This study clarifies the issues in the sixth industry and identifies effective support measures from the perspective of support and extension organizations. National and local governments, agricultural extension centers, and sixth industry specialists support farmers and stakeholders in developing the sixth industry in Japan. Despite this support, many efforts have been suspended or terminated. To reduce this, clarifying the issues affecting the sixth industry and its support measures and sharing information regarding successful cases is necessary.

First, the issues of the sixth industry are summarized from previous studies. These issues were identified as existing in 12 areas : “facilities and equipment,” “raw materials,” “economics,” “relationships with partners,” “business management skills,” “lack of long-term vision,” “marketing,” “securing human resources,” “technology,” “responding to troubles,” “biased business,” and “lack of regional expansion.”

Next, we conducted a questionnaire survey of prefectural departments in charge of the sixth industry and agricultural extension centers nationwide, asking about areas of concern in the respondents’ jurisdictions. The most frequently cited issues were “marketing,” “securing human resources,” and “facilities and equipment.”

In addition, comments were obtained on effective support measures for each issue. The comments were analyzed by text mining and self-organizing maps. It was found that support measures that were particularly effective for “marketing” supported the expansion of sales channels for developed products based on data obtained from monitoring surveys and questionnaires. For “securing human resources,” effective support measures included the use of help from local women, human resource development through the use of external coordinators and lecturers, and the provision of information. The most effective support measures for “facilities and equipment” were the maintenance and introduction of equipment related to food processing, lending of facilities and equipment, and inspection tours of advanced practices. Effective support measures were similarly identified for other issue areas using text mining and self-organizing maps.

As described above, text mining and self-organizing maps are useful for analyzing comments obtained from descriptive questionnaires. However, text mining and self-organizing maps alone are insufficient. It is also necessary to examine the comments obtained. Furthermore, it should be noted that just because an issue occurs more often does not necessarily mean that there will be more comments on solutions to it.

As the questionnaires in this study were distributed in March 2020 and collected from March to April, it is possible that the environment surrounding sixth industrialization changed due to the repeated declarations of a state of emergency following the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, it is necessary to continue to study the issues and support measures for the sixth industry.

This study aims to elucidate residents’ awareness of both wild animals that damage agricultural products and their extermination, as well as factors relating to this awareness.

Additionally, the analysis results will provide information on governing communal conflict in community organizations tackling Wild Animal Damage to Agricultural Production (WADAP). Organization needs to understand the residents’ feelings about wild animals and WADAP, in order to tackle it.

This study has three backgrounds. First, the Japanese government has been encouraging communities to tackle WADAP collectively, and not individually. WADAP has increased drastically since the 1980s, and now includes several areas which had not experienced this problem thus far. Rural residents and communities have continuously adapted to the evolving threats and explored ways to survive despite WADAP. However, their hard work have not yet yielded remarkable results. That is why the government has been encouraging ‘collective activities based on a community’ (Chiiki Gurumi Katsudo) as an effective countermeasure. However, many communities find it difficult to bring the residents together and organize collective activities; in particular, varying levels of residents’ awareness of both wild animals and their extermination complicates this issue. Second, it is not easy for a community to reach a consensus for extermination of wild animals for protecting agricultural products. Thus, it is necessary to provide correct information about the extermination to the residents and then foster their understanding accurately. Third, it is believed that many communities in Japan face WADAP and will continue to do so in future. Some factors causing current WADAP have been pointed out; their short-term resolution appears difficult. This study defines three factors to clarify the structure of residents’ awareness of both wild animals and their extermination. ‘Social Factor’ is the base of this awareness. It comprises a general image of each wild animal and the historical relationship between humans and wild animals. ‘Individual Factor’ comprises information of WADAP, the experience and negative feeling relating to wild animal accumulated by the residents, and their own attributes. ‘Family Factor’ provides opportunities to the family members to share their experience or knowledge of WADAP.

The results show that the residents’ feelings about wild animals’ extermination is “based on the recognition cultivated by social factors and influenced by household factors, and mainly formed by a combination of individual factors”. Therefore, when household and people vary, it is inevitable that feelings on wild animals and their extermination also vary. Three managerial methods of the organization tackling with WADAP to govern the communal conflict can be pointed out from this conclusion. First, information-sharing among residents about WADAP is essential to conduct collective activities for preventing it. Second, the information-sharing should be accurate and appropriate. Also, it is necessary for the organization to recognize who needs what kind of information. Third, participants of the collective activities should be given a role based on their feelings against and awareness of wild animals. Provision of incentive for participants, according to their contribution is recommended to ensure a balance in their burden.

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