Determinants of Diversification and Farm Performance of Urban Farmers

Studies based on Data from Questionnaire Survey on farmers in Tokyo

Abstract

Recently, it is recognized that the development of sustainable urban agriculture is an important topic for the urban management. While the business diversification of urban farmers is one of the means to exploit multi-functionalities of the urban agriculture, it is unclear what are the determinants for promoting farm diversification and what kinds of businesses are effective in the farm performance. This study completed a questionnaire survey targeting existing farmers in Tokyo. As a result, there are some differences between mass-marketing farmers, direct-marketing farmers and indirect-marketing farmers in terms of the farm size, customer relationship capability, farm objectives and farm performance.