The sustainable use of agricultural resources in the rural–urban fringe was discussed from macro-, micro-, and mezzo- perspectives. From a macro-perspective, Dr. Akita argued that mixed land use between food production and housing, which enables direct-to-consumer sales of foods, would be an ideal for modern cities. The necessity to incorporate farmland conservation into urban planning as a green policy was then discussed. From a micro-perspective, Dr. Yagi argued that it was necessary to maintain good relationships between agricultural management entities and their local stakeholders. Issues related to farmland consolidation and farmland inheritance in urbanized areas were then discussed. From a mezzo-perspective, Dr. Noda argued that in order to achieve sustainable use of local resources, it is important that they are managed by the community and that the community has a certain kind of social right to the resources, just like to the local commons. The issue whether such social rights should be granted based on legal proceedings or administrative proceedings was then discussed. Ultimately, it was shown that by asserting the rights as personal rights instead of property rights, it would be possible to grant such rights not only through administrative proceedings but also legal ones.

Farm businesses, especially in urbanized society, need to keep up preferable relationships with their stakeholders because such relationships are the foundations of corporate sustainability. Farm organizations are formed based on their members’ objectives, hence the stakeholders and effective strategies differ by organization. Through decade-long empirical investigations, we observed that the effective strategies of large rice farm businesses have converged and become relatively similar. Such an observation would further imply the emergence of alternative farm businesses which pursue more specific stakeholder values.

This paper will focus on water resources in the local community, and clarify how to use public wells to rebuild relationships at edge of wells from the perspective of environmental sociology. This paper presents a case study of the public well policy in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture. The findings of this paper are as follows: (1) to create public wells with multifaceted functions that involve various local residents, rather than a single function such as fetching water or wells for preventing disasters; (2) to focus on the meaning that local residents attach to public wells as a place for the local community, rather than the value of water as a resource. Then, local residents will have ownership consciousness of public wells as their commons. The concept of public wells is as a resource for all people. This may seem like a good concept, but the flip side is that it belongs to no one. Public wells that are not managed by local residents and is not their commons is value-neutral and likely to be unattractive for all people. Public wells as commons for local residents have the potential to rebuild relationships among people.

While organic agriculture has created a set of institutions that allow producers to know which practices provide “organic” quality and allow consumers to recognize it via an on-package label, the landscape of agroecological products is quite fluid and diverse. Often, products are traded directly between producers and consumers and quality is conveyed verbally. However, there has been a general increase in the use of private labels to claim that products are agroecological or “more than organic”. This article explores these recent innovations by asking: How does agroecology become a product quality claim in innovative forms of quality control? To answer this question, data on labels claiming to be “agroecological” and related assurance systems were gathered through internet research, market monitoring and semi-structured interviews in the European Union. In this article we explore the range of claims, and control networks, used to characterize the so-called “agroecological” labels and confront them with FAO’s 10 principles of agroecology. This 27-country comparison offers interesting insights into the overlaps and boundaries between agroecology and organic agriculture in terms of the markets that are created.

We are told today that agriculture and rural areas are living through a pervasive digital transformation. But will digitalisation reverse the current productivism model or perpetuate it? In this paper, I reflect on how digitalisation is being used to internalise positive externalities and promote a more diversified and multifunctional agriculture. Digitalisation for internalisation is more than just a socio-technological blend. Social and physical arrangements are shaped accordingly at farm or even national and international level. The final outcomes might not always be desirable or effective in empowering agroecological farmers embedded in the territorial development, therefore I encourage to sharpen the lenses through which we analyse digitalisation and envisage policy interventions in the name of agricultural multifunctionality. By shedding light on carbon credits, digital marketing in social farming, and servitisation via e-wine tours, this paper contributes to the debate about digital agriculture’s risks and opportunities and raises themes and questions for scholars and policy makers engaged in responsible digitalisation for agriculture and rural development.

Food and nutrition security has become an important policy agenda in the international community. Sustainable Development Goal 2 aims to end hunger, achieve food and nutrition security, and promote sustainable agriculture. However, this goal will likely be challenged by emerging risks such as climate change in many developing countries. The Six Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that climate change will affect food security, especially in Africa, since the majority in the rural areas are rainfed small-scale farmers who are directly affected by climate change. Thus, policy intervention is urgently required to build climate resilience in the agricultural sector. To envision nutrition-sensitive agricultural production and consumption system, we first need to understand i) how farmers manage climate risks? ii) What technical options enhance farmers’ food and nutrition security? This paper tries to present some current evidence regarding those links in the literature, provide some empirical evidence on small-scale farmers in one of the drought-prone areas in southern Zambia, and envision the future direction of research.