Tokyo, Dec. 2 – On December 1, 2019, Urban Agriculture World Summit (UAWS) in Nerima ward, Tokyo, ended with a joint communique adopted by experts on urban farming from Japan, the U.S., the U.K., Canada, South Korea, and Indonesia. The host of the event, Nerima ward, invited farmers, governments, NPO officials, and experts working on urban farming in cities in the six countries. They discussed and agreed on the importance of communicating the advantages and potential of urban agriculture to the world. Also, they confirmed that they would work closely together to promote the further development of urban farming.
In the declaration, they said the urban farming provides the basis for the following three key features: life, history and culture, and fair and open society. The communique was declared by Mitsuzo Goto, emeritus professor of Musashino University.
The cities invited to the summit were New York, London, Toronto, Seoul, and Jakarta. On Day One, the experts from the five cities talked about the future of urban farming with Yoshitaka Shiraishi, 65, a local farmer who grows and sells 100 different vegetables and operates a farm for tourist in Nerima.
Many at the conference said that they should aim to solve social problems such as economic disparities, food safety, environment problems, and slow local communities, making use of urban agriculture. “I’ve learned that it’s important to join hands locally,” Shiraishi said. Goto, emeritus professor, also said, “we confirmed the importance of urban farming at the summit. We should work together to make the importance of urban farming known to a wider audience.”