This study examines the current conditions and factors inhibiting agricultural management practice in hilly and mountainous areas, using the example of Towa town, located in the Abukuma Highlands in Fukushima prefecture. In particular, the study considers the current effectiveness and limitations of the subjective efforts of farmers towards overcoming various disadvantages in the region. The results are described below.
Farmers in Towa town have engaged in agricultural activities on the slopes, with the exception of the narrow plains at the bottom of the valley formed by the small-scale river. Agriculture in Towa town has developed focusing primarily on silkworms, rice paddies, livestock and leaf tobacco as a result of being supported by government-controlled prices. However, agriculture has had government-controlled prices lowered due to the regression in government pricing policies, while the establishment of fields aimed at highly-productive agriculture lags far behind. Agricultural management conditions have unavoidably become less favorable as the opening of agricultural product markets steadily progresses and agriculture becomes caught up in a spiral of intensifying price competition.
During the latter half of the 1970s, some younger farmers decided to initiate organic agriculture. The commercialization of organic agricultural products through "direct dealing contract" products according to "production cost security" realized a price system different from price competition on agricultural product markets. In particular, some farmers who wanted to establish an economic basis in preference to the "sansho teikei" movement, introduced this because of the high level and steady contract price. As conditions began to worsen due to price competition, organic agriculture in Towa town steadily expanded starting in the middle of the 1980s with the goal of a new form of production to take the place of the agricultural sector previously supported by government-controlled prices.
However, starting in the 1990s, organic agriculture in Towa town began to show signs of decline. Organizations such as cooperatives, special organic production marketing and farmers that had previously supported organic agriculture began evolving businesses targeted at a large unspecified number of consumers in order to sustain themselves. This led to organic agricultural products produced in Towa town being caught up in price competition in markets. As a result, farmers in Towa town were again subjected to the risk of less stable agricultural management conditions under price competition.
Although the evolution of organic agriculture in Towa town is effective as a current countermeasure towards problems in hilly and mountainous areas, it has also experienced difficulty in overcoming these problems. The postwar social and economic structural causes of decline in hilly and mountainous areas are continuing for the present. The problems of the hilly and mountainous areas are not only agricultural, but are also problems relating to the social and economic structure and these are complex and serious.
Avoiding price competition in agricultural product markets is essential for the evolution of agriculture in hilly and mountainous areas, where it is difficult to evolve highly productive agricultural activities. One approach is through the implementation of "direct payments". These new systems need to calculate the difference in production cost compared with flat rural areas. Moreover, they need to establish employment methods such that farmers are not prevented from autonomous production activities.

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By paying attention to the hitherto neglected "Map of Japanese Folk Crafts (Folding Screens)" ("Nihon Mingei Chizu Byobu"), the purpose of this paper is to consider the process of YANAGI Muneyoshi's discovery of the local handicrafts that resulted in making the Map on folding screens and writing the book "Handicrafts in Japan."
The huge Folding Screen Map, which contains detailed information about 541 places of folk craft products, was completed and first exhibited in 1941. After being shown at the World Exhibition in Osaka in 1970, the Map has been on permanent exhibition at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Osaka. It was specially exhibited at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo in the jubilee years of 1989 (the first year of Heisei) and 2000. The Map is seen as the symbol of the Japanese Folk Craft Movement.
For forty years, from his early twenties until five years before his death, YANAGI (1889-1961) traveled constantly throughout Japan, conducting research and collecting artistic items. "A Note on Folk Crafts in Prefectures in Japan" ("Nihon Shokoku Mingei Kenbetsu Oboegaki") has recently been found among the Yanagi materials at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. It is argued that this comprises the basic data that were used in making the large Map. This Note is a valuable source that bridges YANAGI's original research and the resulting map and book. The Map also includes additional information supplied by YANAGI's friend JUGAKU Bunsho (1900-92), and SERIZAWA Keisuke (1895-1984), who painted the screens. A notable feature of SERIZAWA's map is that it is designed diagrammatically (like a railway map) so as to show the relative distance and position of the various places.
With the development of mass production and extensive transportation networks, folk crafts were fast losing their idiosyncratic qualities. In response, the Folk Craft Movement searched for utility articles peculiar to individual localities that still survived. These local products were collected and exhibited in urban areas. The Folk Craft Movement made it a principle to avoid wordy explanations about the objects on display. Instead, maps were used as an effective way of supplying information. In folk craft exhibitions, the artisan's name is rarely supplied, and only the product place names are given. We can see here an emphasis on the importance of place with regard to Japanese folk crafts.
Throughout the world during the first half of the last century, there was a tendency to extrapolate national characteristics from local arts, and YANAGI in Japan was no exception. In his "Map of Japanese Folk Crafts (Folding Screens)" and in "Handicrafts of Japan, " we can regard his gaze on various regions all over Japan as based on the geographical imagination.

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