2020 Volume 38 Issue 1 Pages 38-47
This paper aims to discuss the activities and issues of the past eight years, as well as future policies, based on the case of Ignal Farm Co., Ltd. (Higashimatsushima City, Miyagi Prefecture, hereinafter “Ignal”), which was established after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Ignal used the government and the prefecture subsidies, and four young farmers began growing medium tomatoes in April 2012. Later, with the aim of developing sales channels, Ignal started salling to Lawson Co., Ltd. That is the trigger to establish Lawson Farm Ishinomaki in January 2014 with the investment of Lawson and Ignal. In June of the same year, Ignal obtained GLOBAL.G.A.P. Certification. This certification effectively worked to develop sales channels for major retailers. Furthermore, with the start of strawberry cultivation almost at the same time, the roles of officers were changed from business units to individual items. As a result, the motivation that we are company representative changed to a representative motivation based on functional arrangement. Employers are mainly in twenties and expected to grow as managers, including not only acquiring skills as growers, but also appropriate instruction skills to part-time workers. Ignal is also interested in expanding overseas in order to expand the opportunities for technical interns to be active in the future. To that end, Ignal have to achieve the target of the production volume at the current production base, develop new farmers who can carry out agriculture in order to "get better together", and enhance a support for their independence.
