Abstract
The objective of this session is to clarify how farm businesses can contribute to the society. Especially, it is focusing on economical continuity of the contribution. Japanese government has prompted neo-liberal reforms into governing of municipalities since the beginning of 2000’s. That is, the government has transferred financial resources with its responsibility to the municipalities. Simultaneously, Japanese government has cut subsidies for the municipalities. As the result, many of the municipalities have to cut budgets of social services especially in disadvantage areas. Being faced to the change of policy,some communities or regional organizations related to agriculture have been trying to develop mutual assistance system through running social service businesses by themselves. However, it is not easy for many communities or organizations which are running the business to get success. In the context of those issues, this session consists of five presentations. The first presentation builds a frame work to analyze the businesses which contribute to the society. The others are empirical studies using real cases from the view point of each one based on the frame work.
