Generally, it is recognized that farm diversification contributes to urban and rural development, and promotes farmers' sustainability. However, it is unclear how the farm diversification accomplishes economic advantages such as economies of scope and risk reduction by the combination of several enterprises. This study suggests the measurement of business units, and investigates management-resource sharing and functional complementarity among enterprises of farmers in Tokyo. As a result, several enterprises can be considered as the same business unit. And the farmers' production, facilities and skills are shared to manage several enterprises. In addition, farmers acknowledge the complemental role of each enterprise in terms of seasons, price and production standards.

This paper aims to analyze consumers' subjective evaluation of the characteristics of local agricultural products. Analysis of the data collected from a questionnaire based on the characteristics identified by previous research reveals that consumers' subjective evaluation is based on certain criteria. It is shown that women evaluate area-related characteristics more highly than men. Further, households with high annual income have a higher evaluation than low-income households. In conclusion, it may be inferred that it is necessary for the actors to consider such characteristics in order to develop local agricultural products in the future.

This study examined how traditional festivals are inherited. The festival reviewed here is traditionally conducted only by locals, but some residents have begun to consider cooperating with outsiders (particularly university students) because of scarcity of labor. There is no consensus on the subject. This study investigated residents’ opinion on cooperating with university students using a questionnaire survey of all households in settlements participating in the festival. Consequently, it was found that following three factors were correlated with the view to collaboration with students. One was an impression that students would be helpful in conducting the festival promoted natural collaboration. Another was the individual cognition of ease to contact with administrative staff and regional leaders. The other was gender.