The purpose of this paper is to econometrically clarify the demand for beef in Japan by dividing beef into four classes and considering nonstationary of time series data, and to discuss the impacts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement on domestic beef production. The main analysis results are as follows. First, demands for imported edible meats are more elastic to own price and edible meat expenditure compared with demands for domestic edible meats. Second, the TPP agreement will not significantly affect the demand quantity of Japanese beef or hybridize type beef but will reduce the demand quantity of dairy beef by 8.6%. Third, the situation after the TPP agreement comes into force will be different from the situation after the beef tariffication; thus, we cannot expect a mitigation effect of trade liberalization impact, such as the expansion in beef produced from Japanese cattle compensating for the reduction in beef produced from dairy cattle.

The purpose of this paper is to provide some implications for a next-generation model of paddy-farming in Japan, through a validation of the large-scale mechanized farming concept and practice in Ogata Village, Akita Prefecture, born as "a future agricultural model for Japan." First, even though contracts of land sale and farming systems were connected between the settlers and the country, both parties often came across bad opportunities and confrontation. But, even though the failure of rice direct seedling as a critical portion of a national plan, strong desire and no-compromise pursuit by the settlers of mechanized systems contributed to encourage establishment of large-scale mechanized rice-only systems using such devices as transplanters to serve the purpose of the initial results. Second, village farmers piled on marketing ingenuity and hard work under the Food Act, and at the same time succeeded in environment-friendly agricultural production. Therefore, they tend to focus only on rice and were increasingly spurred on; as a result, weak changes were effected on the land use system from the inside. Third, the development of farmers’ cooperation with consumers, users and other regions’ farmers including livestock farmers also caused new changes to the land use system.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of reduction of concentrate for grazing dairy farm in Hokkaido. According to a case analysis, when milk price and feed price rise together, there are some economic advantages to reducing the amount of concentrate supply and milk production. And in comparison with the test calculation results, those strategies make profit-fluctuations decrease.

This study aims to discover how large-scale farms in Japan have developed with the help of permanently hired workers. The corporate farms in Kagawa Prefecture especially achieved their rapid expansion by mixing staffs of Japanese workers and the technical intern trainees from abroad. Their business strategy has made them able to hire as many trainees as they need, against the quota system for training programs in which each farm has a limited number of trainees in proportion to the number of permanently hired Japanese workers, by dividing their corporate farms into different companies.

In Japan, managerial capabilities are needed by new entries and family farmers who formulate and implement management strategies in urban agriculture where a wide range of businesses exist. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the effect of the acquisition processes on the managerial capabilities and the details of such processes. Questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews were executed in Tokyo and Yokohama City. In summary, for new entries, the educational and professional background affects them. For family farmers, job responsibilities are important. Besides, the effects of management resources and farm size on managerial capabilities are different in the two groups.

This study analyzes a case which improved the utilization rate of arable land through production of rice for non-principal food. The main outcomes are as follows. Rice for non-principal food is produced jointly in Nagashima-cho by a lot of large-scale farmers. Land owners and cultivators have a share the advantage of eliminating ambiguity concerning the responsibility for mowing in summer. Dispersion of the agricultural workload, which is one of the benefits of rice production for non-principal food, doesn't generate profit to the degree which a large-scale farmer craves.

The objective of this study is to show the characteristics of mergers of community farming. The main outcomes are as follows. First, when there are constraints on community farming to shift to the "management with a small number of core employees", the community lets members do a resource management project at the merged farming community. Second, the purpose of diversification of a business is the participation and income improvement of members. Third, many merged farming communities have dual structural systems of administrator organization and community.

The agricultural census of 2015 indicated that the total area of abandoned farming land reached to 424,090 ha which accounts for nearly 10% of total farming land in Japan. However, little is known about economic, social, and geographical characteristics that lead farmers to leave their farming lands idle. Tobit and quantile regression analysis are used to identify the underlying factors and the promising countermeasures using community level data in the Tohoku region of Japan. Our regression analysis shows that the location and steepness of farming land are key causal factors, indicating that farming land abandonment is more likely to take place in mountainous and remote areas.

The purpose of this study is to review the problems and measures under the new agricultural cooperatives audit system. The new agricutural cooperatives audit system is concerned about the operational audit, the weakening of the adjustment and representative functions of the Central Council, the increase in audit costs in the unit agricultural cooperatives, and the positioning of agricultural cooperatives audit officers. For this problem, JA group Hokkaido is suggesting a link with public accountants and agricultural cooperatives, the prevention of bankruptcy in unit agricultural cooperatives through a link with JA Bank, and comprehensive consideration of the audit cost.

A raw milk transaction model is developed to examine the impacts of the supply shock on the structure of Japan's classified raw milk market quantitatively. Two methods of raw milk transaction, the current and a new method, are considered in the simulation analysis. The results indicate that the supply shock has an impact on only raw milk supply for manufacturing use, and the excess demand occurs in the former case. On the other hand, the transaction share of fluid milk and raw milk for fresh cream increase while that of raw milk for cheese and for manufacturing use decrease in the new transaction case. Conducting sensitivity analysis, the results are largely robust to the elasticities of transformation.

The objective of this study is to estimate heterogeneous preferences of consumers for a form of communication of relationship marketing : the factory tour. We use two classes of six evaluation factors from existing research : the main contents of factory tour and support components. We obtain the following results. First, consumers tend to evaluate factory tours differently, based on their value of factors. Although consumers who value main contents are likely to repeat participation, those who emphasize support components tend to participate fewer times. Second, consumers are divided into two groups, repeater and trial groups, and their effects of interest differ between groups.

This study clarifies the actual conditions and the problems of the vegetables cultivated in the plant factory which is increasing rapidly in number, and considers the problems with their marketing. According to our questionnaire survey, the profitability of the plant factory is low, it is difficult to match the supply and demand of products. This is because the economic characteristics of the vegetables cultivated in the plant factory are the same as for industrial products. One of the effective means is to secure a sales partner for whom the shipment adjustment is possible.

This paper investigated future support policies for nuclear disaster areas. This study used the case of Minami-Soma City in Fukushima Prefecture, which has been observed to have a high level of radioactive contamination due to the nuclear power plant accident. A questionnaire survey was administered by Minami-Soma City Office five years after the accident. The survey results showed that one-third of farmers in that area indicated their intention to continue their agriculture production 10 years into the future. It is indispensable to make certain policies for motivating farmers to keep up their production work by building a safe secure agriculture production system. It's also important to propose a new farming model according to a farming type for principal farmers. Because the mood for organization is increasing, concrete suggestions for the organization of the local agriculture are demanded.

Flower shops in the consumer center of Tokyo were studied to determine whether inedible agricultural products from Fukushima Prefecture are avoided in retail markets. Surveys identified consumers who prefer to avoid flowers from Fukushima, retail stores that avoid Fukushima products in anticipation of such consumers, and radioactivity tests and traceability systems used for foods as effective countermeasures for such avoidance. Though few retail stores currently display flowers' location of origin, the industry is moving to increase labeling. Meanwhile, producers that evacuated are returning to Fukushima. Findings from this study are informative not only for producers but also for policy makers.

This study analyzes the import rice demand in Hong Kong. In an effort to evaluate the competitiveness of Japanese rice in the international Japonica markets, an LA/AIDS model was applied to a set of consumption and price data on rice of 2002-2015 from Hong Kong. The results of this study indicate that Japanese rice holds a competitive advantage over the rice from China for its high quality. Market differentiation by its unique quality could be a key for the successful promotion of Japanese rice in international markets.

There are limited studies on rural finance institutions of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. In particular, livestock farming is one of the least well documented areas, empirically. Based on the survey conducted in the Khoboot Xar district in Inner Mongolia, this study empirically explores the situation and issues surrounding the newly started financial scheme of the grassland collateral loan program. Based on the analysis on survey data, the study found that the grassland collateral loan program is mainly provided to stockmen with higher sales rather than those with larger grassland. This result shows the cautious lending behavior taken by Rural Credit Cooperatives because of their limited financial resources and expertise on grassland assessment. Financial management by the Cooperative needs to be improved along with further governmental provision of financial resources in order to bring wider benefit to local commiunities.

In the 2000s, after the Asian currency crisis, East Asian countries achieved rapid economic growth. Many of Japanese frozen food companies focused on East Asian markets, but they faced the problem of cold-chain and refrigerators. In this paper, I calculated market access considering the penetration rate of household refrigerators in the host country, based on the new economic geography (NEG) theory, and estimate the location choice model with these accesses.

This study discusses the relationship between the educational effects of field studies and training for crop production on a teaching and research farm at university and students' grades and experience in agriculture. The study sample consisted of 131 questionnaires. The main findings are as follows : first, the higher the students' grades, the higher the educational effects. Second, the educational effects of agriculture are higher in students who have experience in agriculture before field training than they are on inexperienced students in lower grades.