Status and trends of urban organic agricultural policy in Japan: the survey on ordinance designated cities
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Status and trends of urban organic agricultural policy in Japan: the survey on ordinance designated cities Yoshitaka Miyake
&
Yuta Uchiyama
&
Ryo Kohsaka
Received: 23 April 2020 / Accepted: 19 May 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Development of organic agriculture has been sluggish in contemporary Japanese society. To better understand and capture the status of policy implementation in both urban and semirural areas, this study examined ordinance designated cities (ODCs) by reviewing tendencies and their interests in organic agricultural policies. In concrete, this study reviews the status, trends, interests, and barriers of organic agricultural policies in Japan. This study compared ODCs covering largely urban areas and those ODCs including semirural areas. The quantitative element of comparisons is based on the population and economic size and then on semirural and agricultural characteristics through cluster analysis. As a result, urban ODCs were more concerned about the policies close to consumption. ODCs including semirural areas were more concerned about the ones on production. There are also ODCs in between to show diverse characteristics in the policy implementations and interests. To take this difference into consideration, all types of the ODCs would need to implement the policies for promotion of organic agriculture in future. The results showed the rural-urban difference at the ODCs in the policy tendency through the financial support for certifications, education, and organizing a marché. Further policy supports, such as accumulation of market information, mutual-learning among ODCs, and the information on Y. Miyake : Y. Uchiyama : R. Kohsaka (*) Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Furo-Cho Chikusa-Ku, Nagoya City, Aichi 464-8601, Japan e-mail: [email protected]
the policy effect on the environment, economy, and society, can potentially support efficiency of policy. The general low policy interests among the ODCs could be improved by emphasizing the needs of locally sensitive policy with the effective participation of concerned farmers and other stakeholders including consumers. Keywords Organic agriculture . Local organic agricultural policies . Urban . Japan
Historical development of organic agriculture in Japan Food culture before the introduction of modern agricultural methods was rooted in organic food culture. In such era, food consumption mostly depended on local organic food production (Kohsaka 2017). As the use of chemical fertilizer and pesticide concerns people and damages the environment, the interest in organic agriculture develops (Nakajima 2015). While a few pioneers like Masanobu Fukuoka started the practice of organic agriculture in Japan in the 1930s, the contemporary development translated organic agriculture into yūki nōgyō in Japanese and initiated the Teikei movement in the 1970s (Hatano and Fujimoto 2018; Nakajima 2015; Table 1). Teikei promoted consumer education to nurture the dependable exchange with organic farmers and the discussio
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