Research & reports

Akiko Iida, Toru Terada, Kazuaki Tsuchiya, Tadashi Yamaguchi, Makoto Yokohari · Urban forestry & urban greening · Japan

Using Tokyo — where urban and agricultural land use have long been intermixed — as a case study, mailed questionnaires and in-person semi-structured interviews with urban farmers examined how community-scale composting of urban-forest green waste is integrated into commercial urban agriculture (2024, Japan). About one-third of professional urban farmers still produced compost, mainly from leaf litter, to improve soil quality, and had adapted to urbanization by sourcing leaf litter beyond their own woodlands from neighboring urban forests within a few kilometers, including parks, schools, and shrines. While urbanization has drastically altered the physical landscape, farmers have carried this intangible composting system forward for hundreds of years by retrofitting it, though the study found farmers are motivated by economic rather than environmental reasons. The authors conclude that decentralized composting works effectively in commercial urban agriculture where waste supply and demand sites are geographically close, and call for further research on scaling up waste recycling through urban agriculture.

· 農林水産省 農村振興局 · Japan

Certifications under the Urban Farmland Leasing Facilitation Act as of end-March 2024, with prefecture and municipality breakdowns. Read alongside the end-March 2025 tally, it gives the year-on-year trajectory of the scheme.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 · Japan

Guidance published by Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) in July 2024, anticipating increased use of biodegradable plastic bags for household food-waste collection. It requires that such bags be removed, or sufficiently decomposed so their breakdown products do not inhibit crop growth, at composting and biogas facilities.

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.

千島土地株式会社 · 千島土地株式会社 · Japan

Chishima Land Co. launched the 'Kitakagaya Creative Farm Project' in 2011 in Suminoe Ward, Osaka, and opened 'Minna no Uen Kitakagaya' (Farm No. 2, at Kitakagaya 5-2-29) the following year, 2012. Conceived as a way to activate vacant land for community revitalization, the urban farm combines art and agriculture and emphasizes communication among participants; it is currently operated by the general incorporated association Goodluck.

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.

東京都 · 東京都例規集 · Japan

Article 6 of the enforcement rules for the Tokyo nature protection ordinance sets the detailed greening standards: ground-level greening must cover 0.2-0.35 times (site area minus building footprint), depending on site size (Appended Table 2); building-top (rooftop) greening must cover 0.2-0.35 times the rooftop area (Appended Table 4); street-facing greening ratios range from 3/10 to 8/10 (Appended Table 3); and planting density is set at 1 tall tree, 2 medium trees, and 3 shrubs per 10 sqm. Enacted in 2001, most recently amended in March 2024.

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).

東京都環境局 · 東京都環境局 · Japan

In 2024, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Bureau of Environment named the Ginza Honeybee Project (an NPO started in spring 2006) as an Excellence Award winner in the first Tokyo-NbS Action Award. The organization supplies honey gathered within a 2 km radius to department stores and restaurants as a local product, and also grows sweet potatoes on rooftops (processed into shochu), cultivates plants used for washi paper, and runs environmental education programs; in 2024 honey production reached about 2.7 tonnes and roughly 18,000 people took part in hands-on programs.

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.

Iida A., Yamazaki T., Hino K., Yokohari M. · npj Urban Sustainability 3:4 · Japan

Focusing on Tokyo, the study quantitatively verified how access to local food through urban agriculture relates to residents' subjective well-being, physical activity, and food-security concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic. It showed that walkable-distance urban agriculture supported community health and food-system resilience.

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.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省（令和5年9月策定） · Japan

The core strategy of Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism aiming to mainstream and 'build in' green infrastructure across all sectors with the public and private sectors working in tandem. It sets out seven perspectives—collaboration, community, technology, evaluation, finance, global and digital—and positions a broad range of spaces, including urban farmland and everyday greenery, as multifunctional green social infrastructure for stormwater management, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, health and community.

Shigita Gentaro, Tran Phuong Dung, Pervin Mst. Naznin, Duong Thanh-Thuy, Imoh Odirich Nnennaya, Monden Yuki, Nishida Hidetaka, Tanaka Katsunori, Sugiyama Mitsuhiro, Kawazu Yoichi, Tomooka Norihiko, Kato Kenji · Breeding Science, 73(3): 263-275 · Japan

Genotyping-by-sequencing of 755 melon accessions in the NARO Genebank identified ~39,000 SNPs to clarify genetic relationships and population structure and to construct a World Melon Core Collection, supporting conservation and use of genetic resources.

Miyagi R. · Journal of Science Education (Japan), 63(3):645–654 · Japan (Okinawa)

Six months of observation in a public kindergarten class (age 5) in Okinawa during plant cultivation in the garden and shared field. Analyses how teachers' personifying talk supports children's empathy and learning about plants—practical insight for kindergarten gardening and food education.

Hénaff E., Najjar D., Perez M., Mason C., McMeekin P. · Environmental Microbiome, 18:23 · United States (Brooklyn) / Australia / Italy / Japan

A pilot using three rooftop beehives in Brooklyn, NY, comparing hive substrates (honey, debris, swabs, bee bodies) to map surrounding urban metagenomes, then extending to hive debris from Sydney, Melbourne, Venice and Tokyo. Each city shows a distinct metagenomic profile, positioning rooftop beekeeping as a tool for reading the urban environment.

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.

多摩地域都市農業振興協議会, 農林水産省 · 農林水産省 農山漁村振興交付金事例 · Japan

Case report on using the Rural Revitalisation Grant (urban agriculture function measures) to build an urban-agriculture community network around Hachioji in the Tama area through a regional council supported citizen and experience farms.

農と親しみ江東区の共生社会を考える協議会, 農林水産省 · 農林水産省 農山漁村振興交付金事例 · Japan

Grant case study creating a children's farm-contact space in Toyosu, Koto Ward, using urban farmland creation support — a report on ward-council-business collaboration for vacant-land farming, food education and an inclusive community.

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.