2019 Volume 38 Issue Special_Issue Pages 149-155
Multi-functionality was listed in the agricultural policy agenda three decades ago. Although farmlands and agricultural water-supply systems have been studied by many researchers, topics related to the maintenance and demonstration of local agricultural multi-functionality, including landscape and biodiversity, have not yet been analyzed in detail with statistics. Therefore, in this study, the factors which promote the collective action of communal organizations to sustain the agro-environmental resources were scrutinized quantitatively. The study also focused on the Measures to Conserve and Improve Land, Water and the Environment case, which was executed in Japan's Yamagata Prefecture, and identified factors to amplify and increase actions that would benefit local agro-environments. The analysis took into account the characteristics of not only the communal organizations themselves, but also the local area where the organizations were established and currently existed. To examine the influence organizations may mutually have on and by the others in the neighborhood, known as the peer effects, spatial econometric analysis was conducted. It resulted in the following conclusions about actions. Impacts of the existing peer effects appeared differently among the actions. Effective actions to preserve landscapes or to enhance biodiversity were likely to depend upon the characteristics of the organizations studied. More attention should be paid to the demographic characteristics of the local community when examining their choice of actions.
