Agricultural statistical data show a shrinking agricultural market over the long term in Japan. To switch this trend to a setting on its way to a growth stage, generating agricultural innovation will be essential. In business science, the concept of what promotes innovation is said to be entrepreneurship. This paper offers three case studies to discuss the way to rebuild Japanese agriculture from the viewpoint of theories of entrepreneurship and innovation.

The leading player of these cases is Yusuke Miyaji. He was born in 1978 and graduated from university in 2000. He worked for a large corporation for 5 years. In 2005, he returned to Miyaji Swine Farm, which his parents managed as a small sized family farm, to start his farming business.

His mission is “Making primary industry smart, exciting and profitable.” He began with a BBQ party. Afterwards, party participants ordered pork meat directly from the farm or some of them introduced the product to restaurants. In this way, Miyaji Farm was able to develop it’s own market. Mr. Miyaji points out that his efforts to change his business model was an essential innovation. Miyaji Farm has created a new business model which can be said to be a drop shipping model. In this model, Miyaji Farm receives an order from customer, then passes the order on to a contracted meat packing factory. The factory arranges the order, packages it, and delivers it to the customer. The meat packer takes on the cutting, packaging and delivery of the product. So Miyaji Farm does not bear any risk of inventory loss.

Next, Mr. Miyaji worked on the activities to make his mission true. He established Beginning Farmer Network in 2009. This organization conducts many activities, such as :

• Opening a market at the city center

• A collaborative project with an agricultural experimental restaurant

• A collaborative project on internet sales with an IT company

• Offering agricultural work-study programs to city people

• Agribusiness planning competition and so on

Mr. Miyaji focuses on farm family sons and daughters who currently now work in a non-agricultural sector, or who are still students, or are beginning farmers who have already taken over their family farm. The reason Mr. Miyaji focuses on them because they have advantages over non-farm newcomers in generating agricultural innovation. Also, they have acquired business skills and experiences their parents do not have. When mixing their new skills and experiences with their parents’ technical skills and traditional experiences, a new explosion can come into the farming business.

Mr. Miyaji considered the process of agricultural innovation and his conclusions are that the process follows four stages as follows :

–– the stage of awakening interest in the family farm

–– the stage of returning back to the family farm and starting to work

–– the stage of building entrepreneurship

–– the stage of generating innovation in the farming business

The third case study is the family business succession seminar. Mr. Miyaji holds this seminar several times a year to foster entrepreneurship of young farmers. He thinks entrepreneurship is built and strengthened through family business succession processes. Mr. Miyaji focuses on young beginning farmers who will be a trigger for the expansion of agricultural markets in Japan.

Japanese omen farmers have improved their skills in food processing and direct marketing with the help of agents of cooperative extension service offices after World War 2. These became the driving forces for entrepreneurship for women in rural areas.

Women farm entrepreneurs have become more active year by year, and these activities have shown that farming is an industry which includes not only agricultural production but also processing and marketing.

On the other hand, there are some independent women farmers who have started their own businesses without participating in these cooperative activities. What they have in common is that they have faced challenges such as weak sales and the purpose of their entrepreneurship was to overcome those difficulties.

Also, it has been revealed that an increasing number of farming corporations have utilized women resources in various fields dealing with environmental and welfare activities.

Growth in the industrialization of the agriculture and food industry is important. In Japan, policies such as new technology development and sixth industrialization have attempted to develop agricultural industries. However, further breakthroughs require innovation.

In this study, I focus on open innovation in agriculture and roles of platforms. First, I discuss the concept of open innovation theory, platform theory, and value co-creation theory. Then, as examples of platforms deployed in the agriculture and food industries, I evaluate cases in France, the Netherlands, and Japan and consider the roles of open innovation and platforms. I examine the applicability and future development of the open innovation theory in the agriculture and food industries through case studies of open innovation. The cases are as follows : 1) French food clusters in France and the Kyushu Bio Cluster Conference case, which develops brands knowledge in agriculture and food industries through international collaboration ; 2) Food Valley and its support of Dutch agriculture and food industries, which includes an evaluation of its participating companies/organizations. 3) a new Japanese innovation policy that is noted for its unique support of agriculture and food industries that is called “Field for knowledge integration and innovation,” and is based on the innovation policies of France and the Netherlands.

In the French food cluster case, I show the progress of R & D projects and the transfer of technology and branding through international collaboration, after evaluating the French government’s innovation policy. Through cooperation with the Kyushu Bio Cluster Conference, it has evolved into international research and development and branding projects, and open innovation taking advantage of the strengths of both sides. In the Netherlands Food Valley case, I examine the activities of the Food Valley Foundation and evaluate the activities of participating companies and institutions. I analyze a mechanism to accelerate open innovation efficiently and clarify an effective support policy. In “Field for knowledge integration and innovation,” which was studied under these results, I show a future direction of open innovation in agriculture and the food industry. Through a research and development platform—in addition to matching research needs and seeds—I show a mechanism to conduct research efficiently through a research consortium. The development of open innovation in these cases is also effective in agriculture and the food industry, although research and development and promoting innovation takes time in this field. This example shows that open innovation is effective. In addition to theoretical arguments, I examine open-innovation—gaining attention in recent years―and the development of platforms to promote open innovation in actual cases in Japan and Europe. In particular, various experiences and knowledge of people involved and ideas from different industries are important in promoting open innovation in the agriculture and food industries, and a mechanism to create value co-creation for common objectives and issues becomes clear. I conclude that the roles of social innovators, such as producers, are indispensable in promoting these value co-creation activities.