Urban Agriculture as a Tool for Adapting Future Cities

Urbanization, industrialization, and improvements in transportation have meant that most produce (fruits and vegetables) no longer needs to be produced within the cities where they are consumed. It can be more efficient to grow food intensively and on a large scale in rural areas. The separation of agriculture and cities raises issues about energy consumption for transport and massive use of pesticides and fertilizers in rural areas while the loss of farmland reduced food security in overcrowding cities. The benefits of urban agriculture have been attracting more attention in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. While the capacity of urban agriculture is limited yet, it can indeed provide beneficial ecosystem services such as supplying healthy and fresh vegetables to urban dwellers, mitigating heat island and climate change, offering recreational opportunities, and alleviating disaster risks, etc. Japan’s Basic Act on the Promotion of Urban Agriculture, enacted in 2015, recognized the importance of urban agriculture. This chapter will first review the trends and related policies of urban agriculture in Japan, and then introduces the services and functions of urban agriculture in Tokyo from the urban planning perspective.