We’re in Tokyo, a city of skyscrapers that poke above historic temples, and yet here’s a new version of a very old idea – farming, and not just any old area of the city, but upon the rivers and canals that snake through it. Our boats are gliding along canals lined with floating gardens that seem like a bucolic slice of farm life transported from the countryside. Whether or not that’s the intention, the boats are full of city slickers who have come to share their ideas about urban farm life, their affinity for nature, and ideas for taking these floating farms into the future. This is an excerpt from my blog post Finding the Future in Tokyo’s Floating Gardens. You can view the complete blog at: https://www.ttbo.net/blogs/founder-blog/finding-the-future-in-tokyos-floating-gardens
Tokyo’s Agricultural Challenges and Innovative Solutions
Dense urbanisation, lack of space, high prices of real estate and rapid urbanisation have, over the years hindered agricultural ventures in any city, let alone Tokyo – but necessity is the mother of inventions. Tokyo responded with floating gardens.
Floating gardens make use of Tokyo’s underutilised urban spaces: transforming rooftops and waterways into flourishing agricultural sites, perched above the city’s workhorse (02:13-02:18). Leveraging the cutting-edge of technology and sustainable practice, they pioneer new ways of farming that overcome many of the traditional restrictions of agriculture. Using things like hydroponics and aeroponics, these gardens grow produce without soil, helping to accommodate food production in constrained urban spaces.
Rooftop Gardens in Tokyo
Rooftop gardens are sprouting up in cities such as Tokyo, and tiny urban spaces are being converted into densely planted oases in the sky, the concrete jungle given a breath of verdant air. Elevated gardens in cities bring a host of benefits to local communities and the wider environment, providing fresh produce, reducing the urban heat island effect, and cleaning the air.
Success Stories in Rooftop Gardening
Correspond reports on the success of a number of rooftop garden projects in Tokyo: Around the corner from Tokyo’s busiest train and subway station, at the base of the city’s skyscraper-lined business district, stands Midori. run by entrepreneur Harumi Hayashi … Here, fruits and vegetables grow on the harvest sold to a range of nearby restaurants and eateries. Midori.so represents one of the most dynamic and pioneering examples yet of the potential of rooftop gardens to bolster urban food systems.
Another is the Tokyo Skytree’s Soradofarm, an urban agriculture project on the 4th floor of the Tokyo Skytree, the world’s tallest freestanding tower. This local, organically farmed and hand-processed fertiliser and rainwater for irrigation.
The Technology Behind Floating Gardens
A complex technology and science goes into building and maintaining floating gardens, based on the ancient practice of hydroponics – the cultivation of plants in nutrient enriched water instead of soil. This technology is eco-friendly because it conserves water, and does not require the use of chemical fertilisers.
Floating gardens use aeroponics, delivering nutrients directly to plant roots through a mist or aerosol. The system reduces the need for water, and helps the plants grow. It is an ideal technique for urban agriculture in the Japanese capital.
Design Considerations for Waterway Gardens
Designing waterway gardens is no easy task; they require an experienced engineer to take into consideration buoyancy and water flows that a new set of plants and water plants can handle. Good design also requires the use of sustainable materials and innovative designs that reduce ancillary environmental impacts while increasing productivity.
Floating Gardens’ Role in Sustainable Food Production
Sustainable food production from floating gardens reduces food miles When food is moved from one place to another, it incurs food miles. Generally, food production in one region is transported to the region where it will be consumed, carrying the carbon footprint with it. Thus, local food production, such as from floating gardens, reduces the food miles and the carbon footprint of food production. It also enhances food security around the globe by providing local and fresh a region’s dependency on imported food. Consuming local food also makes the region more resilient to occurrences of climate change, such as disruptions in transportation or food imports.
Worldwide, floating gardens hold enormous potential for future cities. The scalability of this technology means that food can be grown in almost any context, while the modular and movable nature of such gardens allows the same land to be used for both agricultural and urban purposes. In addition to the benefits of food security, space efficiency and environmental stability, the installation of floating gardens is known to improve urban biodiversity and mitigate the urban heat island effect.
Insights from Tokyo’s Urban Gardeners
That said, the partial success of Tokyo’s floating gardens should not conceal the extent to to the devotion and enthusiasm of the local urban who have delved into the exploration of growing crops where nature doesn’t seem to welcome them, and who have shared their endeavours and know-how with those eager to establish an urban farming start-up.
That Keiko Yamada, a rooftop gardener with Yakitate Uchida, told me, in the end, what stuck with her was the community more than if u don’t feel loved people become depressed, and if u don’t try ur heart u can’t plant big vegetables.’ ‘Floating gardens are not about vegetables,’ she tells me the next day. ‘They’re important, sure, but they’re about community. They say: “I am here. I belong here.” In a city like Tokyo, it can be terrifying. Sometimes you have to gain presence. You want to feel in the loop. You want to feel like you’re part of the city.’
‘echnology’ – elsewhere defined as ‘the integration of a rooftop – is a key facet of our endeavor, as it enables us to plant a also shown the younger generations the excitement of farming.’ These rooftop agricultural engineers are often revered by the media as urban pioneers and received the covetous prize of Global Sustainability: Young Entrepreneurs Award (2010) from UNESCO. Hiroshi Tanaka is an agricultural engineer.
Conclusion
As a portent of what might arise in many cities to solve food supply problems and reconnect urban dwellers with their food, Tokyo’s floating gardens are worth rooting for.
While Tokyo’s floating gardens may seem exotic to urban gardeners, sustainable foodies and travellers and food writers like me, they (and scaled-up versions from elsewhere) could become a model for the rest of the world. Theyve for efficiency, and they are environmentally responsible.
Another idea? Seek out experts or community workshops focused on sustainable urban farming. Local knowledge shared amicably can make all the difference.