Abstract
Nose town is located in Osaka city’s suburbs, but most of the area is mountainous; agriculture is its main industry. Promoting rural-urban interchanges is one of the most important agendas in the town’s development plan. We executed questionnaires among farmers in Nose town and empirically analyzed the characteristics of farmers who would like to be involved in rural-urban interchanges. According to our results, farmers who look forward to the institute for promoting agricultural land accumulation, those who are interested in local-branded crops, and those who often sell crops at the Roadside Station (Michi no Eki) are interested in rural-urban interchanges. Sale destinations other than the Roadside Station and basic farm characteristics such as size of farmland, age, share of nonagricultural income, and share of rented farmland were found to have no statistically significant effects on the motivation to get involved in rural-urban interchanges. It would be beneficial for highly motivated agricultural farmers to gather and discuss, in a comprehensive manner, various kinds of agricultural policy.
