The unifying theme of the 73rd and 74th conference symposiums was “Strategy MIDORI”; The Capabilities and Competence of Organic Agriculture in Japan. In particular, the 73rd conference symposium set the theme of The Challenges in Diffusion of Organic Agricultural Production Technologies in Japan with “Strategy MIDORI”: Focusing on the Experiences in European Countries with “Farm to Fork”. Here, in the form of lectures, the possibility of expanding organic agriculture production technology in Japan was discussed from an international perspective. Furthermore, the contemporary issues in agricultural and forestry research, related to the “Strategy MIDORI”, were positioned as a common understanding.

At this conference symposium, we will discuss the possibility of expanding organic agriculture production technology in Japan under “Strategy MIDORI”. To this end, we will share the specific trends in research development and the direction of future policies. Especially we will share the issues that are needed to be resolved in the development of new technologies and policy support, based on examples of management development that make efforts to expand farm scale. We will discuss the possibility of expanding organic production agriculture in Japan in terms of technology and management.

This report provides an overview of the organic farming technologies that have been developed by National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) and current research projects in organic farming and discusses future challenges for expanding organic farming. NARO has developed technologies for labor-saving weeding in organic rice farming and disease and insect control in organic vegetable farming. Currently, NARO is conducting cross-organizational research projects related to organic agriculture, including systematization of organic rice cultivation techniques and establishment of organic strawberry cultivation. Future challenges for the expansion of organic agriculture include the need for meticulous technological development with clear technological targets. It is also necessary to develop technologies that help organic farming supporters and distributors solve problems. Furthermore, it is considered important to conduct multifaceted evaluations of the effects of the introduction of organic farming technologies, as well as participatory research projects involving not only organic farmers but also distributors and other related parties.

Activities in agriculture, forestry and fisheries are making negative impacts on the environment in general. To mitigate these impacts, some environmental policies are being enforced in USA, EU and other developed countries. Against this background Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries had implemented the policy of “The MIDORI Strategy” on May, 2021. Current status of organic farming in Japan is far from the goal of “The MIDORI Strategy”. It aims to have 1,000,000ha equipped with organic agricultural techniques, which can be 25% of total arable land in Japan. This strategy has 14 key performance indicators. These indicators are closely related with recent geopolitical risks, which make the market prices of chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides and some other inputs required by conventional agricultural techniques. Organic agricultural techniques have labor-using technical characteristics. Both the development of suitable technologies made by R & D and the dissemination support made by policy and extension stations must be required in order to overcome these characteristics and dramatically enhance organic farming in Japan.

Japan has set a goal of increasing the share of organic farming to 25% of arable land by 2050. However, compared to global trends, the expansion of organic farming has been very slow. Via a case study of Oshima Nojo, Corp., a large-scale rice farming operation, this study examines the expansion process of organic farming to determine the factors that have hindered such expansion and how they have been resolved. Based on this empirical knowledge, issues related to the development of new technologies and policy support necessary for the expansion of organic farming in Japan are discussed. Oshima Nojo, Corp. began organic rice cultivation in 2001, when the term “organic” was not yet common in Japan, for the purpose of product differentiation and high value added. Factors hindering the expansion included long hours of weeding work and labor shortages in production, as well as the need to secure sales channels. In conclusion, an approach involving the development of technologies and policies that promote both production and consumption aspects is important for expanding the spread of organic farming.

While efforts to achieve the SDGs are underway in Japan and overseas, The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan has set a target of increasing the ratio of organic farming to 25% of arable land area by 2050. By expanding the area of organic farming, it is expected to reduce the environmental burden by reducing the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. In order to expand the area of organic farming, it is important to increase the area of organic farming per farm, and for this purpose, it is important to clarify the actual conditions of large-scale organic farming, and to consider effective technology development and support measures. So, we clarified some factors related to the establishment of large-scale organic cultivation by analyzing the technical and managerial efforts of a farm that conducts large-scale organic onion cultivation in Hokkaido. As a result, the following were mainly found. 1) The farm strives to carry out labor-saving cultivation and employs temporary workers for weeding, 2) owns facilities for product sorting and quality control, 3) builds the cultivation techniques considering the balance between yield, quality, and labor-saving. Based on these results, we suggested challenges such as the development of labor-saving weeding technology, and support for the sale of organic agricultural products.

In an era marked by unprecedented challenges, the current global agrifood systems, faced with mounting pressures, require a paradigm shift. Population growth, environmental degradation, and socio-economic inequities, coupled with the rising impact of climate change and resource depletion, have uncovered the unsustainable nature of conventional agricultural practices based on intensive agrochemical use. As the world navigates these complexities, agroecology emerges as a transformative and holistic approach to rethinking food systems. This article delves into the limitations of current systems, the promise of agroecology, and its growing recognition globally and implementation in different parts of the world. It presents three concrete initiatives supported by FAO to advance agroecology through policy dialogue and advocacy at different levels (practitioners, legislative bodies, executive bodies).

Whether considered as a science, a set of agricultural practices or a social movement, agroecology calls for new ways of doing research and training. Drawing on key elements of the literature, this article sets out to illustrate the ‘agroecological turn’ in research and training on agricultural and food systems. Two examples of the co-creation of knowledge and innovations, in interaction with training, are presented and discussed: a European project to increase the use of agrobiodiversity in farms and food value chains, and the French network of experts on short food supply chains, bringing together research, development and training organizations. The first example illustrates a systemic and participatory approach from seed to plate, anchored in multi-stakeholder living labs, in which agroecology is a catalyst for the collective redesign of food systems. The second example shows how the national network supports and up-scales local initiatives around short food supply chains conducive to the agroecological transition, including by identifying training gaps. These two examples open up a discussion on two issues raised by place-based research on agroecology, namely stakeholder participation and the articulation of scales to transform food systems.

This paper highlights how agroecological research, extension, and education have been conducted at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) for over four decades. UCSC has one of the world’s oldest formal agroecology programs, known today as the Center for Agroecology. Located near the largest strawberry production area in the US, UCSC’s agroecological research and extension have primarily focused on solving various challenges for organic strawberries using a grower’s participatory approach. Agroecological education has been conducted at the interdisciplinary Department of Environmental Studies, Division of Social Sciences, since 1981. An agroecology major (B.A.) created in 2020 offers lectures, labs, and field quarters for students to learn about ecological concepts of sustainable agricultural systems and develop an understanding of agriculture’s social, political, and economic aspects. The organic campus farm, established in 1971, and organic Chadwick Garden, established in 1967, are managed by Center for Agroecology staff and students and provide the campus and local community with fresh organic produce, hands-on educational opportunities, and fields and facilities for research. Agroecology programs at UCSC continue to evolve to provide opportunities to study, learn, and collaborate in agroecological research, extension, and education for present and future generations to transform entire food systems into more sustainable ones.

The number of young female farmers is declining, and women’s entry rate in agriculture remains low in Japan. Addressing these challenges, bottom-up, women-led Social Innovation (SI) organizations are increasingly emerging and playing a crucial role in networking and empowering women in the rural landscape in Japan. This study employs an SI ecosystem framework to analyze the transformative potential and systemic challenges faced by the Shiga 100 Agri-Girls Project (S100AP), a grassroots organization of female farmers in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. Through empirical case study research, including interviews, participant observations and document analysis, the study examines how the S100AP expands its reach, advocates for institutional changes, and conveys the SI principle to deepen its impact within the local agricultural landscape. Findings reveal that while the S100AP achieves notable success in economic and socio-political realms, it contends with gender norms, neoliberal administrative constraints, and dependency on a few committed members. The study underscores the pivotal role of resource owners such as governmental bodies and media in shaping SI initiatives’ outcomes, while also destabilizing official narratives of success by highlighting underlying gender disparities and systemic challenges. It calls for enhanced policy support advocacy to empower grassroots initiatives in promoting gender equality and sustainable rural development.

This study explores the influence of discrimination against rural migrants on the wage gap in the Chinese urban labor market. This study empirically examines the extent to which discrimination against rural migrants influences the wage gap between the formal and informal sectors for the type of grouping between rural hukou holders and other hukou holders. For this purpose, we apply the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method, taking the formal/informal sector wage gap and the probability of entering each sector into the method (Brown model). In addition, we adopt a double-selectivity approach to examine the possibility of two selection biases. The results reveal that the unexplained components still significantly influence the wage gap, irrespective of whether double selectivity bias is considered. This indicates that our findings are inconsistent with those of existing studies, showing that the influence of discrimination against rural hukou holders on wage differentials has already vanished.