. The project involves clients working on farms under the supervision of social welfare staff, emphasizing autonomous skill acquisition and holistic practices. This initiative draws from the Teikei movement, a community-supported agriculture system in Japan, to facilitate the process through food and farmer-consumer partnership experiences.

Mariia Ermilova, Mitsunari Terada, Isami Kinoshita · · Japan (Tokyo)

From March 2016 to 2021, a five-year action research project was conducted in Matsudo, a Tokyo suburb, Japan, by two PhD students from Chiba University in collaboration with a local neighborhood association. Through cultivating culturally significant plants like herbs, vegetables, and flowers, and utilizing them for crafts and cosmetics, local women, the elderly, and children developed new skills, gained financial support, and social confidence. These activities expanded from edible landscape cultivation in planters to the creation of eight gardens, providing alternative forms of community participation.

Shimpo N. · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems (Wiley), 6:e20015 · Japan

A case study of a suburban-Tokyo community garden that collects neighborhood kitchen waste and returns it to the soil as compost, forming a local food cycle. It documents how the bottom-up founder sustained the garden, provided work opportunities for people with disabilities and food-education for children, and built links with welfare facilities, kindergartens, and schools.

農林水産省 農村振興局農村計画課都市農業室 · 農林水産省（都市農地活用支援センター セミナー資料） · Japan

A Ministry of Agriculture briefing on the current state and policy trends of urban agriculture. It summarises trends in urban farmland area, productive/specified-productive green space, measures under the Urban Agriculture Promotion Act, and initiatives toward diverse functions such as citizen farms, experience farms and agriculture-welfare collaboration — a baseline reference for municipalities designing urban-agriculture policy.

世田谷区 · 世田谷区 検討報告書 · Japan

Setagaya's review report from its urban-agriculture and farmland-conservation PT after the 2022 productive-green-area issue, outlining the current state and future direction of publicly supported urban farmland use including buy-out conservation, agriculture-welfare collaboration, ward allotments and community farms such as Tamaribatake.

Kana Nakatsuka · Journal of Rural Problems · Japan (Higashi-Osaka City)

Higashi-Osaka City implemented the "Farm Mileage2 Campaign" to promote urban agriculture, collaborating with food business operators to jointly develop agricultural products. As a result, residential areas of consumers preferring ethical foods expanded based on the shipping destinations of food business operators. The movement also fostered events for food and agriculture education, promoting understanding of urban agriculture rather than just leisure. Many urban residents were found to desire agriculture near their homes.

· 農林水産省ほか（2021年3月決定、掲載: 厚生労働省） · Japan

The national plan under the Basic Act on Shokuiku for FY2021-2025, with three priorities (lifelong health, sustainable food, the 'new normal' and digitalisation) and 24 indicators, including expanding hands-on agriculture, forestry and fishery experience.

日本経済新聞 · 日本経済新聞（Nikkei） · Japan

A Nikkei report on Nomura Real Estate partnering with JA Setagaya-Meguro to launch, in November 2020, a monthly subscription 'urban experience farm' for home gardening on over 2,000 sqm of productive green land in Setagaya. With about 200 plots of 3.6 sqm where residents and citizens take part from planting to harvest, it highlights how supported rental farming links the preservation of shrinking urban farmland with citizen participation in agriculture.

Tomoko Imoto, Nobutaka ISHITSUKA, Cheligeer, Kiyohide Morita · JOURNAL OF RURAL SOCIETY AND ECONOMICS · Japan

This study investigated allotment garden use among child-rearing generations in Japan, identifying preferences for "free space (play area)," "staff to answer questions," and "events." A questionnaire survey of first-grade parents revealed a high potential demand for allotment gardens, with preferences for lower fees, play areas, cultivation guidance, and events. However, an analysis using a cross-effect model found a disconnect between preferences for garden use and food preferences, as those who buy domestic products generally did not value events, indicating a "food-agriculture gap."

Yumiko Fujiwara, Kaoru Matsuo, Shigeaki TAKEDA, Hiroyuki KAGA · Proceedings of The City Planning Institute of Japan Kansai Branch · Japan

A literature review and interviews with resident-led edible landscape initiatives in Japan examined the role of edible landscape in regional revitalization. Edible landscape was found to have taken on a comprehensive regional-revitalization role encompassing food security, educational effects, economic effects and community regeneration. Across the process from planting to eating edible plants, the edible theme appeared able to draw in collaboration with public bodies, businesses and resident groups beyond existing local community ties.

Machida D. · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(8):1389 · Japan

A web-based cross-sectional survey of community-dwelling older adults in Japan examined links between community or home gardening and health-related indicators. Gardening with others was significantly associated with exercise habits, physical activity, vegetable intake and neighborly connections, and with higher subjective happiness and sense of purpose, supporting gardens as a means to counter isolation among the elderly.

国土交通省 都市局 公園緑地・景観課 · 国土交通省（MLIT）報告書 · Japan

A Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism casebook compiled to advance both compact urban structure and the 'coexistence of cities with green and agriculture'. It catalogues urban-farming and green-space initiatives — including resident-participation rooftop gardens, allotments and farming-led town-making by private developers and municipalities — and provides the policy backdrop for developer cases.

世田谷区 · 世田谷区 農業振興計画 · Japan

Setagaya's ten-year agricultural promotion plan adopted in 2019, setting basic policies and concrete measures for municipal urban agriculture including citizen farms and contact farms using the Urban Farmland Lease Facilitation Act, agriculture-welfare collaboration and sixth-industry support.

横浜市 環境創造局 · 横浜市 都市農業推進計画 · Japan

Yokohama's urban agriculture promotion plan, linked to the Midori Up programme, organising policies and results for publicly supported citizen farming infrastructure including diverse citizen farms, cultivation experience farms, harvest farms and Megumi-no-Sato districts.