1004 Kyoto Attraction Finds Fun in 'Night Farming'

Kyoto Attraction Finds Fun in 'Night Farming'

京都、『ナイトファーム』で楽しむ夜の農業体験

As darkness falls in Kyoto, 1,200 LED lights illuminate a vegetable field, where visitors pick fresh food for dinner.

It's all part of Night Farm, a nighttime farm experience in Kyoto's Nishiyama area. The field has about 20 kinds of local vegetables that visitors can harvest themselves. The vegetables can then be taken home, or even used as toppings for pizzas cooked right there on the farm!

"Making and eating pizza with vegetables we harvested ourselves makes for a good lesson about food," one visitor told The Mainichi in September.

As well as making the experience fun, farming at night has some benefits. Visitors can avoid the hot daytime sun and pick vegetables in the cooler evening air. Also, vegetables lose water during the day, so morning and evening are better times to pick them.

Night Farm is run by 25-year-old Miu Terashima. Her aim is to bring people closer to farming and food, while showing that learning about the environment can be fun.

Terashima says her interest in the environment began in high school, after she saw climate activist Greta Thunberg speaking to world leaders. At college, she became interested in farming and spent 10 months living and working on a farm in Fukushima. She also volunteered at the farm where she would later start Night Farm.

Night Farm started in summer 2024, with space for only two groups on weekends. By summer 2025, it was open five days a week, and around 1,400 people visited over three months.

This year, Night Farm has a longer season, running from July to November. And there are now plans for new Night Farms in other parts of Kyoto, and even in Nagano prefecture in central Japan, each using locally grown vegetables.