Farmers' attitudes towards sustainable agriculture in Japan

Abstract

In Japan, the need to proceed towards a more sustainable agriculture appears to be a common goal for the Ministry of Agriculture and farmers' organizations. However, agricultural policy aiming at a more sustainable agriculture will only be successful if it corresponds to farmers' values and convictions. Accordingly, the correspondence of young farmers' values and convictions with a new model of sustainable agriculture can help Japanese agriculture move towards sustainability. Nevertheless, mature and elderly farmers (the bulk of the farming sector), concerned principally with agricultural productivity, are more reluctant to redirect farming practices by taking ecological considerations into account. This paper, based on a qualitative methodology, examines the integration of the environment into Japanese agricultural policy, and goes on to analyse Asahikawa farmers' attitudes towards sustainable agriculture.