Introducing Low-chemical Farming to Conventional Farmers: A Case Study in Tome City, Miyagi Prefecture

Abstract

This article aims to clarify the process by which agricultural practices less reliant on agrochemicals can be introduced to conventional farmers in order to mitigate conflicts of interest between local land/forest conservation and agricultural production.

Challenges related to sustainability may arise as a consequence of long-term and cumulative actions. Therefore, to preserve local lands and forests over the long-term, it is necessary to curtail chemical input throughout the entire farmland. To that end, a framework is required in order to promote a reduction in chemical input by conventional farmers, who currently make up the overwhelming majority of agricultural operators. For example, Tome city in Miyagi Prefecture has been making region-wide efforts to promote agricultural practices using reduced amounts of agrochemicals while involving farmers who are disinclined to change. In this article, we reveal how such “non-change-oriented" farmers have come to embrace new

practices and illustrate the significance of this endeavor from their perspectives. In Tome city, the use of agrochemicals has been steadily decreasing in paddies and fields overall due to learning processes involving new agricultural practices, such as organic farming and crop conversion.

The environmental preservation initiative in Tome city, which allows for the participation of many farmers, has apparently created a situation that can be described as “unintended preservation of the environment" through an accumulation of varying motives. To encourage a demographic of people without specific issue orientation, it is important to find common interests in technology, ideology, or policy that may prompt changes in their lifestyle and behavior.