Sustainable Yuzu Project in Odai-Town, Mie Prefecture

Abstract

Local society in Japan has been suffered its economic and social stagnation due to rapid decreasing of population and rapid increasing of aged population. It is one of major social issues for Japanese government. The southern part of Mie Prefecture has been also suffered caused the similar reasons.

To solve these problems, we have hypothesized that the answer would take in sharing the newly created values cooperating partnerships among Industry-Academia-Local Government-Local Community, then we especially worked on the Mie-Yuzu Project in collaboration with Tsuji Oil Milling Company: yuzu or Citrus junos is a kind of Japanese citrus. In this paper, we report that the results of a survey on the activities and subsequent efforts of the Mie-Yuzu Project in Odai Town, Mie Prefecture, in order to transform the "Sustainable Odai-Town Model" toward the next stage. The concept and results reported here will become a sustainable local society model, as far as newly created values are shared in the community.