A Window on Wasted Land

I'm on the commuter train into Shibuya. My neighbours are young executives - smart suits, tired, vacant expressions.

Outside, the landscape rolls by, a sprawling wasteland, overgrown and forgotten. Fifteen years ago, this was neat fields and bright crops, a charming patchwork of countryside, delightful to look at.

 When the Rice Ran Out

Today, two out of every three calories consumed in Tokyo come from overseas. One bad harvest, like 2024's heatwave, and prices double overnight. Households had to spend a staggering 28.3% of their budgets on food – the highest percentage in decades.

Japan’s agriculture relies on ageing farmers, subsidies, and mega-cooperatives. Small plots are kept alive, but innovation is lacking. The whole system is one bad harvest or one shipping crisis away from collapse.

The summer of 2024 felt exceptional. It wasn’t. Stronger typhoons, erratic rainfall, and heatwaves have become a new pattern.

Meanwhile, decades of intensive farming have quietly worn out the soil in many regions. The ecosystems that once supported agriculture have been simplified almost out of existence.

That adds to Tokyo residents’ worries: if domestic production can’t withstand the next extreme year, reliance on imports only grows, and the cycle repeats.

Someone far away grows the food. It arrives shrink-wrapped at the konbini. The person who bought it has no idea who grew it, or how, or at what cost. Nobody in this chain trusts anyone else. Nobody owns the whole picture. And everyone, quietly, feels powerless.

A short train ride from Shibuya or Shinjuku sits thousands of hectares of underused or abandoned farmland and fragmented satoyama. These lands aren’t “wilderness” - they’re the living remnants of a system that once fed communities and supported rich ecosystems.

Urban sprawl, rural depopulation, and a lack of successors are steadily reducing the number of people able to work the land. Projections suggest that, in the near future, up to 30% of farmland around Tokyo may be left without cultivators.

Yet these lands represent an enormous missed opportunity: fertile soil, existing water infrastructure, and proximity to millions of potential participants who crave the very reconnection many people are seeking.

 

Satoyama Reborn: Our Hands in the Soil

“On the third week, something shifts. You stop checking your phone. You start recognising people by name. You begin to look forward to Saturday morning in a way you didn’t expect.”

The farm sits 30 minutes from Shibuya by train, on fragments of underused farmland and degraded satoyama. The skyscrapers thin out to two-storey houses, then to fields broken up by car parks and convenience stores. It is not a commercial farm. No profit, no preservation of a dying tradition. A group of twenty-three urban families has begun sharing the work of feeding themselves.

The three hectares of land belong to everybody and no one in particular. It is a patchwork of vegetable plots, a rice paddy, an herb garden, and satoyama woodland at the edges. It follows an older logic: produce what you need, conserve what sustains you, share what remains.

In early spring, kyōdō sagyō begins at dawn. The group is diverse: office workers in business casual, young families with children, and retired farmers in their workwear. Some bring experience; others bring energy. They start early in the morning, before commuters have to leave, and form small teams to work on different plots.

The structure is simple, almost unremarkable, and that is why it works.

It's not a holiday. Your back aches. Your knees are muddy. But there's a rhythm to it that your office chair never gave you. After a few months, it all begins to feel like part of your everyday life. 

 During quieter months, they weed and water in the evenings after work. Weekends bring the whole group out. On those days, they can tackle larger projects, such as repairing irrigation ditches or thinning woodland.

 At harvest time, they pick what has grown, sort it on-site, and celebrate by dividing the produce and sharing a simple communal dinner in the field.

 Shared tools are kept in a communal shed. Hoes, irrigation hoses, and a rotary tiller were brought together three years ago. Knowledge is passed on person-to-person: farmers teach planting; office workers handle the spreadsheets.

 

They schedule work around office hours, either before or right after. They rotate weekly, sometimes seasonally. Rotations follow gojo, the ancient art of mutual aid. City dwellers typically contribute several hours a week. If someone can't make a shift, others cover. No negotiation needed.

 

Once a month, they meet in the evenings, either in person or online, to settle crop choices, schedules, and whatever the season throws at them. Decisions are made by consensus, or, when that stalls, by a show of hands. Still, every member’s perspective is heard and respected.

Harvests are weighed and portioned according to the hours contributed or shared equally among families. Surplus is composted or donated to local school lunches and community events.

The result is a steady routine. Everyone knows their schedule and what they will receive. Bad weather, succession worries, and debt are no longer challenges for a lone farmer. Households, in turn, worry less about supply shocks.

Across these routines, a few structural effects begin to appear. These are not unique to this farm, but arise from the way land, labour, and responsibility are organised.

 

No One Carries It Alone

First shift is that nobody bears the risk alone. If a crop fails, the loss is shared -  which means it's no one's catastrophe.  

The second thing you notice is that the land belongs to everyone and to no one in particular, so the work stays sustainable: no single person burns out, and fresh people keep arriving with fresh energy.

Finally, the produce is distributed predictably and locally - participants know what they'll receive and when, which removes most of the anxiety that market prices used to create.

Things change when you know the person who grew your lunch. The supermarket cucumbers make you wonder: how did they become so uniform? The farm’s radishes make more sense, since you pulled them yourself last Friday. 

The farm has not replaced your urban life: it exists alongside it. Farm and office events share the same calendar on your smartphone. How food is grown, by whom, and at what cost - none of this is invisible any more. And that, not efficiency, is exactly what makes the system stable.

 

Same Tracks, New View

In the morning, many of the people who work these fields board the same commuter trains back towards the city. From the window, the land they tend now looks different - not an abandoned margin anymore, but part of a system they participate in and understand. Food production has not been optimised or outsourced. It has simply been brought back into view.