I was wondering if anyone on here gardens or farms and raises there own food? Also are there very many homesteads and smaller non factory farms in Japan?
I think you should be able to rent some space at some green houses or farmland, but how that exactly goes you might want to wait for other members to reply on this.
I do garden (tomatoes/herbs/chilli and okay, technically I'm more weeding support), but just not in Japan. The lack of response is probably more to do with the demographics on the forum than any reflection of the popularity of gardening in Japan.
Blogmura includes categories like プランター菜園、屋上・ベランダ菜園、市民農園. That last term along with 市民ふれあい農園, 貸し農園 bears googling if you are interested in this sort of thing. ﾅｽs窶督ｯ窶拈窶ｰ竄ｬﾂ・窶佚昶?堋ｵ窶拈窶ｰ竄ｬﾆ恥ﾂーﾆ稚ﾆ巽ﾆ誰ﾆ暖ﾆ狸ﾆ辰ﾆ檀 has some linked examples, 10,000 yen a year rental for an area of 25 to 30m²
There is but even in the country land is expensive and houses are built as compact as possible. Also, much of the land that houses are built on is owned by developers who want to fit as many houses as they can on the land in order to make the maximum amount of profit. My wife's parents have a yard, if you can call it that, but its an older home in the country and by yard, I mean an area that is less then half the size of a small one car garage. Unless you plan on buying a traditional style house or a country farm style house you will not have much, if any, yard. People do grow some things in planters on their door step or balcony. But I know there are little gardens along the river near my wife's parents place that are not farms or farm fields. It looks kind of like a community garden or something. I will ask her about it tonight if I remember.
hillrunner,
What exactly is it that you want to know? Yes, of course, there area gardens and farms in Japan. And, I suppose a few foreigners have them, and of course Japanese do, but you have not specified. There are also cooperatives.
I had a chance to ask my wife about it and she said that you can rent garden lots or join community gardens. She did mention that the gardens I saw along the river were all privately owned, not rented. So I guess some people must buy small plots of land just for gardening as well. Either that or they were owned by the same farmer who had the rice fields adjoining those gardens.
As Glenski asked, what are you trying to find out? Just if you can have a garden? Or are you wondering if you can be self sufficient by growing all of your own food?