Hands-on experience
Not just watching — getting your hands in the soil
Touching soil, tending and harvesting delivers learning and satisfaction that knowledge alone cannot. Experience events and harvest festivals work both as an entry point for participation and as a pillar of operations.
631 related cases
Cases where this shows up
Umeda Honeybee Project
JPOsaka, Japan
Launched Osaka's first urban beekeeping on the rooftop of the Yanmar Building in Umeda's Chayamachi district in March 2010. Rather than honey itself, its aim is promoting local greening through bee pollination and providing food and environmental education. It has expanded with an experience-based apiary in Hattori Ryokuchi park.
u-mitsubachi.com+3
pick! nic! farm, rooftop of Suma Patio shopping centre, Kobe
JPKobe (須磨区), Japan
A multi-generational community garden on the rooftop of the Suma Patio shopping centre in Suma Ward, Kobe. Rather than simply growing vegetables, it treats "eating" as a year-round, whole-cycle experience, with regular hands-on workshops. Weeds and plant residues from the rooftop beds and workshops are composted and returned to the garden's planters and to nearby fields, closing a small local resource loop.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+2
Mitsui no Sumai LOOP x JA Setagaya-Meguro Experience Farm
JPSetagaya, Tokyo, Japan
In 2020 Mitsui Fudosan Residential launched, via its Mitsui no Sumai LOOP membership service and with JA Setagaya-Meguro, an experience-farm and harvest-event program. On a roughly 6,000 sqm farm near Sakurajosui Station, members take part in actual farming from sowing to harvest; one winter-vegetable harvest event drew about 400 groups.
mitsuifudosan.co.jp+2
Konan Agream Fureai Citizen Garden
JPTakamatsu, Kagawa, Japan
A citizen garden inside the 5-hectare 'Konan Agream' farming-exchange facility near Takamatsu Airport, where residents rent about 50 m2 for roughly 10,000 yen a year. Through harvest and cooking experiences it lets people touch rural life and acts as a food-education and community hub.
agream.net+2
Kagoshima City Urban Agriculture Center Citizens' Farm Zone
JPKagoshima, Kagoshima, Japan
An about-30-ha urban agriculture centre opened by Kagoshima City in 1997, divided into training, citizens'-farm and interaction zones. Residents who rent plots in the citizens'-farm zone deepen agricultural understanding, health and exchange through workshops and fruit-harvest experiences.
city.kagoshima.lg.jp+2
Busan Citizens Park Urban Farming Experience
KRBusan, South Korea
Citizen-participatory urban-farming experiences within Busan Citizens Park, opened in 2014 on land returned from the former U.S. military base Camp Hialeah. An agriculture-themed forest and experience gardens host activities such as rice planting and harvesting.
rda.go.kr+1
Supporting research
Long-term effects of a school-based experiential nutrition education intervention
A study of the long-term effects of a school-based experiential nutrition education intervention that incorporates hands-on experiences such as farm visits and cooking workshops.
· 2024 · Health Education Journal
Curriculum Development for Organic Horticulture: Introduction
A US report on the growth of organic agriculture and resulting pressure from students and the public for new curricula tailored to the sector. It notes that more students from cities with limited production-agriculture backgrounds are enrolling in agricultural programs and demanding curricula grounded in agroecology principles and experiential training, and summarizes a workshop that brought together experts from universities across the country working on different organic and sustainable agriculture curricula to share experiences and lessons learned. Most curricula combine traditional classroom teaching, a major experiential component, a student farm for hands-on training and internships, and in some cases a marketing component typically built around Community Supported Agriculture (CSA); other programs are more extension-oriented, offering applied training to growers outside the university curriculum.
Mathieu Ngouajio, Kathleen Delate, Edward E. Carey et al. · 2006 · HortTechnology
Assessment of Agritourism Potentials of Mudchute Farms, Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom
A study evaluated the agritourism potential of Mudchute Park and Farm, an urban farm in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom, using a mixed-methods approach that combined qualitative assessment of the farm's existing infrastructure and programming with quantitative analysis of its plant and animal biodiversity (2025). Structured data was used to model potential offerings such as educational programs, hands-on workshops and thematic tours. The farm's collection of rare-breed animals and native and cultivated plant species was identified as a base for development, and the study proposed recommendations including a farm-to-fork culinary experience, expanded seasonal festival programming, and leveraging the farm's position as a rural site within a major city.
Kolawole Farinloye, Grzegorz M. Józefaciuk, Samson O. Ojo et al. · 2025 · Journal of Natural Resource Conservation and Management
横浜都市農業推進プラン
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.
横浜市 環境創造局 · 2019 · 横浜市 都市農業推進計画