In the Towa area, organic agriculture has been worked from the 1990s. The Towa area was hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident on March 11, 2011. Now, the “emergency restoration program” is advanced in this area. The main pillars of this program are reconstruction of farming and people’s daily life. The program is constituted with independent systematic radioactivity measurement movement and holding round-table talks and workshops.

In the Towa area, many farmhouses have continued cultivating farmland even after the nuclear power plant disaster. Much of the farmland is for self-sufficiency. The continued cultivation by the Towa farmers led to establish the subsequent radioactivity measurement movement, which made it possible to confirm the power of the “Tuchi” that overcomes radioactivity. The restoration program supports self-sufficient agriculture, regional agriculture and the community.

The work in the Towa area brings many implications when considering “implications of community supported agriculture” that is discussed among organic agriculture researches until today.

Farming practices for sustainable agriculture to promote coexistence between humans and nature should focus not only on replacing the chemicals used in farming but also on re-designing the agro-ecosystem to maximize the ecological, economic and social synergies among them, and to minimize the conflicts. Soil management with the no- tillage, weed-cover and low-input farming system provides a matrix with positive ecological qualities for biodiversity and ecosystem services. This study focused on farming practices and soil nutrient dynamics in an agricultural field where the no-tillage with weed-cover and low-input system was practiced for 11 years in Ibaraki prefecture. The field showed significantly higher soil organic carbon content compared with conventional farming fields where chemical fertilizer had been applied. In no-tillage with weed cover fields, soil inorganic nitrogen contents were significantly higher in the 0-2.5 cm soil layer compared with deeper soil layers. This result suggested that accumulated weed cover residues enhanced soil organic carbon accumulation and soil nutrients. The vegetables that were harvested from this field showed relatively higher ascorbic acid and sugar content compared with conventional ones. These results suggested that the no-tillage with weed-cover and low-input system has a great potential for establishing a low-input organic farming system.

Organic Agriculture in Spain developed rapidly in these two decades and now boast the largest organic farming area in Europe. Because 70% of organic products are exported into EU countries the distribution channel through agricultural cooperative established and organic agriculture certification resume has implemented along with EU organic criteria. To cope with this situation, organic agriculture dissemination organization and certification authorities had founded.

Nevertheless access to domestic consumers for organic food was not broad demand of organic food gradually increased along with the consumer’s consciousness of food safety and good health.

This paper focused on the diffusion of organic agriculture, certification authority and the situation of organic farming and marketing to clarify the characteristics of organic food distribution channels in Valencia. The findings of the paper are as follows;

1)In the case of export oriented cooperative, they acquired not only certificate from EU standard but also from individual certification authorities. Though they gave various kinds of service to the member organic farmers, it became difficult to keep proper profits from their organic business.

2)In the case of broad distribution corporation, they switched their marketing channel from export market to domestic market and changed their business body from cooperative to corporation simultaneously. They sell organic foods to the collaborative consumers group like Japanese Teikei.

3)In the case of local distribution channel, a farmer changes his marketing channel from through cooperative to direct marketing channel. In his case, he does not need to acquire an organic certification anymore because he grasps consumer’s trust.

A kind of paddy power weeder was widely used by most of the organic rice cultivation in Japan for a better weeding effectiveness in addition to cultivation practices. Because increasing the paddy weeding effectiveness would benefit organic paddy farmers’ a vibration-agitation type of paddy weeder was developed and released to market by Company S and Company I in cooperation. This paddy weeder is characterized by its capacity to weed in space between plant stands by reciprocating vibration of weeding nail in addition to the conventional weeding between rows. As confirmed, it removed 96% and 84% of the weed plants (an average of 12,439 plants per square meter) by weeding three and two times, respectively. The rice grain yield increased as the weeding frequency increased, with a yield reaching 584kg/10a by three times of weeding, in comparison with the 375kg/10a in non-weeding control. It was confirmed that the damage to rice plants by weeding was within negligible range and the weeding speed was about 10a per hour. Moreover, the effect of the paddy weeder that combined the effect of puddlings and transplant timing was examined. Thus, the vibration-agitation type paddy weeder could work effectively in combination with other cultural practices such as multiple puddling and postponing transplanting to warm season to enhance weeds germination. As for the setting of the transplant time, it was thought that the time 20 days after the final puddling, when effective multiplication temperature reached 200 day-°C (effective temperature of 10°C ). was promising.

This study was performed to establish effective grazing management for pigs in abandoned forest land（dominant trees: Cryptomeria japonica D. Don and Buxus microphylla Siebold et Zucc. var. sinica Rehder et E.H. Wilson, 10 a）; the study period was August-January 2012. The study population comprised 3 pigs（average body weight, 35kg; age, 20 weeks）who were provided ad libitum access to self-supplied fermented feed consisting of unhulled rice grain, rice bran, food waste, soybean curd residue silages, soybean curd residue, and boiled brown rice. The behavior and growth rate of the pigs and weed control were assessed.

The analysis showed that the dominant understory species was Pueraria lobata（Willd.）Ohwi. The pigs spent approximately 50 ％ of the day in rooting. The plant coverage and herbage mass were significantly lesser in the grazing plot（10 a）than in the control plot（closed area, 2 a）on the 32th day after grazing（P<0.05）. However, Sasamorpha borealis and Pleioblastus Simonii（Carriére）Nakai coverage was similar for both plots. The weight of 2 of the pigs decreased soon after grazing, and therefore, grazing for one of these pigs（lighter animal）was closed when it was 26 weeks old. In contrast, the other pig and the pig whose weight did not decrease showed an increased growth rate later, and their body weights were 105 kg and 85 kg, respectively, at the end of the grazing period（age, 41 weeks）.

These results indicate that, although some pigs showed growth retardation soon after grazing, small-scale swine production involving grazing of pigs for weed control in abandoned forest land might be feasible in combination with the use of rice grain-based self-supplied feed.