2021 Volume 51 Issue 2 Pages 211-233
In Japan, there is a tacit assumption that small-scale family farmers, who lack management resources, will disappear without the support of the government, and agriculture has long been treated differently from other sectors. Given the global trends of national, regional and global value chain integration, Japan’s policy paradigm needs to shift to something that encourages innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainable resource use （OECD 2019） ［18］.
The purpose of this study was to examine innovation policies in Japan’s rice industry empirically using the framework of ‘backcasting’ （Robinson 1982 ［19］） for strategic sustainable development. To this end, we set two hypotheses and verified them by introducing structural equation modeling （SEM） and cognitive map analysis to the questionnaire survey of Japanese consumers. The hypotheses are as follows:“Rice consumption can be stimulated if innovations that meet the potential needs of consumers such as information, environment, packaging, safety, health, and various ways of eating, etc. are incorporated” （H1）, and “Policy transformations toward innovation creation of the rice industry that contributes to the sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas is required” （H2）.
The above two hypotheses were verified based on the analysis in the study. Furthermore, we obtained the following conclusion and policy implication from the results. By inducing marketcreating innovations, the rice culture of society as a whole, including the perception of producers and consumers about rice cultivation, rice products and how to eat rice needs to be transformed. Rice policies need to capture innovation as a process of organizational learning including producers, consumers and governments with dynamic changes in collective cognition. In the formulation of innovation policies, it is important to consider the consistency between individual goal elements related to sustainability and the exertion of synergistic effects, and necessary to build a social innovation system consisting of various departments and entities.
JEL Classifications:O31, Q18
