抄録
JA is an organization that conducts business activities based on the participation and collective efforts of its members, collectively purchasing the materials necessary for agricultural production and collectively marketing agricultural products. The ZEN-NOH Group is responsible for the marketing and supply business of the JA Group and builds structures that make efficient use of various information, technologies and goods related to marketing and supply. The heart of Tochigi's agricultural produce includes rice, vegetables, and livestock, which are sold throughout the prefecture including metropolitan areas. Tochigi boasts national leadership in the production of strawberries, with ZEN-NOH TOCHIGI (National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations in Tochigi Prefecture) playing an important role in organizing individual strawberry farmers in Tochigi prefecture and accounting for 86 percent of the marketing of Tochigi's strawberry production. This paper outlines the specific efforts by ZEN-NOH TOCHIGI as: sharing of quality standards, improving produce quality, gathering and transmitting information about production and shipping by individual strawberry farmers, sharing of information and marketing strategies, reducing producer burden and shipping costs, and unifying sales promotion in the prefecture. Through these efforts, ZEN-NOH TOCHIGI offers merits to individual strawberry farmers in stabilization of produce quality and quantity between many farmers, securing a variety of sales partner as a whole, unifying consumer support, reducing shipping costs, improving visibility and sales power as a prefecture, and corresponding to price slumps. The future of such collective marketing will be based on partial optimization of sales strategies, maintaining and expanding the participants of collectively marketing, and developing the human resource of ZEN-NOH TOCHIGI.
