This study investigates the changes in the use of local ingredients, customer traffic, and attitudes of the owners of restaurants after participating in the “Shonai, the Food Capital of Japan” initiatives, targeting the Shonai area, a region that has promoted regional revitalization through food. Results of a questionnaire survey of restaurants registered as “Shonai, the Food Capital of Japan” cooperative restaurants, the restaurants use a large amount of local agricultural products from Shonai, but the use of local marine products and livestock products from Shonai is relatively low, and there is room to increase their use in the future. While some restaurant owners do not feel that the registration has attracted more customers or increased sales, it has had a certain effect on not only their own interest in agriculture in the Shonai region but also their willingness to increase their use of local food ingredients. To increase the awareness of restaurant owners who wish to use Shonai food products to enhance the local economy, further promotional efforts by the government and closer ties with local producers are considered important.

In this study, we examined the feasibility of introducing Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) into university-regional cooperation through an internet-based questionnaire survey of university students, faculty, and staff of the Faculty of Agriculture. Analysis of the response data showed that although awareness of CSA was low and experience participating in CSA was limited, there was a tendency to evaluate CSA as a good initiative for university-regional cooperation. In addition, a variety of items were selected as reasons for evaluating CSA as a good initiative for university-regional cooperation, including the advancement of agricultural education. Furthermore, ordered logistic regression analysis showed that the willingness to pay for CSA membership fees was associated with occupation and various experiences (home delivery, farm work), interest in food, awareness of CSA, evaluation of CSA as an initiative for promoting university-regional cooperation, and intention to participate in activities other than purchasing agricultural products through CSA. Through this analysis of evaluations by students, faculty, and staff of the Faculty of Agriculture, who are thought to have a relatively high interest in university-regional cooperation related to agriculture and rural areas, we obtained results that suggest the feasibility of introducing CSA into university-regional cooperation.

This paper analyzed changes in the number of visitors to the rice terrace area and nearby roadside station. We focused on changes before and after self-imposed stay-home during the COVID-19 pandemic, using mobility data to investigate the variations. We found that the number of visitors and the time spent in the rice terrace area increased after the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when the scenery was optimal. In contrast, the number of visitors and the time spent at the roadside station decreased, especially during the peak seasons.

The proportion of nonfarmers is increasing in rural areas, and the need for allotment gardens is growing. Given the changes in rural residents, the issues of allotment gardens are 1) adaptability to diverse residents such as beginners, 2) can meet diverse needs for rural life, and 3) can contribute to the maintenance of farmland. Most previous studies focused on metropolitan areas, so the situation of allotment gardens for rural residents remains unclear. Therefore, this study investigated allotment gardens in the Nagano Prefecture, analyzing the situation from the perspectives of “location type”, “facility status”, and “implementation system”. The location type was classified into four categories, and the “adjacent type” that utilizes adjacent facilities was distinctive. Seeds could be purchased at adjacent facilities, and cultivation courses were also available ; thus, the “adjacent type” was considered significant for issue 1. The facility status was insufficient, but the “plaza-attached type” had a distinctive installed square. In one case, camping was possible by setting up a grassy area on the plots, and the “plaza-attached type” was considered meaningful for addressing issue 2. There were 19 different implementation systems, of which the “user-maintained type”, where the users maintained the garden, was distinctive. Some gardens were maintained on a community basis, and “user-maintained type” was considered significant for issue 3.

The rural planning of the former Senya Village (now Misato Town) in Senpoku, Akita, is known for its characteristic cedar tree-lined landscape. This plan should be remembered as a pioneering physical planning project that was planned and promoted under the guidance of the wealthy farmer Riichiro Sakamoto in the late Meiji era. The plan was created in the wake of the Rikuu Earthquake (1896) and implemented over 45 years, while being repeatedly revised by four successive village mayors. It consisted of two main elements. The first was the formation of a central district to eliminate conflicts of interest between regions after the merger of former villages and form a new sense of community through the implementation of the town and village system (1889). The second was the development of a road network as a core facility for promoting agriculture and other industries. In the central area, land for public facilities such as town halls and elementary schools was neatly divided and straight roads were arranged geometrically radiating towards each village. The road network was not only laid out within the village, but also connected through a prefectural road to Omagari Station on the Japanese National Railways, which was a distribution hub. Similar physical planning was rarely carried out in rural planning during the Choson Ze period, and the fact that Senya villageʼs plan remained isolated without being evaluated symbolizes the characteristics of rural planning in Japan.

The continuity of collaborative activities and the deepening of participants' understanding are important to implementing meaningful transdisciplinary research. In recent years, transdisciplinary frameworks have become relevant in various research fields, and the rural planning study has accumulated many cases of regional collaborative activities. However, in some cases, ad hoc community collaboration activities do not deepen participants' understanding or change their behavior. Appropriate, effective evaluation methods are needed to solve this problem and improve collaborative activities in the transdisciplinary research context. This study applied the Most Significant Change (MSC) technique to evaluate regional collaborative activities conducted in a rural village of Saijo City, Ehime prefecture, Japan. We provided a case study of the participatory, qualitative evaluation of regional collaborative activity and discussed the MSC technique’s potential through analysis of questionnaires and group work using text mining. The analysis revealed that participants' statements changed before and after the MSC group work. We also found that it contributed to increasing participants' motivation to continue working on the activity. This case study may inform future deployment of the assessment of regional collaborative activities and the evolution of education towards sustainable development.

This study examines the results of the rural development method Hotoku-shiho implemented by Kinjiro Ninomiya. It primarily targeted Monoi village in Sakuramachi territory (currently Moka City, Tochigi Prefecture) using two maps created in the Genroku era and early Meiji era. A noteworthy feature was the implementation of a physical plan that integrated production and living spaces as a rural reconstruction measure, and constructed a new regional spatial structure. Regarding the production space, we improved the working environment within the framework of labor-intensive early modern farming methods by reshaping farm plots and straightening, hierarchically structuring roads to improve labor efficiency. We actively built a network of roads for the convenience of traffic within the region and also from the perspective of regional management based on markets outside the region. Concerning the living space, road layouts and integrated village restructuring were promoted and housing construction and environmental improvement were actively supported. This was based on the viewpoint that an improved living environment leads to improved life attitudes and motivation for farming. Kinjiro's attitude is also evident empirically in his survey of ruined settlements, and he had a strong interest in the land-use and ownership relationships of settlements. Interestingly, Kinjiro worked on measures for settlements in Japan at the end of the early modern period (1920s-1950s) from an environmentally deterministic standpoint.