Research & reports

株式会社ネイバーズファーム, 農林水産省 · 農林水産省 農山漁村振興交付金事例 · Japan

Hino case report on opening a farm for neighbourhood markets using national urban-agriculture symbiosis grants and municipal collaboration, linking citizen-farm produce distribution with community building.

かきつ畑プロジェクト推進協議会, 農林水産省 · 農林水産省 農山漁村振興交付金事例 · Japan

Chiryu, Aichi grant case linking local schools to promote urban agriculture, documenting a model of municipal-school-farmer collaboration in experience farms and food education near Nagoya.

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.

大阪府摂津市, 農林水産省 · 農林水産省 農山漁村振興交付金事例 · Japan

Settsu City grant case installing signage for disaster-cooperation farmland, showing a municipal public-support model linking urban farmland's disaster and green functions with conservation of citizen farms.

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.

独立行政法人都市再生機構（UR都市機構） · UR都市機構 西日本支社 ニュースリリース · Japan

A news release from UR (Urban Renaissance Agency) reporting the completion of the PARK BAR facility at 'Minna no Uen PARK Minatogawa' on UR land in Kobe, introducing the farm-plus-park social experiment for community exchange, childcare and welfare.

Kamiyama C., Hori K., Matsui T., Pretty J., Saito O. · Sustainability Science (Springer) · Japan

Using national surveys from 2015 and 2021, shows that more agricultural areas have higher home food production and neighborly sharing, and that interest in home production rose in urban areas after COVID-19—longitudinally demonstrating the multiple benefits of local food systems.

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.

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.

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.

Hua Xu, Miki U. Kobayashi · Journal of Architecture and Planning (Transactions of AIJ) · Japan

A study (2023, Japan) conducted a psychological-evaluation experiment in which participants viewed a 360-degree view of the landscape of rooftop gardens in the Shibuya commercial district of Tokyo, examining the relationship between spatial composition and psychological evaluation. Three axes were first identified from the psychological evaluations of the rooftop garden landscape. For inward-facing rooftop gardens, the comfort factor increased with larger floor area and more plants; for street-facing rooftop gardens, the comfort factor decreased when floor area was small and the view was dominated by buildings, roads, and fences with little vegetation.

· こども家庭審議会（2023年12月1日答申。同年12月22日閣議決定） · Japan

The first guideline under the Basic Act on Children for ensuring every child has safe, secure places to be. It organises place-making around four verbs (expand, connect, refine, review) and directs support to community-run places — children's cafeterias, adventure playgrounds and, by extension, garden-based places.

· 農林水産省 · Japan

MAFF's Q&A on operating the Urban Farmland Leasing Facilitation Act, covering how the certification criteria are applied in practice, how the three-party agreement for allotment gardens is concluded, the interaction with inheritance-tax deferral, and termination procedure — the practical questions the statute alone does not answer.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

On 14 February 2023, Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) reported that, based on a survey of 199 municipalities nationwide, 8,282 ha (89.3%) of the 9,273 ha of Productive Green Zones designated in 1992 — about 80% of all Productive Green Zone area — had been redesignated as Special Productive Green Zones ahead of their 30-year deadline. The remaining 991 ha (10.7%) were not redesignated.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

According to this December 11, 2023 announcement by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, approximately 15.6 hectares of green roofs and 4.4 hectares of green walls were newly installed nationwide in FY2022. Cumulative installations from FY2000 through FY2022 (23 years) reached about 597 hectares of green roofs and 119 hectares of green walls (FY2021 and FY2022 figures are provisional).

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.

Nakamura K., Kojima D., Ando M. · Sustainability (MDPI), 14(6):3174 · Japan

Analyzes nationwide survey data to identify consumer attributes (gender, age, children in the household, safety awareness) and behaviors (checking labels, food management) associated with household food-waste generation and reduction in Japan. It shows that contributing factors differ between large cities, small cities, and rural areas, underscoring the need for region-specific measures.

· 日本地理学会発表要旨集（J-STAGE） · Japan

Academic study surveying productive-greenland owners in Yawata City, Kyoto, on their intentions toward post-2022 urban-farmland policies such as the Special Productive Greenland system and the lease facilitation law.

Zheng H., Akita N., Araki S., Fukuda M. · Land 11(3):333 · Japan

Using 313 allotment gardens drawn from governmental open data, the study classified them by cluster analysis based on number of plots, plot size, contract price and duration, and facilities. It found that allotment-garden provision in Tokyo is differentiated from city center to suburbs by the share of agricultural land and residents' socio-demographic characteristics including population, share of young people, and income levels.

三牧 浩也（柏の葉アーバンデザインセンター 副センター長） · 国土交通省 スマートシティ官民連携プラットフォーム 講演資料 · Japan

A presentation by the deputy director of Urban Design Center Kashiwanoha (UDCK) explaining the public-private-academia town-building of Kashiwanoha Smart City, in which Mitsui Fudosan participates. It outlines the collaboration framework among citizens, companies and universities and the resident-participatory approach centered on health and community.

Lu N., Kikuchi M., Takagaki M. · Plant Factory Basics, Applications and Advances (Elsevier), pp. 271-293 · Japan

Analyzes the business model and cost performance of downtown mini plant factories with artificial lighting, finding their profitability high enough to attract entrepreneurs but highly sensitive to output prices, system acquisition cost and wage rates.