The purpose of this study is to make clear the effects of support activities in Cattle Breeding Station (CBS) to regional livestock industries and organize the points to consider the future installation. In this study, first of all, we summarized the installation of CBS facilities in Japan, and select the optimum facilities. And we organize the outline and characteristics of these CBS’s.

The results of the analysis lead to the conclusions that common tasks of CBS are difficulties of applying diversification of support activities due to the change of livestock farmers and increase of the risk about breeding from wet child calf, and resource allocation between present problems and medium to long term problems in regional livestock activities.

The participants of agricultural diversification need to obtain various kinds of information since they need to acquire a wide variety of knowledge for successful agricultural diversification. Before the ICT innovation, they used to obtain such information through the network based on their kin-ties and local community. However, in this era of ICT technologies, they now develop and maintain their networks through social networking services (SNS). They exchange necessary information in agricultural diversification using this new type of network. This paper presents our investigation of networks on SNS. Specifically, we conducted a study to reveal (1) which SNS the participants use to develop and maintain their networks and (2) what type of support the participants obtain from their networks. Our results show that the participants (1) use different SNS for different purposes and (2) obtain informational, esteem, and emotional supports from their network on SNS.

This paper focus on farmland obtaining for new farmers in orcharding. It is difficult for new farmers in orcharding to obtain farmlands because of its long foster period and the risk of profitable expenses, unlike other items. For this problem，we analyzed that who mediate farmlands between the landowner and the new farmer from the view point of the length of contract and the price of lease based on field investigation. As a result, we found that new farmers had to contract without help of agricultural cooperative staff or acceptant farmer and are on the weak position in contracting. In this way, the specific problem in orcharding has been left in the area that accepts new famer limited to orcharding yet.

This study revealed the large-scale shipping system that has been formed in the leading mango production area of Pangasinan, Philippines. In the province of Pangasinan, mango tree owners lack funds required for fruit production, so contractors have been providing it and conducting the mango production and marketing. Two major traders in the province also financed the contractors and purchased mangoes from them, forming networks of mango supply and realizing the large-scale shipping system. Since 2008, mango production in the province has been declining significantly due to typhoon damage and insect damage. As a result of these disasters, a number of contractors withdrew from the mango production due to deteriorating business conditions. In addition, the planting of new mango trees has decreased and even existing mango orchards has been converted to paddy fields and corn fields. The emerging shipping system under these circumstances was characterized by further expansion of mango production by some large-scale contractors and dependence on major traders to supply mangoes to exporters and processors. It is predicted that the upcoming establishment of another cooperatives for mango stakeholders will lead to the development of a more organized shipping system in Pangasinan.

This research material clarified the actual situation of formulating and publishing visions for full utilization of paddy fields from an exhaustive survey of the agricultural regeneration council. The main results are the following four points. First, prefectural version paddy field full utilization visions are all created, and the probability of regional version paddy field full utilization visions is 94%. Second, the vision of full utilization of paddy fields is often published on the web sites of prefectures and municipalities. In many cases, they are not disclosed at all. Third, the paddy field full utilization vision is a blueprint for encouraging farmers to make independent plans for cropping, but in reality, they are created and published at a later date than the production by farmers. This means that the paddy field full utilization vision has lost substance system. Actual conditions need to be analyzed for the effectiveness of the paddy field full utilization vision that supports the current policy.

Based on a literature review, this study analyzed the role of the officer of a residents’ association in promoting sustainable development of the association while managing the rural resources. The results show the unwillingness of the residents to take charge as an officer of the residents’ association, owing to the workload as an officer. Despite this aversion toward the role, the officer performs crucial tasks such as handling administrative and emergency-related correspondences, planning and managing events, and undertaking projects for promoting the regional agriculture. Thus, the president of the residents’ association performs various crucial roles that are indispensable to the promotion of the region.