Research & reports

川崎市 · 川崎市 農業振興計画 · Japan

Draft outline of Kawasaki's agricultural promotion plan showing over 120,000 sqm of citizen farms, Farmers Club experiences and local-food promotion via "Kawasaki Sodachi" through municipality-JA collaboration.

Guolin XU, Shigeto YANAI · Japanese Journal of Landscape Architecture · Japan (Yokohama City)

This study investigated the utilization characteristics of agricultural activity spaces in urban parks, focusing on parks with allotment gardens in Yokohama City, Japan. Using the line transect method for behavioral observation, the study identified user characteristics and types of use. The results indicated that establishing agricultural activity spaces within urban parks promotes park use among older adults, may contribute to functional specialization by providing targeted health promotion and recreational functions for the elderly, and increases visitors’ length of stay.

Kenjiro MATSUURA, Hana Yamaguchi, Maya HAIJIMA, Keibi KA, Toshiya HIROE · AIJ Journal of Technology and Design · Japan

This action research reports on the Nishi-Chiba Urban Farming (NUF) project, a community garden spanning public and private land on both sides of sidewalks. Findings suggest that considering multiple sites and starting small before gradual expansion is effective, and early relationship-building facilitated collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Local residents positively evaluated NUF, with participants valuing agricultural learning, community engagement, and social interaction.

Taira KAGAMI, Yoshiyuki Uchikawa · 農村計画学会誌 · Japan

A study of Minowa Town, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, investigating the attributes of allotment garden users and how former users progressed toward independent home vegetable gardening on farmland. Set against an increasing proportion of nonfarmers in the rural population and rising demand for allotment and home vegetable gardens, Minowa Town established an allotment garden with a beginner-level cultivation course and also encourages residents to lease farmland for vegetable gardening. The study found that user attributes were diverse, comprising both landowning nonfarmers and relocators who had newly leased farmland — a combination not reported in earlier studies — and that some former users continued to cultivate their own land or newly leased fields after completing the gardening course. Based on these findings, the study concludes that rural allotment gardens serve a different role from existing urban gardens: providing a place for landowning nonfarmers to learn vegetable cultivation for use on their own fields, and providing relocators an opportunity to acquire farmland and establish home vegetable gardens, suggesting that in rural areas where farmland is relatively accessible, allotment gardens can help expand home gardening within local communities.

Mitsuhito HOSAKA, Mitsuyo UEMATSU, Hironori Yagi · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · Japan

A 2026 qualitative longitudinal case study interviewed nine farmers in Tokyo who use real-time image sharing (RTIS) for direct-sales marketing, assessing their information resources, market orientation, and firm performance before and after adopting RTIS. It finds that RTIS use helps farmers accumulate information resources and subsequently adopt a more market-oriented approach, with shipping efficiency improving especially among farmers who initially had limited information resources but some degree of market orientation. Farmers also developed process innovation integrating information resources and market orientation, and those who adopted process innovation after RTIS implementation saw improved farm stand sales through optimized shipping.

· 農林水産省 農村振興局 農村政策部 都市農村交流課 · Japan

MAFF's compendium on noufuku renkei (agriculture-welfare linkage): its current state, policies and cases. Defines it as work that builds confidence and purpose for people with disabilities through agriculture, and documents its widening scope to older people, those in economic hardship, people experiencing social withdrawal, and offender rehabilitation. Includes farm-workforce trends, disability population and employment figures, and cases of welfare providers entering farming.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 大臣官房 新事業・食品産業部 外食・食文化課 · Japan

A portal page from Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) that links to yearly estimates (from FY2008 onward) of annual food waste generation and food recycling implementation rates. It explains the estimation method — combining mandatory reports from businesses generating 100+ tonnes/year with estimates for smaller businesses — and links to each fiscal year's detailed PDF or e-Stat data.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 大臣官房 新事業・食品産業部 · Japan

MAFF's FY2024 estimate of food waste generation and food-recycling implementation rates across Japan's food industry. Total annual generation was 14.634 million tonnes (up 2.6% year on year), with an overall recycling implementation rate of 91% (98% for manufacturing, 63% wholesale, 65% retail, 35% food service). By end use, 76% of recycled material became animal feed and 14% became fertilizer.

環境省 · 環境省 環境再生・資源循環局 廃棄物適正処理推進課 · Japan

Japan's Ministry of the Environment survey results, published March 27, 2026, on FY2024 nationwide municipal solid waste generation and disposal. Total waste generation was 38.11 million tonnes (down 2.2% year on year), the recycling rate was 19.3%, and final disposal volume was 3.06 million tonnes. The number of incineration facilities fell to 991, while those with power generation equipment rose to 415, generating 10,448 GWh in total.

国税庁 · 国税庁 · Japan

For inheritance and gift tax purposes, Japan's National Tax Agency values 'productive green space' land as the ordinary land valuation minus a set discount rate. For productive green space not yet eligible for a buy-back request, the discount rises with the time remaining until eligibility — from 10% at five years or less up to 35% for more than 25 up to 30 years. Land that has already had a buy-back request submitted, or is eligible to, gets a flat 5% discount.

国土交通省都市局 · 国土交通省 都市局 都市計画課・公園緑地・景観課 · Japan

MLIT's Urban Bureau guide (April 2026 edition) explains the Productive Green Zone and Special Productive Green Zone systems and the municipal designation procedure. Productive Green Zones require at least 500 m² of urbanization-area farmland (reducible to 300 m² by local ordinance); as of 31 December 2025, 52,955 zones covering 10,613 ha were designated nationwide. Special Productive Green Zone designation must occur before the 30-year mark from the original zoning notice; once designated, the earliest date an owner can request a buyout is deferred by 10 years, renewable repeatedly with owner consent. In the three major metropolitan areas, parcels not redesignated shift to residential-land property taxation via a phased relief schedule (0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8 of the tax base increase in years one through four).

東京都都市整備局 · 東京都都市整備局 · Japan

This official page from the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Urban Development (last updated May 26, 2026) explains Tokyo's productive green zone (seisan ryokuchi) system: designation requires a plot of at least 500 sqm (reducible to 300 sqm by municipal ordinance, with contiguous plots eligible if each is at least 100 sqm), imposes a 30-year farming obligation, and grants tax benefits (agricultural-rate property tax and inheritance tax deferral). It also explains that because zones designated in 1992 under the revised law reached the 30-year mark in 2022, the "specified productive green zone" system (created by a 2017 law amendment) allows landowners to extend the tax benefits and buyback-request window by another 10 years.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

This Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) page is an index of PowerPoint-format reference materials on Japan's city planning system, organized by topic — planning law and structure, land-use planning (including the urbanization-promotion/control-area division and district plans), urban facility planning, urban greening (including farmland conservation), development permits, and location optimization. Details of specific systems, including the urbanization area/control area division, reside in the linked documents rather than on the page itself.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

This MLIT page indexes data resources on urban farmland in Japan — current farmland area (including area within urbanization-promotion zones and productive green space), the list of designated cities in the three major metropolitan areas subject to special urban farmland rules, the status of productive-green-space designations, area trends over time, and designation status of 'specified' productive green space, most updated as of end-December Reiwa 7 (2025). The specific figures themselves reside in the linked source documents, not on this index page.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 農村振興局農村政策部農村計画課都市農業室 · Japan

Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) organizes urban agriculture's roles into six functions: fresh produce supply, farming-experience/exchange opportunities, disaster-prevention open space, green/landscape space, national land and environmental conservation, and food/agricultural education. In a survey of urban residents, about 50% recognized urban farms' role in supplying fresh produce and about 60% expressed interest in buying local produce, while only about 30% saw urban farms as a place for farming experience or exchange. 'Disaster cooperation farmland' — an arrangement re-recognized after the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake — involves municipalities signing voluntary agreements with farmers to use urban farmland as evacuation space or temporary-housing sites during disasters.

三鷹市 · 三鷹市 · Japan

Mitaka City's greening subsidy covers up to half the actual cost of rooftop greening work, capped at 20,000 yen per square meter (with a combined cap of 1 million yen for rooftop and wall greening together). Wall greening is subsidized up to 10,000 yen per square meter, and street-facing greening up to 14,000 yen per meter. Applicants must obtain approval before starting work, and sites that received the subsidy within the past five years are ineligible.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 · Japan

This MAFF page explains that community gardens (shimin nouen) in Japan can be established by municipalities, agricultural cooperatives, landowning farmers, or non-landowning entities such as companies and NPOs, under three legal frameworks: the Community Garden Development Promotion Act, the Specified Farmland Lease Act, and the Urban Farmland Lease Act. It is primarily procedural guidance for prospective operators, with a FY2026 explanatory pamphlet available.

台東区 · 台東区 · Japan

Taito Ward partners with Daimaru Matsuzakaya and Local Food Cycling to sell subsidized home compost containers and run collection events for circular food-waste use. Over the one-year period from December 2024 to November 2025, the ward reports about 5.4 tons of food waste reduction and about 2.6 tons of CO2 reduction.

· Wikipedia (ja) · Japan

Japanese department store rooftop amusement parks trace back to Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi's 'aerial garden' in 1907, with Japan's first permanent rooftop amusement park, 'Sportsland,' opening at Matsuya Asakusa in November 1931. They peaked from the mid-1950s through the late 1960s, but declined after department store fires in 1972 and 1973 led to a revised Fire Service Act requiring half of rooftops to be kept as evacuation areas; as of 2023, only five stores—Matsuzakaya Takatsuki, Matsuzakaya Nagoya, Daiwa Korinbo, Iyotetsu Takashimaya, and Hamaya Department Store—still operate one.

· Wikipedia (ja) · Japan

The Ginza Honeybee Project began on March 28, 2006, keeping Western and Japanese honeybees on Ginza building rooftops, producing and selling honey-based sweets, cocktails, and soap, greening over 1,000 sqm of rooftop space, and providing environmental education to local kindergartens and schools. Honey production grew from 150 kg in 2006 to 800 kg in 2009, and an agricultural production corporation, Ginza Mitsubachi, was established in 2010.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 都市局公園緑地・景観課 · Japan

This MLIT Urban Bureau page introduces rooftop and wall greening promotion measures implemented annually since fiscal 2000. As of the end of March 2008, rooftop greening in Tokyo's Kasumigaseki government district reached about 14,500 sqm (roughly 55 tennis courts), equivalent to about 1.5% of all rooftop-type greened area in Tokyo. It notes a rooftop garden was open to the public until August 19, 2021, after which it was scheduled for removal due to waterproofing layer repair work.

· Wikipedia（日本語版） · Japan

The Japanese Wikipedia article on rooftop greening traces its origins to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon around 600 BCE, and in Japan cites the 1934-built Asakura Museum of Sculpture as a surviving early example, with Nihonbashi Takashimaya among the pioneers from the late 1960s onward. It lists effects including heat island mitigation, improved insulation, sound reduction, increased water retention, air purification, and improved landscape, dividing methods into lightweight thin-layer greening using sedum or lawn versus full garden-style greening with flower beds and shrubs.

· Wikipedia · Japan

This Wikipedia article on night soil describes how, in the city of Edo, compost merchants gathered feces to sell to farmers, and that human excreta of rich people were sold at higher prices because their better diet presumably left more nutrients in it. Various historic documents detailing toilet-waste disposal procedures date from as early as the 9th century. The article states that after World War II the practice declined rapidly due to sanitation concerns and the spread of chemical fertilizer, and that today less than 1% of human waste is used for night soil fertilization.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 · Japan

This Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) page explains Japan's key laws on citizen farms. The Act on Special Measures Concerning the Lending of Specified Farmland, enacted in 1989, created Farmland Act exceptions for short-term lending of small subdivided plots, and a 2005 amendment allowed entities other than local governments and agricultural cooperatives to open citizen farms. The Act on Promotion of Citizen Farm Development, enacted in 1990, promotes farms equipped with facilities such as tool sheds and rest areas, while the 2018 Act on Facilitation of Lending of Urban Farmland makes it easier to lease urban farmland (productive green land) for citizen farms.

東京都産業労働局 · 東京都産業労働局 · Japan

The official page of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Industrial and Labor Affairs. The division describes its role as promoting production and infrastructure development in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries to raise profitability, while also providing spaces for education and recreation and contributing to countermeasures against global warming; the page links to related policies, press releases, and statistics for agriculture, fisheries, and forestry.