It is said that early rural cooperatives in Japan were organizations for small farmers to adapt to the commodity economy and that the area covered by each rural cooperative corresponded to a village that was established in the Edo era. To examine this theory of self-governing village communities, it is necessary to compare the areas of rural cooperatives with the domains of villages using materials from the times when the cooperatives were established; however, appropriate materials have not been used in previous studies. This study examined whether the areas of early rural cooperatives corresponded to those of villages that were established in the Edo era using the home addresses, reported in the official gazette, of the directors of 5,509 rural cooperatives that were established during the ten years following enactment of the Rural Cooperative Act （1900）. It was revealed that rural cooperatives comprised of one village were not dominant in the early period. What is noteworthy is that a substantial portion of cooperatives comprised several neighboring villages, and it is suggested that it was the medium and small land owners who organized these villages into cooperatives. Thus, the theory of self-governing village communities is not supported by the findings of this study on the establishment of early rural cooperatives.

Today，community farms have become increasingly important as the recipients of farmland that owners cannot manage; thus，investigation for management to enhance their sustainability is required. Although previous studies implied the importance of stakeholder management regarding the sustainability of community farms，the effect of stakeholder management is yet to be confirmed. This study conducts a questionnaire survey and estimates relationships between stakeholder management， sustainability， and internal and external environments of community farms in Shiga Prefecture，Japan by using structural equation modeling. As a result，effective choices as stakeholder management and factors that affect choices of stakeholder management are empirically identified.

Many Japanese farmers are expected to keep paddies and their levees in sound condition，thereby maintaining a healthy rural environment. Costs and labor burdens， however， increasingly hinder the aging farming populations from continuing that arduous work. This paper，therefore，examines problems revolving around weeding contracts made within farming communities in Tambasasayama City. Interviews with all contractors in the area illuminated problems concerning levee management，including unclear instructions as to which levee to weed， and ambiguous responsibilities and costs to be shared among contractors. The paper argues that standardizing weeding tasks and conforming costs is crucial to create mutually supportive relationships in the area.

The objective of this research is to clarify the significance of meeting hours in rice farming company management in the North-East region. We conducted research on a 100-ha rice farming company in Iwate Prefecture from 2016 to 2018; using their digital records of employees' work hours. The data indicates that the meeting hours reach 6.4 % of total work hours annually and it appears to have been one of the main jobs of rice farming even in the busiest month. However， the farming company reduced meeting hours in 2018 by simplifying their management policy;it suggests that farming companies in the region are enforcing characteristics of farm machine contractors rather than rice growers，which former studies have indicated.

In this paper，we consider the countermeasures for the management succession of agricultural corporations where multiple children are participating. The verification was conducted based on a survey of agricultural corporations in which two or more children participated and have succeeded.Management after the succession of an agricultural corporation in which multiple children are involved can be divided into a type in which divisions are shared within the management and an organization management type through division. In management where multiple children are involved，it is necessary to prepare for succession early，considering the management role of the siblings after succession.

Asset-Based Lending is a financing method whereby a loan is secured by an asset， which can be taken by the lender when the borrower's debt defaults. The spread of Asset-Based Lending depends on solving three basic problems，namely，evaluation of collateral, monitoring and conversion into cash. A new Asset-Based Lending scheme for livestock farming was constructed in Hokkaido. The scheme uses third-party involvement to solve the three basic problems. In this paper，I intend to reveal a method for spreading Asset-Based Lending.

Entrepreneurship of farmers is expected to promote advanced farm management. However，the determinants of farmers' entrepreneurship and its effects on their management are unclear. Moreover，the effectiveness of entrepreneurship is contingent on the external market environment. This paper aims to solve those problems by using data from a questionnaire survey of 429 suburban farmers in the Kanto Region. The results show that social networks of farmers determine the degree of entrepreneurial orientation. Innovativeness of farmers generally promotes advanced marketing management. On the other hand，the effectiveness of risk-taking orientation is contingent on farm locational conditions.

The aim was to explore the relationships between aspects of diversification and management activity characteristics. The factors identified are based on the analysis of a questionnaire survey of 244 agricultural corporations that produce vegetables，fruit，or rice. Such management was observed to have significant distribution differences in terms of the presence or absence of diversification activities in the following four items: increase in the number of full-time employees，expansion of the market，expansion of role in local same-industry networks，and expansion of local cooperation with entities in other industries.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the recent variation of Engel's coefficient in Japan，using factor decomposition analysis with the food demand elasticities estimated in a demand system for food and non-food items. The results revealed that the recent increase in Engel's coefficient was attributable to the direct effects of the recent downward trend for living expenditure and strong upward trends for the prices for foodstuffs，cooked food，and eating out，which were larger than their indirect negative effects due to decreases in demand for foodstuffs，cooked food，and eating out.

In this article，we will investigate the existence of animal welfare friendly (AWF) egg and chicken products at retail stores. Through the analysis of characteristics，we will reach some conclusions for expanding AWF products. As a result，we found that，in eggs，iodine-enriched eggs and cage-free eggs are close in price range.This suggests that it is important to improve the food system that can supply cage-free eggs at a lower price range. As for chicken，it was revealed that antibiotics-free chickens were buried in brand chickens. It was suggested that it was necessary to advertize the value of antibiotic-free chickens from the viewpoint of AWF.

In West African countries，domestic rice production should be improved to overcome the dependence on imported rice. In order to achieve that，upgrading the domestic rice value chain needs to improve for maintaining high competitiveness of domestic rice relative to imported rice. This study investigates consumer preferences of rice in Mauritania.We used best-worst scaling and latent class analysis. The results emphasize the importance of cleanliness attributes in consumer choice and identify three latent segments: “preferences for price and cleanliness attributes"，“strong preference for cleanliness attributes"，and “preference for clean rice with high swelling capacity and safety attributes".

The Chinese government has been promoting bioethanol programs to address high ending stocks，air pollution problems and energy security since 2002. The government released the goal of Expansion of Ethanol Production and Promotion for Transportation Fuel in 2017. Based on the goal，the government is promoting the natiowide expansion of bioethanol utilization programs by 2020. This study examines how the Chinese bioethanol utilization expansion programs will impact the domestic and international food markets by analyzing various scenarios.The result of this study indicates that increasing bioethanol production from corn will impact domestic and international food markets. In this case，promoting DDGS utilization and increasing its productivity are the key programs to mitigate the impact for food markets.

This paper explains how to keep on investing in the breeding of wheat，for which growers can use farm-saved seeds (FSS). Breeding in Germany and Australia is done by the private sector with royalties paid by varieties users. Growers in Germany pay royalties when they buy certified seeds or use FSS. Growers in Australia pay royalties when they sell or consume their product. The Australian system works well under the high rate of FSS use. Germany and Australia have introduced suitable systems，and Japan also needs a system matching its seed supply and wheat production if Japan is to promote private breeding in addition to public breeding

The objective of this study is to estimate an optimum insurance money of an index insurance of flood disaster for rice farmers in Labutta township in Ayeyarwady region in Myanmar. The model assumes that the farmers maximize their profit and insurance money minus the insurance premium，and their production function is specified as the Cobb-Douglas function. Furthermore，it is assumed that the farmers as firms are risk neutral. Solving the maximizing problem，the function of the optimum insurance money is derived. Substituting the average rate of damaged area，average input prices，and cost shares of the four inputs into the function，the optimum insurance money for the rice farmers is obtained. The percentage of the insurance money to the output value is 2.1%.This number is a guideline for a plan of insurance to adapt to climate change.