This paper examined the current status, technical/business characteristics and potential of expanding organic agriculture in Japan by analyzing farmers’ intentions of production, awareness and behavior with different types of operation, farmland sizes and sales scales in organic/sustainable agriculture. The main results are as follows: i） Organic farmers with high technical and managerial skills exist numerously in family farms, agricultural corporations, and cooperative farmer organizations. ii） The trend is observed that the farmers with larger farm size showed more active attitudes in organic/sustainable farming practices. iii） The transition toward organic agriculture has been regarded as an innovative behavior or new farm business model, not only limited to its environmental orientation. These results suggest the possibility of rapid expansion of organic agriculture in Japan. The policy efforts aimed at improving organic farming practices, consumer education and fostering an organic food market are required.

This paper finds that, in the Japan-US Trade Agreement (JUSTA), the true tariff elimination ratio for the US is 5 percent and that for Japan-US combined is 34 percent, which falls short of the 90 percent threshold set by the Japanese government for its FTA to be consistent with the WTO Agreements, and proves that the JUSTA violates the WTO Agreements. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that, even if tariffs on automobiles/auto parts and duty-free items are assumed to be eliminated as the Japanese Government professes, the tariff elimination ratio for the US still falls below 90 percent.

The objective of this study is to analyze the problem of Japanese agricultural cooperatives from two aspects, association and enterprise, and add a new point of view to previous controversy. The main outcomes are as follows. Japanese agricultural cooperatives have not only the role of a professional or community association, but also the role of a public or welfare service. These new roles emerged by considering cross-subsidization, which was not discussed in the 1970s. There is no clear definition of cross-subsidization, so it is difficult to recognize how large it is. However, discussing the existence and validity of it is necessary in order to decide the role of cooperatives in the future. Furthermore, members need to discuss which type is suitable for their cooperatives.

This study analyzes the size, composition, and impact of the budget for agricultural and rural development projects, focusing on trends under the 2nd - 4th Abe administrations. The Abe administration aimed to ensure that its budget was similar in size to that of the Aso administration (577.2 billion yen), and this was achieved by adding the supplementary budget to the initial budget. Second, the budget priorities have changed from improving basic agricultural infrastructure to improving competitiveness. Third, the proportion of the budget allocation for rural development has shrunk.

This study analyzes the characteristics of agricultural policy settlement, taking major budgetary measures as examples. The results are as follows. In agricultural policy, especially in budgetary measures strongly influenced by politics, the proportion of the amount of budget rolled over to the next fiscal year or unused budget tends to be high. Based on the settlement, it is essential that the previous budget be examined to optimize the next budget and then continuously monitored.

Recently, Agricultural Colleges (hereafter, ACs) located in each prefecture have experienced a rapid increase of students from non-farming households. Many of those students expect to enter agricultural corporations. However, only a part of ACs can adapt to this social change. This paper aims to clarify the characteristics of those successful ACs by using data from a questionnaire survey of 42 ACs’ principals. As a result, important characteristics are revealed as follows: a right understanding of external social environments, educational contents adjusted to a diversity of students, and various supports for students to choose agricultural corporations and supports for graduates to receive some advice.

The objective of this study is to reveal utilization method of unclaimed farmland. To achieve our purpose, we compared the nationwide use situation of official notice, and the actual situation regarding unclaimed farmland from a field survey in Odate, Akita. The main outcomes are as follows. First, the people were enabled to carry out land improvement by official notice, so the system can make a certain evaluation from the use of unclaimed farmland. Second, it was simultaneously recognized that there were certain conditions for farmland to be publicly announced.

The objective of this study is to clarify the effects of volumetric irrigation water pricing in irrigation block units on the irrigation water use. In this scheme, water pricing can give incentives for water saving, but there is externality between the users in that the level of a user’s water fee is affected by the others in the same block. In addition, farmland accumulation can affect the externality and the users’ water saving cost. The empirical analysis shows price elasticity of demand is inelastic and farmland accumulation may not have a simple linear relationship with irrigation water use.

The objective of this paper is to examine how household attributes affect food demand by estimating Engel functions with the anonymized data of the National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure in 1989, 1994, 1999, and 2004. The result includes that households with an older householder like more fish and vegetables, and like less eating-out and processed food than those with a younger householder after removing the effects of children and elderly family members. This is consistent with the finding in Kusakari (2011) that younger households like eating-out and processed food and older households like healthy foods as a tendency.

The purpose of this study is to assess consumer preferences for sustainable food procurement of restaurant chains by Best–Worst Scaling (BWS). The study uses the BWS object case to evaluate the relative importance of characteristics of rice. The BWS multi-profile case is used to elicit MWTP for origin information on ingredients of a typical dinner set meal. Results of the BWS object case reveal the highest preferences for less-pesticide rice. Biologically friendly rice, and brand rice were not highly valued. MWTPs for domestic origin information, especially beef, were highly valued by consumers in comparison with foreign origin ingredients.

The objective of this study is to estimate causal effects of a tourism policy, the Mie Shoku-Tabi Passport, implemented by Mie Prefecture, on the tourism and consumption behavior of tourists using the propensity score matching method. The results indicate that utilization of the passport had significantly positive effects such as dining out frequency in Mie, expenses of dining out in Mie, and frequency of visiting Mie, especially for tourists living in neighboring prefectures. The passport also effectively provided opportunities to discover new places to visit and eat to tourists living in Mie.

The objective of this study is to explore the actual conditions and structural problems of the local soy sauce manufacturing industry. Based on literature and interview surveys of three small businesses in Hyogo Prefecture, the following structural problems were clarified. Many of small business could manufacture efficiently because of their scale. In addition to the original product characteristics that are difficult to differentiate, demand reduction and decrease in resource suppliers caused the loss of the uniqueness of their products and put them in competition with large businesses. Another cause was the absence of successors. The results suggest an alternative direction for their sustainable management.

Little is known about how the Japanese sake brewing industry has since the modern period maintained its structure in which small businesses are predominant. To make it clear, this study focuses on the case of a certain small brewery before WW2, which was founded by an old landowner family. The following matters are revealed: this company overcame a harsh slump by defending its territory from some competitors. This was achieved through a counteracting sales strategy and products of high quality, which had been realized by improved raw material rice cropped under the tenancy system. Thus even small breweries could afford competitiveness through using resources in the local society.