Rural Revitalization with Sunflowers as Amenity Crops in a Japanese Countryside

Abstract

Rural landscapes attract many tourists in Japan. Urbanization improved exchange value of the rural landscape for urban consumers, resulting in this landscape became a commodity in the market. However, most rural economies in Japan face the challenge of the globalization and an aging population. This paper explores the process of commodification of a rural space where sunflowers were introduced as new crops for enhancing rural landscape. To achieve the research goal, this study empirically scrutinized the landscape in both the supply side and the demand side of the tourism. Sunflowers are neither native to Japan nor cash crops for post-productivist Japanese agriculture. The urban desire of the demand side is the prerequisite for the rural tourism, but most tourists do not care about the history, background, and authenticity, and therefore this landscape with sunflowers can be regard as a simulacrum. However, regional, agricultural, and political factors of the supply side also need to be constructed the landscape for rural tourism.