The Showa Depression in 1930 decreased the expenses on human capital investment of agricultural household as with the farm income. Despite the recovery of farm income in the 1930s, the human capital investment as well as total expenditure still continued to stagnate. To examine the decision on the human capital investment by agricultural households under the reconstruction period, this paper estimates the wealth effect on educational and medical expenditure using the panel dataset obtained from a farm household survey. After controlling for household’s fixed effect and the endogeneity of wealth level, measured by total annual expenditure, we find that the medical expenditure has a wealth effect, but the educational expenditure has not. Short-term credit constraint on agricultural household may not cause the stagnation of investment in education during the reconstruction period. Further investigations on the household’s fixed effect reveal that the investment in education has a class effect that landed farmers invest more in education than do other land ownership classes. We also find that the number of male infants increases the medical expenditure, but females do not have such effect.

Although measures to attract newcomers to rural areas facing depopulation are drawing increasing attention, many of these new residents leave within a few years. To counter this situation, it is necessary to investigate what determinants work for the settlement of newcomers in rural areas. This paper explored these determinants by focusing on a remote island off Niigata, where a population increase has been observed. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of newcomers to this island. We employed a rank logit model to identify factors that promote the settlement of newcomers by considering when they came to the island, factors related to daily life, and the availability of jobs. The estimation results revealed that factors in daily life such as childcare and closeness of the local community worked positively in increasing the likelihood that the newcomers would remain in the community, but there was no correlation with the time of their arrival on the island.

In this study, we clarify the acquisition process of the local characteristic in developing special products. We make both the acquisition processes clear, by comparing the category of products with local characteristic breed with the category of products without local characteristic breed. The results showed that there are three phases: In the first phase, the members connect the products and their history, discovering their historical relations with the local characteristic. During the second phase, the products acquire the local limitation as well, and the products are distinguished from the others. Lastly, in the third phase, the properties of products can be diversified through activities for acquiring the various properties. It is also suggested that more local relationships are made in the case without local characteristic breed than the one with it.

This paper analyzes the effective preservation of the urban agricultural market in Higashi-Osaka city. The following supports to farmers have been effective: (1) Designating local eco-agricultural products as specialty products by focusing on the farming method, and not on the items, (2) Conducting exhaustive explanatory meetings in the area to support applications for eco-agricultural specialty product designated authority, (3) Establishing original products standards according to the local characteristics, and (4) Visualizing premiums on the local products.

Furthermore, three categories of consumers have proved effective in promoting incentives on specialty production: (1) Regular consumers who understand the value of contributing through purchase of local products, thus leading to effective urban agriculture preservation; (2) Consumers who are positively vocal about their appreciation of producers’ labor; and (3) Consumers working voluntarily to support urban agriculture. The question as to how to involve the city residents as urban agricultural volunteer workers or as successors of urban agriculture remains an important issue for the future.

This study focuses on the marketing techniques of aquaculture, which are expected to contribute to employment creation and enhance regional economic activities in the aquaculture production areas experiencing significant depopulation. We examined the process of sales-organization development through a case study of Komobuchi, which is located in the south of Ehime. The main results are as follows: 1) The new idea related to marketing was not created without a sense of the impending crisis of residency; therefore, the autonomous sales organization in this area was structured for halting the decline in local resident numbers. 2) It was found effective to let immigrants be the main customers in sales promotion; sales have tripled since. 3) More fascinations characteristics of this district in solving the problem of product commercialization were found through partnership with external experts.

This study identifies the property of committed non-permanent residents through a case study of the Community-Reactivating Cooperator Squad (CRCS) away from the region. As the results show, the CRCS have studied the property’s behavioral aspect and established that there are purposes to visit the region such as “Parts of the work” and relation with the region without actually visiting it, such as “Mediation of the different region.” In addition, they have studied the property’s psy­chological aspect wherein there are emotional rela­tions such as “Contribution will” and utility-like relations such as “Side bet.” From these analyses, we examine that an individual could be one of the local leading figures. Lastly, we indicate two factors to utilize non-permanent residents. First is to evaluate and support people “who commit to the region.” Second is to promote not only the relative need to visit the region, but also the relative need not to do so.

A mathematical programming model is effective in both farm planning and managerial evaluation of farming systems. This paper evaluates the possibility of introducing direct seeding rice in dry paddy fields by using such a model. In the model, the possible machine work time restrictions that are decided by the hourly precipitation data of the past 10 years are considered. Moreover, based on the estimated machine work time, the study uses the method of 100,000 random samplings with replacement to obtain 100,000 sets of estimations of possible machine work time. Each of these sets is incorporated into the model and the optimal solutions are calculated. By comparing the optimal solutions for the past 10 years, and an estimation with the optimal solutions of 100,000 times simulation, it is verified that the proposed method is appropriate and useful for more possibilities are considered by using this method.

The objective of this paper is to develop an approach to quantify agricultural products’ environmental costs at the farm level. There appears to be limited literature related to the cost accounting method in farm management and allocation of the environmental cost in an account. An approach that includes three aspects is designed and a case study in ‘N farm’ (a pseudonym for a farm that operates the complex management of paddy and vegetables) is used as follows. The first step is to introduce an activity-based costing (ABC) simplified version for the costing of farm management, which is based on a time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) measure. The second is to classify agricultural products according to environmental cost by calculating the environ­mental cost of all the operational farm activities for the different agricultural products. The third is to analyze and diagnose the calculation results.

This paper seeks to investigate the hypothesis that the demand factor will tend to have a larger effect on the food self-sufficiency rate in Japan than the supply factor. The changes in the individual food self-sufficiency rate in Japan from 2011 to 2060 are estimated and decomposed into the demand factor and supply factor. The results support the hypothesis of this paper.

In Canada, the Growing Forward II Program was launched in 2013 by working on the results of the previous Growing Forward Program to facilitate further development of farm business. This study conducted a series of case studies in the Ontario and Saskatchewan provinces, and the findings are as follows: First, it is recognized that the policy should focus on helping the farmers’ skills and abilities, rather than on providing material assets to them. Second, the program involves the private sector in helping farmers improve their business. These points should be considered to initiate a new farm business development policy in Japan.

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between consumers’ purchasing consciousness and the purchasing price of beef, using the results of an internet questionnaire survey focused on female consumers. The following three factors were obtained from the analysis: (1) intrinsic quality value, which is associated with the physical and physiological characteristics of the beef itself, (2) extrinsic quality value, which is associated with socio-economic factors such as information about the famer, brand, and origin, and (3) the display value of the date such as expiration date and packing date. The results of the structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis showed that the purchasing price of beef is influenced by two factors: the “extrinsic quality value” and the “display value of date.” The former had a positive effect, while the latter had a negative effect, on the purchasing price of beef.

The purpose of this paper is to show the dietary situation (eating alone or not) of elderly individuals (aged over 70 years) in Japan, using the Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities and to clarify the reasons. We found that 32% of these individuals eat lunch alone, and 22% eat dinner alone. Furthermore, some aged people living alone eat in someone’s company, because (1) their children live near them, (2) they receive long-term care for more than 4 days a week, or (3) they work longer or engage in more social activities than the ones eating alone.

This paper focuses on “A” company’s domestic sales strategies in China. This company, founded in Shanghai in 1999, produces high quality beer in China. At first, it sold beer to retail companies such as supermarkets, convenience stores, and Japanese restaurants. However, because of the normal business practices in China, the retail sales of the company were in deficit. Therefore, it discontinued retail sales and began to expand the business to various other restaurants such as Chinese and Korean restaurants In order to recommence sales, the company established a department of executives to respond to normal business practices in China. This department analyzes the profitability of Chinese and foreign supermarkets and convenience stores, and also works to increase sales to Japanese supermarkets and convenience stores.

This research paper analyzes and considers the current situation of the changing social structure and the issues in the basic rural organizations, using Guandi and Beigou villages as the developing urban areas in China. Furthermore, it considers the role played by the tourism organization toward the decline in the functioning of the basic rural organizations. Analysis results show that these basic rural organizations cannot respond appropriately to the changing social structure. Guandi’s tourism organization was established by the local residents, accepts a cross-section of residents, and it is a part of the function of the basic rural organization. On the other hand, Beigou’s tourism organization was established by the basic rural organization, and conducts business activities, which contribute to improving its fiscal circumstances. Therefore, it is evident that Guandi’s tourism organization is complementary to the functions of its basic rural organization, while Beigou’s tourism organization contributes to widen the functions of its basic rural organization.

In this research, we analyze non-agricultural vocational education for rural residents implemented in the Linquan County of China’s Anhui Province. With the analysis including the data of students who belonged to three short-term vocational education programs conducted in February 2014, the following three points can be summarized. 1) The three short-term vocational education-programs are implemented in the form of “vocational skill-up” (electronic commerce), “target training model” (computer operation), and “employment recommendation model” (domestic service). 2) The income of the students trained in the programs has apparently increased compared to their previous income. 3) “Common effects,” which exclude the effects of the year of education and age, are observed to increase the income of all students trained in the programs for electronic commerce and domestic service.

This study examines the deployment of small-scale hydroelectric power enterprises (1,000 kW or less), operated for more than 40 years by a farmers’ organization or a town office in the Chugoku region, since the introduction of a feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme. A survey of the operating organizations in Okayama Prefecture revealed that the FIT introduction enabled the renewal of outdated and inefficient facilities. The results indicated it was not whether the small hydropower enterprises were operated by local community but profitability that allowed the operating organizations to maintain them. However, small hydropower installations have become widespread recently in the service of public interest—for example, to secure power in readiness for disaster or to revitalize rural area. Therefore, sustainable small hydropower manage­ment must also devote equal attention to economic and social considerations to become fully efficient and community-centric.