Research & reports

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.

· 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.

ローカルフードサイクリング株式会社 · ローカルフードサイクリング株式会社 · Japan

The official site of LFC Compost, a bag-based home composting product for kitchen scraps operated by Local Food Cycling Inc., part of the Borderless Group. Users simply 'add' food waste and 'lightly mix' it to compost, with support via LINE chat, balcony-gardening classes, and compost consultation/collection events also offered. Its subscription compost-set product has received 1,016 reviews with a 4.51/5 rating.

Ana Catarina Morais, Akira Ishida · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Japan

This research investigated factors encouraging Japanese households to engage in composting, applying the theory of consumption values (TCV) and evaluating hypotheses using ordinal partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings indicate that household composting in Japan is influenced by social approval, behavior visibility, composting knowledge, convenience, interest in gardening/farming, and individual availability. Factors like emotions, gender, housing type, and household size did not significantly impact composting practice.

Naomi Shimpo, Sakura Yamada · Toshi keikaku hokokushu/Toshi keikaku houkokushuu · Japan (Tokyo)

This paper reports on the establishment of "Harajuku Harappa Farm," a community garden initiated by local residents on approximately 1,500m² of unused national land in central Tokyo. The project overcame barriers to national land use through multi-stakeholder collaboration, featuring experimental, shared, and educational plots with an emphasis on composting and local resource circulation. This case suggests the potential for temporary use of public land for environmental education, community building, and circular resource management in urban areas from an urban planning perspective.

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

A press release from Japan's Ministry of the Environment summarizing FY2023 nationwide municipal solid waste generation and disposal. Total waste generation was 38.97 million tonnes (down 3.4% year on year), the recycling rate was 19.5%, and final disposal volume was 3.16 million tonnes. Of 1,004 incineration facilities, 411 had power generation equipment, generating 10,254 GWh in total.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 新事業・食品産業部 · Japan

Industry-specific targets for food-recycling implementation rates set under Japan's basic policy on promoting the recycling of food-related resources (Food Recycling Act), published March 14, 2025: 95% for food manufacturing, 75% for wholesale, 65% for retail, and 50% for food service.

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 statistical compendium on FY2023 municipal solid waste management. The national waste-flow chart shows total waste generation of 38,974 thousand tonnes and total recycled volume of 7,633 thousand tonnes (recycling rate 19.5%). Of the 6,234 thousand tonnes recycled by municipalities, 119 thousand tonnes (1.9%) went to fertilizer and 6 thousand tonnes (0.1%) to animal feed.

Shigetomi Y., Ishigami A., Long Y., Chapman A. · Nature Communications, 15:8987 · Japan

Demonstrates that per-capita household food waste in Japan rises with the age of the household head, reaching roughly three times higher for those 70+ than for those under 30, with correspondingly large differences in food-waste-related greenhouse gas emissions. It highlights the need for age-targeted food-loss reduction strategies in an ageing society.

東京都国分寺市 · 国分寺市 環境報告書 · Japan

Kokubunji's annual environmental report under the basic environment plan, evaluating urban farmland preservation, local consumption and biodiversity while documenting municipally supported programmes such as the Citizen Agriculture University and citizen farms.

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.

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.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 水管理・国土保全局 上下水道企画課 · Japan

A Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism page on expanding fertilizer use of sewage sludge resources. Of the roughly 2.3 million tonnes of sewage sludge generated annually, about 50,000 tonnes of phosphorus content is present; roughly 1,000 treatment plants put sludge to fertilizer use, but this covers only about 15% of total sludge generated. The 'Food Security Enhancement Policy Package,' decided December 27, 2022, set a 2030 target of doubling fertilizer use of sewage sludge resources/compost and raising the share of domestic resources in phosphorus-based fertilizer use to 40%.

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（2021年5月策定） · Japan

MAFF's 2021 strategy for a sustainable food system, setting 2050 KPIs including a 50% cut in chemical pesticide use (risk-weighted), a 30% cut in chemical fertiliser use, and expanding organic farming to one million hectares — 25% of Japan's cultivated land.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省（みどりの食料システム戦略本部） · Japan

The official portal for MAFF's 'Strategy for Sustainable Food Systems, MeaDRI' (Midori Strategy), decided May 12, 2021. It aims to reconcile productivity growth with sustainability in Japan's food and agriculture sector through innovation, targeting development of key technologies by 2040 and full social implementation by 2050. Interim 2030 KPI targets were decided June 21, 2022.

星野高徳 · 社会経済史学 87巻2号 · Japan

This paper, published in Socio-Economic History vol. 87 no. 2 (2021), examines the transformation of postwar Japan's human-waste (night soil) treatment policy, addressing the coexistence of persistent unsanitary disposal methods and the advance of sewage treatment.

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.

· 農林水産省 · Japan

Materials on the 2019 Noufuku JAS standard certifying foods and ornamental plants produced with the involvement of people with disabilities, raising trust and brand value for agriculture-welfare products via third-party certification; first certifications issued November 2019.

Jiménez-Antillón, J., Calleja-Amador, C., Romero-Esquivel, L. G. · Resources (MDPI), 7(4):84 · Global (Costa Rica; Japan-origin method)

A field study placing the Kitakyushu-origin 'Takakura' composting method—widely diffused in Surabaya, Indonesia—as small portable boxes in university offices and workplaces in Costa Rica. Processing food waste from 45 staff over six months, it shows that low-cost, citizen/workplace-scale fermentation composting is viable.

Shimpo N. · 博士論文 (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Tokyo) · Japan

Doctoral dissertation systematically analysing the historical development of urban-type gardens and agricultural activities in Japan. Traces the emergence and evolution of diverse urban agricultural spaces—allotment gardens, community gardens and the like—forming the basis of Shimpo's later books and papers.

Naomi Shimpo, Toru Terada, Makoto Yokohari · Journal of The Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture · Japan

This study examines the feasibility of organic material circulation from turning increasing vacant lots in suburban Japan into allotment gardens, comparing three scenarios with different degrees of gardenization. Composting experiments identified the composition of organic materials needed to produce usable compost and the amount of compost required to gardenize vacant lots, while a separate analysis determined how many households would need to cooperate in supplying organic materials under each scenario. The study found that the weight ratio of kitchen waste to pruning waste for usable compost was 3:2, and that cooperation from at least 16 households would be needed to produce enough compost to gardenize an average-sized housing lot. It concludes that the scenario limited to existing gardens on vacant lots is feasible for organic material circulation, while the other two scenarios, which assume more extensive gardenization, would require greater understanding among urbanites.