Tokyo Is Japan’s No. 1 Blueberry Producer—Why Urban Farmers Cannot Let Go of Their Fields

Do you know which of Japan’s prefectures harvests the most blueberries?

It is not Hokkaido or Nagano.

Surprisingly, it is Tokyo.

Tokyo harvested about 326 metric tons in 2023, the highest amount in Japan.

Tokyo may bring to mind skyscrapers and residential neighborhoods, but farmland still remains in places such as Nerima, Hachioji, and the Tama area.

Agriculture in Tokyo also operates under circumstances that are slightly different from those in rural areas.

The economic value lies not only in growing crops for profit, but also in keeping farmland classified and maintained as farmland.

Customers Harvest the Blueberries Themselves

Many blueberry farms in Tokyo operate as pick-your-own farms.

Customers visit and pick the blueberries themselves.

When you think about it, this is a remarkably rational business model.

In conventional farming, the farmer harvests the crop, sorts it, packs it into boxes, and ships it. At a pick-your-own farm, the customers do the harvesting themselves.

And they pay for the pleasure of doing the work.

Customers happily pay to perform a task for which farmers would normally have to pay workers.

Of course, maintaining the farm and serving visitors still require work. Even so, this is a business model that is viable precisely because Tokyo has such a large population.

In fact, full-scale commercial blueberry cultivation in Japan is said to have begun in Kodaira, Tokyo.

Rather unexpectedly, Tokyo was a pioneer in blueberry farming.

Are Urban Farmers Wealthy Landowners?

Seeing farms in Tokyo raises another question.

With land prices so high, would the farmers not become extremely wealthy if they simply sold their fields?

Or would they not make far more money by turning the land into parking lots or apartment buildings?

Some farmers do, in fact, earn real estate income in addition to farming income.

This is where taxes become an issue.

Tokyo’s farmland can be covered by a system known as Productive Green Land designation.

As long as certain conditions are met, including the continuation of farming, property taxes remain low because the land is taxed as farmland. The system can also defer inheritance tax payments.

In exchange, owners cannot simply build homes or parking lots whenever they like.

Converting the land requires procedures such as removing its Productive Green Land designation. Once converted, the land also loses its preferential tax treatment as farmland.

In other words, owning the land does not mean being free to do anything with it.

In Tokyo, deciding how to preserve the land can be just as important as deciding what to grow on it.

Farmers Who Want to Quit but Cannot

Inheritance makes the situation even more complicated.

When a farmer uses the inheritance tax deferral available for Productive Green Land, farming must generally continue for a long period.

If the owner stops farming or converts the land, the deferred taxes may become payable.

Someone may inherit a field from a parent without having much desire to farm it.

But that does not mean they can easily quit.

Selling is an option, but Productive Green Land is subject to restrictions on disposal. Even after the designation is removed, the conditions for a sale vary depending on the location and size of the property.

Of course, using the land for housing could generate rental income, so taxes alone do not determine whether a decision is profitable.

Even so, taxes and inheritance have a major influence on whether to continue farming, sell the land, or build rental housing.

Farmland is also generally located in areas with poor transportation access. There is a risk of finding no buyer or being forced to accept a low price.

These concerns sound less like the problems of a farmer and more like those of a real estate manager.

I Began to See Unattended Vegetable Stands Differently

When walking through the outskirts of Tokyo, you sometimes see small unattended vegetable stands beside fields.

Freshly harvested vegetables are displayed beside a payment box. Recently, coin-operated locker-style vending machines have also become common.

After learning about the Productive Green Land system, however, I began to see these stands a little differently.

For farmers, value comes not only from the income generated by agriculture, but also from maintaining the property as farmland.

Looking only at the money earned from selling vegetables and asking, “Can this business really be profitable?” misses the larger picture.

That said, it would be wrong to assume that unattended stands exist merely as a tax-saving measure. Whether farming is genuinely continuing is not determined by the presence or absence of a roadside stand.

Still, urban farming clearly follows an economic logic different from that of large-scale agriculture in rural areas.

Tokyo’s Fields Are Sustained by More Than Agriculture Alone

Tokyo’s farmland also helps preserve green space within residential neighborhoods.

Farmers receive tax advantages, local residents retain green spaces, and the government can protect the urban environment.

It is a remarkably well-designed system.

However, that does not mean everyone who continues farming there is delighted to work in the fields.

Some people want to protect land that has been in their family for generations. Others may continue because of inheritance and tax considerations.

Tokyo leads Japan in blueberry harvests because its enormous urban consumer market can support pick-your-own farms.

And the reason fields continue to survive in Tokyo involves land and taxes that cannot be explained by agriculture alone.

The next time I have an opportunity to go blueberry picking, I will probably find myself thinking about all of this.

Customers enjoy picking blueberries, while farmers preserve their land.

Both sides come away with a harvest.

Then again, the farmer’s greatest harvest may not be the blueberries, but the ability to pass the land on to the next generation.