When the future directions for regional vitalization and sustainable development are discussed, how to create key persons with special skills for solving regional problems through partnership and collaboration methods with regional stakeholders would become an essential issue. Since the 2015 academic year, the Faculty of Regional Collaboration, Kochi University, Japan has been engaged in a practice-based learning [PBL] program through regional collaboration to create key persons with the skills needed for solving regional problems based on collaborative methods. In this paper, the current situation and future directions of the PBL program by Kochi University were described to give basic information for discussing sustainable management of PBL efforts in Japan.
This paper attempts to build a conceptual model explaining the development process of Community Business (CB). CBs are expected to play vital roles as providers of public goods and services, and solutions for local problems. Despite growing attention to CBs, existing research has made scant efforts to spell out CB’s essential properties and to empirically illuminate management, especially of new entities. Building a general model of CBs’ development, integrating their essential properties is beneficial for CBs to prosper. Thus this study, first, identifies from literature CB’s four essential properties including voluntary commitment, community-based, non-profit and public engagement, and financial sustainability; second, it builds a hypothetical model in which said essential properties supposedly appear in different stages of CB’s development; and third, by employing the abovementioned model, it analyzes five not-for-profit wineries as cases of CB. The case studies demonstrate that all the wineries have gone through four steps in their development including “personal-level,” “social-level,” “economic-level,” and “social-economic-level.” It is also observed that voluntary commitment emerges at “personal-level,” community-based at “social-level,” non-profit and public engagement at “economic-level,” and financial sustainability at “social-economic-level.” In conclusion, to build sustainable CBs, the expansion of “community orientation” collecting wider support at the “social-economic-level” is critical.
To increase agricultural production and productivity, the productivity of the change of crops (soybean, barley, etc.) needs to be improved. The purpose of this paper is to examine the current status of soybean production in mountain areas and analyze the implications of the unite yield of soybean and cultivation techniques, soil condition, etc. We conducted a questionnaire survey of community-based farming corporations in Hiroshima Pref. and have responses from 170 farms. The results are as follows: 1) Soybean unit yield in mountain areas is lower due to farm conditions and fewer labor resources. Efficient weeding techniques, new spices, and agricultural runoff techniques are needed. 2) Soybean unit yield depends on agricultural runoff conditions, input of improved soil material, and use of crop rotation.
This study examines the use of biomass resources in municipalities. We use a questionnaire to collect research data in Seiyo City, Ehime Prefecture. Seiyo comprises five towns annexed in 2004. Initially, a majority of the populace did not use stoves with wooden pallets. A research by Correspondence Analysis provided the following reasons: 1) lack of knowledge of stoves, 2) no need to buy a new heater, 3) young individuals who living in apartments, and 4) home architecture. Therefore, we analyzed use of biomass resources by population using the following classifications with research: 1) generation and living area, 2) knowledge of woody biomass, and 3) proximity to woody biomass.