Recently, there has been an increasing shortage of employed labor in agriculture. To address this problem, production sites have created a coordination system that provides continuous short-term employment. However, the adjustment system has limitations. Therefore, the demand for short-term agricultural workers will not disappear. For this reason, more diverse sources of “labor force”, particularly efforts by University Student Farm-support Volunteers, are attracting attention. In this paper, we focus on the non-market area of university student coordination and student agricultural volunteers. The paper analyzes the factors that determine the management system of student farm-support volunteer organizations by focusing on four characteristics of the engaged students: being students; lacking a commitment to time; being volunteers; and being from outside the prefecture, being an agricultural studies student and living alone. Overall, this organizational management system is considered to constitute an interdependent relationship between the “coordinating organization, students and farmers”. Therefore, mutual coordination can be established only through the non-market domain, not through the market domain.

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This paper clarified the development of a Farmers' Market using existing statistics and the actual condition and problems of urban-rural exchange from questionnaire surveys and hearing surveys. There are many efforts to develop such sales sites, such as urban-rural exchange, along with the expansion of retail functions in a direct sales store organized by Japan Agricultural Cooperative. In order for such a JA Cooperative direct sales store of to carry out urban-rural exchange, it is necessary to increase the number of employees and secure funds for that purpose. In addition, it is important to have a clear position of the business as it relates to an agricultural cooperative.

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This paper analyzes the characteristics of post-war apple production in terms of high yield and high quality. This analysis uses moralischer Verschleiβ: economic obsolescence of fixed capital together with the improvement of the fixed capital turnover period. Under this limitation, producers must renew apple trees early in their useful lives, and therefore need high profitability to accumulate renewal costs quickly. As a result, they pursue high yield and high quality, and try to maintain high profitability through superior production and sales conditions. Thus, the mechanism for higher yield and higher quality is necessary. However, careful analysis calls into question whether high profitability is realized by high yield and high quality. The post-war production process “takatsugi” (grafting on the branch) makes it easy for each producer to renew apples into high quality varieties, while “dwarfing apples” causes the problem of increasing costs through facility expenses. Producers repeatedly renew to new varieties to increase profits and increase costs, and as a result, the supply of apples to the market increases with market prices decreasing. Consequently, the problem of overproduction by adjusting production in post-war apple production is not only difficult to solve, but it also has a higher cost by pursuing higher yields and higher quality in response to moralischer Verschleiβ.

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This study analyzes the characteristics of financial burden for the rice production adjustment policy of FY2018. The distribution of subsidies by the government has the following three characteristics. First of all, the rice crop diversion subsidies as a whole is skewed, similar to previous similar policies. Second, the percentage of subsidies that can be used freely varies widely from prefecture to prefecture. This allocation method has the role of adjusting the total amount of grants. Third, the planting trends of the previous year and the current year affect the distribution. The distribution by prefecture has the following three characteristics. First, there is a large regional disparity in distribution among the 15 prefectures. Secondly, the previous year's cropping trends affect distribution. Third, the additional allocations vary by region. As mentioned above, in FY 2018, when the new rice policy was started, the discretion of the national and prefectural governments is still involved in rice production adjustment.

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This paper clarifies the behavioral mechanism of food waste procurement among registered food waste recycling contractors in Iwate Prefecture. The reasons for generating food waste and the amount of food waste generated vary among food-related businesses. As an example, food retailers and food service companies generate a small amount of food waste per location but a large variety of food wastes. They also face challenges in procuring food waste due to the dispersed nature of their stores. Looking at the registered food waste recycling contractors that made this possible, we found that the food waste procurement response at the registered food recycling contractors and the food waste procurement behavior at the collection and transportation companies occurred continuously, and a food waste procurement behavior mechanism was thus established.

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Japan historically has imported grain from the United States to produce mixed feeds; however, crop failures there in 2012 compelled Japan to import grain from Brazil. In 2017, Japan's National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (JA Zen-Noh), which produces and distributes approximately 30% of Japan's mixed feeds, invested in a Brazilian joint venture to acquire and export grain. Unlike firms that acquire grain for general export (e.g., Sogo Shosha), JA Zen-Noh seeks stable supplies of grain for Japanese livestock farmers. This study investigates what compelled JA Zen-Noh to enter its Brazilian joint venture. It describes coordination and strategy throughout JA Zen-Noh's Brazil-to-Japan supply chain and suggests implications underlying stable grain procurement by analyzing JA Zen-Noh's joint venture.

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Internships are being used to attract foreign visitors to Japan. This study explores the benefits and challenges associated with generating external demand through internships in Japan's tea industry. The core business of the case study company is cross-border e-commerce and tea tours. Foreign interns are indispensable in this, and most of them have the advantage of English language skills, which are useful for increasing demand in countries outside of Japan. The case study company not only offers foreign students an immersive experience of tea making during their internship, but also continues to engage them after their course completion with the long-term objective of overseas expansion. Thus, in addition to hiring local employees, a foreign internship system can help enhance community-based tourism.

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