In this study, we attempted to clarify the current state of management innovation in rice farming and prospects for the next-generation of farm management. In the case analysis, we confirmed that technological, business, and market innovations are progressing and organizational innovation can be partly observed. According to a nationwide questionnaire survey analysis, business and market, technological, and management innovations tended to progress in accordance with the expansion of farm size (annual sales, number of staff). In clarifying the prospects, we stated that the superiority of each farm and farm type in the future would be determined by the ability of management innovation to convert business environment changes, including future policies, market changes, climate change, and technological innovations, into business opportunities. As discussed in this paper, rice farms that can realize sustainable management innovation will become one of the features of next-generation farm management.

The involvement of advanced corporation farms in a regional farming system was empirically analyzed by a case study of fruit farming. Although the regional farming system led by agricultural cooperatives has been formed in most fruit-producing areas, most advanced corporation fruit farms have developed their own marketing channels and scarcely depended on agricultural cooperatives. But it is important for them to maintain the regional agriculture, because they have obtained land and labor from the region. Moreover, they have purchased some fruits which were essential for their business but they couldn’t produce. Therefore, some advanced corporation fruit farms have been involved in projects for maintaining the regional agriculture such as support for newcomers. On the other hand, Mikkabi Agricultural Cooperative has developed a regional farming system suitable to large-size fruit farms and the advanced corporation fruit farm has developed under the system.

The present paper analyzes, with the lens of neoliberal governmentality, the relationship between innovative farmers and local communities. A review of literature on neoliberalism and relevant works leads to theorization of neoliberal governmentality, which could be defined as a mentality pursuing efficient and rational “conduct of conduct” of human actors through combination, or “hybrid assemblage,” of diverse self-disciplining mechanisms, such as education and diffusion of discourses infused with specific values. In this analysis, two farming corporations, one engaged in large-scale paddy farming in Shiga Prefecture and the other in horticulture in Wakayama Prefecture, are examined with particular attention to the historical trajectory of their development including succession from predecessors, processes to build relationships with stakeholders in and outside their local communities, inheritance to successors, and process to foster skills, knowledge, and mentality needed as managers of farm businesses. The hypothesis was that neoliberal governmentality, including deliberate educational training to foster entrepreneurship, would causally leave its impacts on the mentality of the owners/managers of the case farm businesses. Nonetheless, no clear evidence that such mechanisms have left impacts in stories of the case farm businesses was identified, although the owners/managers of the farm businesses seem to embrace somewhat neoliberal values, which in the future could be diffused through a variety of media, including the government and academia.

This study aims to propose the empirical framework to analyze the managerial environment and management risk for innovative farms. The theory of causal inference is adapted to the discussion of the managerial environment of innovative farms. The results of analysis for rural community card data through the propensity score matching method show how large tracts are held and managed, where agricultural products are shipped and how much farmers work collectively are the most important points of the managerial environment for innovative farms. The technique of farm planning is adapted to the normative analysis of management risk for innovative farms. The estimation results of the relationship between precipitation risk and expected income show how we can measure the management risk for innovative farms concretely.