In highly urbanized Japan, city farmers are key to achieving organic goal

Japan’s urban farmers are also more likely to diversify their business, such as by engaging in direct sales and creating hands-on farming events or volunteer opportunities, strengthening their ties with the local community.

By Jeremy Hance
Mongabay
April 11, 2024

Excerpt:

The train to the farm rose from Tokyo’s labyrinthine subway network, revealing a hodgepodge of gray and tan buildings stretched on either side. The world’s largest metropolitan area, better known for crushing rush hours and gleaming lights, seemed an unlikely place for anyone to be growing organic vegetables.

But only a few minutes’ walk from the station, past apartment buildings and convenience stores, the Hasune Farm was buzzing with life (especially its beehives). The owners and volunteers moved between a produce stand-slash-workspace and rows of late-winter produce. When the people weren’t looking, brown-eared bulbuls (Hypsipetes amaurotis) darted into the field to find a morsel. Behind the workspace stood rainwater tanks and a nursery for seedlings. Between the rows of vegetables, grasses and groundcovers grew alongside their edible counterparts.

The Hasune Farm is one glimpse of a possible future for urban agriculture in Japan. The Japanese government aims to convert at least 25% of all farmland to organic by 2050, a significant jump from just 0.5% in 2020. (Globally, 1.6% of farmland was organic as of 2021.)

The pockets of agriculture in Tokyo are key examples of how Japan could achieve its goal. In recent years, Tokyo farmers, community members and administrators have been working to make such farmland a valuable part of the urban environment through promoting agroecology, such as low-carbon, circular food economies and biodiversity.

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