Introduction
Voluntary farm work of the urban population had some tradition in Europe during and after the Second World War. Urban volunteers attended (school) harvest camps, weekend farm clubs and other land-based activities to mitigate food shortagesReference Moore-Colyer1, Reference Moore-Colyer2. In the following period of surplus food production, such engagements became irrelevant. Recently, not only in Europe but also in other industrialized countries, volunteers and civil society organizations started to support direct involvement with land and farm work againReference Stenseke3, Reference Swanwick4. In the USA, the term ‘civic agriculture’ was created in 1999 by T.A. Lyson to highlight small(er)-scale (family) farms and local-community-based food production activities and associations as counter movement to the US–American industrialized, globalized, large-scale agricultureReference Lyson5. Civic agriculture is a very broad ‘concept’ characterized by local rural–urban networks between consumers and producers striving for an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable agricultural system, including, e.g., organic farming, direct marketing, alternative (agri)-food stores, and/or movementsReference Lyson5. Also ‘urban agriculture’, ‘community gardens’ (in Europe ‘allotment gardens’) or the ‘farm to school (FTS) program’ can be defined as civic agricultureReference Allen and Guthman6–Reference Saldivar-Tanaka and Krasny8. In contrast to the Japanese Tanada Ownership System presented in this article, urban agriculture and community gardens take place in an urban context and mostly on public land. The FTS program aims at prevention of child obesity by including nutrition in the curriculum and by changes in the school lunch menus toward more fresh food (fruits, vegetables, eggs, honey, meat, etc.) from local farmersReference Bagdonis, Hinrichs and Schafft7. Supporting local farmers helps to revitalize the rural communityReference Bagdonis, Hinrichs and Schafft7. In contrast to the systems analyzed in this paper, a direct involvement of teachers and pupils in agricultural activities, beyond farm visits, however, is not commonReference Bagdonis, Hinrichs and Schafft7, Reference DeLind9.
This paper presents a popular, well-established and organized form of direct civic voluntary farm work in the Japanese rice terrace landscapes that are endangered by abandonment of agricultural land use. The results are discussed against literature on voluntary farm work, landscape stewardship and nature conservation in Europe, Australia and the USA. Conclusions regarding the particularities of the Japanese Ownership System and its transferability to the Western context are drawn.
Rice is the traditional main staple food of Japan. Its cultivation has a tradition of more than 2000 years. It can therefore be considered as a fundamental feature of the Japanese cultural landscape, which is a place of high biocultural diversityReference Takeuchi, Brown, Washitani, Tsunekawa and Yokohari10. Following the Western lifestyle the eating habits of the Japanese people have changed and rice consumption decreased by half from 118.3 kg to an annual per capita consumption of 59 kg between 1962 and 200811. Furthermore, because of a very small average farm size (1.38 ha12) and high costs of laborReference Kobori and Primack13, Japanese rice farmers are confronted with up to 10 times higher production prices, compared to foreign producersReference Fukuda, Dyck and Stout14. From an economical point of view, the cultivation of rice therefore becomes more and more unalluring. Thus, it is not surprising that the number of farm households has decreased by 59% between 1950 and 200811, 12. The farmland area diminished by 24% (from 6.09 million hectares in 1961 to 4.63 million hectares in 2008) to 12% of the country's territory12. A total of 59% of the agricultural key workers were 65 years or older in 200812. These structural and demographic developments are reflected not only in a continuously dwindling food self-sufficiency rate to the lowest among the major developed countries15 but also in the loss of biocultural diversity associated with traditional agricultural landscapes.
The traditional cultural landscape of Japan has been shaped by thousand of years of agricultural land useReference Takeuchi, Brown, Washitani, Tsunekawa and Yokohari10. Because of its long history and the co-evolution of natural and social systems, the landscape is very rich in different habitat types, plant and animal species, customs and culture. The Japanese people perceive it as their ‘mother landscape’Reference Takeuchi16, as some kind of arcadia, they are longing for. Its degradation due to an insufficient level of management is listed in the Fourth National Biodiversity Strategy as one of the main reasons for the loss of biodiversity17.
In the late 1980s, the first cultural landscape conservation movements were emerging at the local levelReference Kuramoto, Takeuchi, Brown, Washitani, Tsunekawa and Yokohari18. Whereas engagement in woodland management is restricted only by few legal rules, there were many legal limitations for civil society participation in agricultural cultivationReference Kuramoto, Takeuchi, Brown, Washitani, Tsunekawa and Yokohari18. With very few exceptions, exclusively farmers were allowed to own and cultivate agricultural land. Non-farmers could just engage in public allotment gardens or to support existing farmers as volunteersReference Kuramoto, Takeuchi, Brown, Washitani, Tsunekawa and Yokohari18. However, some years later a special agricultural leasing partnership program, called ‘ōnā seido’, was initiated, where non-farmers have the opportunity to rent agricultural land. Ōnā is the ‘Japanized’ English word for owner, whereas seido means system. Ōnā seido translated into English makes ‘Ownership System’. A more correct term, however, would be ‘Tenure System’, as the participants in the Ownership System, the owners (ōnā), are not owners, but tenants.
The Ownership System can be regarded as an urban–rural coalition, where non-farmers (predominantly city dwellers) engage in farming activities. Against the payment of a participation fee, they rent their own agricultural land, cultivate it and thus contribute to the revitalization of the rural society and preservation of the traditional cultural landscape.
As it is generally prohibited in Japan by agricultural legislation to lease farm land out to non-farmers, until 2003 the leasing out in the Ownership System could only be done indirectly via a city or an agricultural cooperative associationReference Yamaji19. Later, however, a special law came into action, which allows every prefecture and/or city to apply for the designation as a ‘special district for policy renovation’ (‘tokku’). In these tokku districts, the leasing restrictions do not apply and farmers are allowed to lease out their agricultural land directly to non-farmersReference Yamaji19.
Apart from urban participants (tenants), landowners and local supporter groups are further stakeholders in the Ownership Programs. The local supporter groups play a fundamental role because the landowners are often too old for field work, while the mostly inexperienced tenants need guidance. Moreover, tenants participate only in some special occasions a year, as for example, sowing, transplanting rice, weeding or harvesting. All the work in between is carried out by either the landowners or the local supporter groups.
The Ownership System became very popular in Japan and spread throughout the country, in particular the Tanada Ownership System. Tanada is the Japanese word for rice terrace/terraced paddy fields. In most cases, rice terraces are situated in the mountainous regions of Japan, which are most threatened by land abandonmentReference Watanabe20. But as also shown in the study of SwanwickReference Swanwick4, people prefer landscape with diverse landforms to lowlands. So the popularity of Ownership Programs in rice-terrace landscapes may also be explained with their aesthetic beautyReference Aono, Kaga, Shimomura and Masuda21, Reference Shibata and Masuda22. Apart from that, they evoke strong feelings of timelessness, identity and links with the pastReference Swanwick4.
The first Tanada Ownership System started 1992 in the village Yusuhara (Kochi Prefecture, Japan) in Shikoku Island23. All around Japan 187 Ownership programs were counted in 200824.
Compared to the popularity and innovativeness of the Ownership System, scientific studies are relatively scarceReference Shibata and Masuda22,25–Reference Yamamoto, Makiyama and Yamaji27. Besides that, all of them have been published exclusively in Japanese. Thus, there is little knowledge of this movement among non-Japanese scientists. The particular goal and groundbreaking aspect of our research is to investigate the system from a European viewpoint and to provide a new and deep understanding in the Ownership System by the holistic research approach. The Japanese Ownership System is compared with similar European initiatives. Conclusions focus on the particularities of the Japanese Ownership System and its transferability to the European context.
The factors determining the choice of the study site were the acknowledged scenic and ecological value of its cultural landscape and personal contacts with the local population.
Prior to this study, some research was done on vegetationReference Kojima, Osawa and Katsuno28, visitor's perception of the scenery of tanada landscapesReference Kurita, Kimura, Matsumori and Osari29, cultural landscape conservation methods30 and on the Ownership System itselfReference Yamamoto, Yamaji and Makiyama26, Reference Yamamoto, Makiyama and Yamaji27.
The questions guiding the present research are of clear exploratory nature:
• Why did landowners and local people found the Ownership System in Ōyamasenmaida?
• How is the Ownership System organized?
• What are the provenance, professional background, age and motivations of the tenants of the Ownership System?
• What are the tenants’ attitudes regarding cultural landscapes and different ways of protecting it?
The study area
Ōyamasenmaida is a rice-terrace landscape located in the mountains (Fig. 1), in the south-eastern end of the Boso Peninsula (Chiba Prefecture, Kamogawa City, Japan), around 100 km to the south-east of Tokyo. The name Ōyama (big [ō] mountain [yama]) is derived from Mt. Ōyama (with a shrine on its peak) and Senmaida stands for thousand [sen] pieces [mai] of paddy fields [da]: ‘Thousand pieces of paddy fields located in the mountainous area’.
Figure 1. Aerial photo of the area of Ōyamasenmaida, taken on January 15, 2004; source: Keiyō Survey Co.
Next hamlet to Ōyamasenmaida is Kogane (Fig. 1, left upper corner) with fewer than 20 households. Kogane is part of Hiratsuka (165 households, 532 inhabitants in 2002), which is one of the six villages situated around Mt. Ōyama31. The terraces extend on a south-east slope over an elevation difference from 80 to 150 m above sea level and vary in their size between 20 and 900 m2.30 The rice-terrace complex of Ōyamasenmaida counts 375 rice terraces on an area of 3.5 ha; the Ōyamasenmaida Preservation Association (PA) covers adjacent fields and operates 415 plots (4.5 ha)30.
Around two-thirds of the terraces are cultivated with rice (one-half each landowner's and Ownership System) (unpublished data). The remaining third is abandoned or rather a small part is used as orchard.
In 1999, the tanada landscape of Ōyamasenmaida became designated by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries as one of the ‘Top 100 Terraced Paddy Fields of Japan’23. The policy behind this nomination was to direct the population's attention to the rice-terrace landscapes of Japan32.
Methods
The field research for this paper was conducted over 50 days from December 2004 to May 2006.
As the research topic has exploratory character and concerns a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context without distinct boundaries between context and phenomenon, a case study approach was chosenReference Yin33. The methods adopted for data collection were participatory observation (PO)Reference Flick34, personal communication (PC), semi-structured expert interview (EI) and questionnaire-based survey (QS).
PO and PC
Between December 2004 and May 2006, the first author participated in different activities in Ōyamasenmaida: e.g., assembly of the PA, several tenants, meetings, rice planting, seasonal traditional cultural events or ordinary workday life of the PA staff and local people. In the PO process (which includes all sense)Reference Flick34, daily conversation with tenants (tenants A, B, D, F), supporters, staff members and land owners was a very important way for information gathering. Major support came from the PA staff members and main supporters. Complex topics of conversations were accompanied by interpreters, such as English-speaking research colleagues, tenants, supporters or members of the PA.
Semi-structured EI
About 6 months after the start of the field work in June 2005, the director of the PA, who is also the head of the Ownership System, was interviewed. The face-to-face EI was based on semi-structured interview guidelines. A Japanese PhD student who studied the vegetation of Ōyamasenmaida helped with the interview as interpreter. In November 2005 and January 2006, a long-lasting tanada ownership tenant (tenant A) was interviewed twice in a semi-structured EI.
Questionnaire-based survey
Based on the experiences of interviews and PO, structured questionnaires were designed in order to gather more detailed information regarding the PA, the Ownership System and its members. Target groups of the questionnaires were the eight landowners of the rice terraces, the 30 main supporters of the Ownership System and the 453 tenants.
For the questionnaire, the paper form was chosen, since e-mail addresses were not known in most of the cases. The structured questionnaire included behavioral, attitudinal and classification questions, which were asked in open, semi-closed and closed style.
The questionnaires were adapted for each of the three groups and distributed in spring 2006. They had been written in English and translated afterwards into Japanese. The open answers in the questionnaires had to be translated back from Japanese to English.
The cover letter gave a short introduction and explained the reason for the survey. With some additional sentences, the head of the Ownership System motivated the tenants to participate.
Tenants
Participation lists and addresses were provided by the PA office. The questionnaires (complete inventory count) were distributed out personally in tenant meetings or sent out (together with a stamped reply envelope) to those not attending. The response rate was 55% (see Fig. 2).
Figure 2. Members of the PA and the Ownership System, methods of data collection and return rate of the questionnaires; source: EI: June 18, 2005; PC: August 2, 2009.
Landowners and main supporters
The questionnaires were personally handed out at the general meeting of the PA. To those not attending, the questionnaire was delivered personally by the PA staff or sent by post (together with a stamped reply envelope). Response rate was 38% and for the main supporters 37% (see Fig. 2).
The results from the questionnaire surveys, the EIs, observation notes and PC in field, as well as the information gathered from up-to-date documents, web sites, official statistics and secondary data, were triangulated for validation and if necessary counterchecked by additional e-mail or phone conversation after the field-research period.
Results
Reasons for the foundation of the PA
In 2006, the rice terraces of Ōyamasenmaida belonged to 11 proprietors, all of them part-time farmers (PC: director, June 18, 2005). While three of them were still of working age, the remaining eight had already retired (ibid.). In 1997, these eight senior landowners founded, together with other farmers and local people, the NPO ‘Ōyamasenmaida Preservation Association’, as for all of them, these rice terraces were something special which they wanted to preserve from abandonment and decay: ‘We hope, that the landowner's children will continue the husbandry of their parents in their retirement. But even if they won't do so, it is not a problem. The system is also survivable without farmers, because the management of the rice terraces is done by the Ōyamasenmaida Preservation Association group’ (PC: director, June 18, 2005).
After having established the PA, their members decided that an Ownership System, which they had heard about being applied in other regions in Japan, would be also an ideal instrument for Ōyamasenmaida (PC: director, June 18, 2005). Therefore, they initiated in 1997/1998 the ‘Ōyamasenmaida Tanada Ownership System’: ‘The area of Ōyamasenmaida has many disadvantages, as a strong depopulation, very small scale uneconomical paddy fields on a steep inclination and a highly aged population. These factors can't give much power to the region. So we thought about, how we can change these disadvantages into advantages. We think that a Tanada Ownership System is the right way for that, because the small size of the paddy fields is still big enough for city dwellers to cultivate it. The old farmers, even if they may not have so much power any more, they however posses a lot of knowledge to offer to the city people. In contrast, city people have a big lack of nature, pure and clean air. If we add up both disadvantages – that one of the city dwellers and that one of Ōyamasenmaida – we gain an advantage’ (ibid.).
As the tokku districts were not already established at this time, the lease-out process had to be carried out via a city (EI: director, June 18, 2005; PC: director, September 26, 2009). Ten percent of the participation fee was therefore retained by Kamogawa City for administrative tasks, 10% went to the landowners and 80% to the PA (ibid.). The contract was set until 2005 (PC: director, September 26, 2009). In 2003, Kamogawa City applied to the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to become a ‘Rice Terrace Agriculture Tokku’ (EI: director, June 18, 2005; PC: director, January 28, 2010). The petition was accepted in 2004 and Ōyamasenmaida started thereupon with a second Ownership System, the ‘Kamogawa City Ōyamasenmaida Tanada Ownership System’ (PC: director, January 28, 2010). In this new Ownership System, the PA is allowed to directly lease out their land without any loop via Kamogawa City (EI: director, June 18, 2005). About 10% of the rent goes to the landowners, the rest (90%) to the PA (ibid.). When the contract of the ‘Ōyamasenmaida Tanada Ownership System’ expired in 2005, it was not renewed (PC: director, September 26, 2009). The old Ownership System passed into the new one; the two different names, however, are still in use (ibid.).
Being a member of the PA is independent from the Ownership System (PC: director, August 1, 2009). But in more than 100 cases, tenants are also PA members (Fig. 2).
With ‘Ōyamasenmaida’ the PA wants to show the ‘ideal model’ of a cultural landscape and demonstrate ways how to preserve mountainous areas (EI: director, June 18, 2005). For the PA, at least as important as planting, harvesting, mowing, etc., is the exchange and the communication among the participants themselves and between the tenants and the local people (ibid.). Therefore, social gatherings are very important (PO: e.g., karaoke evenings after farming activities 2005/2006, harvest festival October 2005). Townspeople should be aware of the problems the mountainous areas are confronted with, and they should take it seriously, because: ‘Most of the Japanese population lives in cities. The government is in the city. Big and important decisions are made by city people in the cities. City people can change the government and they make money; money, which is necessary to protect the mountainous areas’ (EI: director, June 18, 2005). In order to facilitate and encourage the rural–urban communication, the ‘Tanada Club house’ was erected in 2000, financed by the Kamogawa City (ibid.).
In the area of Kamogawa City, besides the Ownership System in Ōyamasenmaida, six other Ownership Systems exist35.
Budget of the PA
The budget of the PA results from the yearly membership fees, the Ownership System fees, (see below) and the attendance fee of other seasonal activities/participatory programs. Besides that, Ōyamasenmaida-related products, such as rice, soybean paste, calendars, postcards, charcoal, etc., are sold (PO: December 2005–June 2006, November 6–8, 2010). During voluntary farming days or festivals, local dishes and drinks (e.g., dandelion coffee, curry rice, o-bento [Japanese lunch] with rice balls, miso soup and pickles) are prepared by female members of the PA and sold at moderate prices (PO: working events 2005/2006, torch festival November 6–8, 2010). In addition, the seminar room of the ‘Tanada Club’ is rented out for meetings, workshops, etc., at the price of 400 ¥ (c. 3.5 €) h−1.36 (The conversion from Yen to Euro of all prices in this paper is based on the foreign exchange rate of the Bank Austria, June 22, 2010.) Finally, the PA receives some donation from private companies, for example, from the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).
From these incomes office expenses, ongoing maintenance measures, permanent staff (three people), landowners and instructors are paid. All other people (around 70 people, 30 of them can be regarded as main supporters) are working as volunteers or are paid 800 ¥ (c. 7 €) h−1 (EI: tenant A, January 20, 2006).
Structure and organization of the Ownership System
In 2006, the tenants of the Ownership System cultivated most of the land of the eight retired farmers (EI: director, June 18, 2005). The above-mentioned three younger landowners, however, did not allocate their land, as they still cultivated it themselves (ibid). After the field research period, three of the eight senior farmers passed away (PC: director, January 28, 2010). Their land was inherited by their children and is still part of the Ownership System. Out of the three non participating landowners, one entrusted his land to the PA, while the second sold it to the third who is still an active farmer (PC: director, January 28, 2010).
The PA offers five different ownership programs37:
(1) The oldest program is the Tanada Ownership System37. It started in 2000 as ‘Ōyamasenmaida Tanada Ownership System’37. From initially 39 rented rice terraces, the number increased to 136 in 2002 (PC: director, December 8, 2009). The tenants of the Tanada Ownership System have not changed since that time (EI: tenant A, November 5, 2005). Every rice terrace has one registered tenant—even if he/she is participating with family, friends, colleagues, students, etc. (PO: rice planting events April/May 2005/2006). The participation fee is 30,000–40,000 ¥ (262–340 €) yr−1 per 100 m2,37 adjusted in proportion to the area (PC: tenant A, June 29, 2010 and tenant B, March 14, 2010). The harvested rice of all tenants is put together and then divided pro-rata (PC: tenant B, March 14, 2010).
(2) In the Soybean Trust System, a special program of the PA, which started in 2001, soybeans were cultivated on abandoned rice terraces in order to revitalize them (EI: director, June 18, 2005). In contrast to the Tanada Ownership System, tenants do not rent their own ‘soy terraces’, but shared them, as the focus of this program is the working event per se 37. The participation fee is 4000 ¥ (35 €) yr−1 participant−1.37
(3) The Tanada Trust System is a structure equivalent to the Soybean Trust (collective group rent of a rice terrace) and has existed since 200237. The participation fee amounts to 30,000 ¥ (262 €) yr−1 per 100 m2.37 The harvested rice is divided equally; around 30 kg to each registered participant37. In comparison with the tenants of the Tanada Ownership System, the Tanada Trust members fluctuate more and their number changes every year (PC: director, January 12, 2007).
(4) The Rice Wine Ownership System was launched in 200437. Despite its name ‘Ownership System’, it is rather a Rice Wine Trust System, as the tenants collectively grow rice on common paddy fields (PC: tenant B, March 9, 2010). After the harvest the rice of all Rice Wine tenants is delivered to a traditional rice wine brewery in the vicinity (PC: tenant B, December 22, 2009). Every tenant gains three 1.8-liter bottles of wine37. Included in the Rice Wine Ownership System, traditional rice wine drinking cups and rice wine labels (determined by a competition) are produced37. The participation fee is 15,000 ¥ (131 €)37.
(5) The most recent program (since 2005) is the Indigo–Cotton Trust System37. On an area about 2 km from Ōyamasenmaida cotton and indigo are collectively cultivated (PO: October 15, 2005). After the harvest, the cotton is yarned and clothes are woven and later dyed with indigo (PC: tenant F, spring 2006).
Apart from these five programs, other activities are offered as well, e.g., lectures on fireflies and firefly watching (PO: June 2005), bamboo torch events around the rice terraces (PC: director, January 10, 2009; tenant B, January 24, 2009; tenant D, January 18, 2008; PO: November 6–8, 2010), concerts with traditional dances performed on the rice terraces37 [PO: Kagura performance (theatrical dance), November 7, 2010], photo award of Ōyamasenmaida for the yearly calendar (PO: contest participation, July 7, 2006), production of traditional Japanese handcrafts and dishes (PC: tenant B, December 22, 2009; PO: rice planting events April/May 2006; hand craft events October 15, 2005, December 18, 2005), volleyball tournaments in the muddy paddy fields before rice planting (PO: April/May 2006), etc.
From the number of participants and size of area, the strongest programs are the Rice Wine and the Tanada Ownership System. Indigo–Cotton and Soybean are less important.
Many participants attend more programs contemporaneously. That is why the questionnaire was sent to all participants. In the empirical inquiry, however, the focus of PO and PC was concentrated on the rice-growing tenants (i.e., Tanada Ownership System, Tanada Trust System and Rice Wine Ownership System).
Yearly schedule of a Tanada Ownership and Tanada Trust System tenant
For the ‘tanada tenants’, farming activities are scheduled about seven times a year, mostly with two time options: rice planting in April/May, weeding in June, July and August, harvesting and threshing in September and harvest festival in October (EI: tenant A, November 2, 2005). All other work in between (mowing or burning of the slopes, manuring, sputtering, etc.) are done by the landowners or the PA (EI: director, June 18, 2005 and tenant A, November 2, 2005).
The seven collective working days are big events and are very accurately organized. Each day starts with an attendance check at the registration desk and a welcome speech to explain the respective procedure (PO: April/May 2005/2006). Most of the tenants come by car in the morning and return the same day (PO: working events 2005/2006). The tenants who stay overnight mostly spend the night in farmers, houses for a small payment or for free, depending on how well they know each other: ‘I always stay at […]-san, but he is not the landowner of our […] rice field. Now he does not work for tanada club. He invited me for omatsuri [folk festival] in private. This time, I did not go to the omatsuri but I stayed at his house and had a party. I introduced my friend, who works for a fertilizer company. […]-san likes to meet people, so not everybody, but who are friends of friends, are welcome to visit his house for a stay. About payment, we always have party, eating and drinking, so I usually pay some money for dinner, like 3,000–4,000 ¥. He is an old man, living on pension, so that is reasonable. Anyway, this has nothing to do with tanada club. But many people meet these farmers at the tanada club and become personal friends. I guess this is also one aim of tanada club’ (PC: tenant B, August 18, 2009).
The landowners and supporters of the PA instruct the less experienced tenants (PO: working events 2005/2006). Furthermore learning from other tenants plays a role: ‘For example, the landowner of my paddy is Mr. […]. He taught me in the first year how to work. Now I can teach my neighbors’ (EI: tenant A, November 2, 2005). If someone cannot come to do the work on the rice field, the supporters or neighbors will do it, ‘but it gives a very bad impression!’ (ibid). For a better identification in the field, the instructors wear red hats with name targets (PO: working events 2005/2006). As the tenants do all labor manually, there is no necessity for special costly equipment or machinery: ‘For the work on my paddy field I only bought jikatabi [working shoes with a thick rubber sole and a separate section for the big toe] and a scythe’ (EI: tenant A, November 2, 2005). Cultivated rice in Ōyamasenmaida is mainly koshihikari (EI: tenant A, January 20, 2006), a very popular rice variety in JapanReference Ishikawa, Ae and Yano38, Reference Nakagahra, Okuno and Vaughan39. Despite the dominance of manual labor, the farming management in and around Ōyamasenmaida is not organic farming: ‘Some of them [farmers] use machines and insert pesticides, chemical fertilizer, herbicides and insecticides, others not’ (EI: tenant A, November 2, 2005).
Provenance and age structure of the tenants, supporters and land owners
The findings presented in the following sections are based on the questionnaire surveys, mostly of the tenants (March–May 2006), but also of the supporters (May–June 2006) and landowners (May–June 2006).
From 248 responding tenants 246 are city dwellers. They live in 55 different cities of five prefectures (two answers could not be attributed) from about 50–150 km distance from Ōyamasenmaida (Fig. 3). The prefectures Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba, from which most of the tenants come, are densely inhabited (with 1175–5751 persons km−2, among the highest population densities of Japan; PC: Uematsu, M., Population Census Division, Statistic Bureau, MIC, May 11, 2009).
Figure 3. Provenance of the tenants (number of tenants from the relative five prefectures); map based on Bartholomew40.
The population size of the 55 cities ranges from over 11,000 up to 8.5 million inhabitants (ibid). The biggest share of the responding tenants (58%) lives in cities with 100,000–1,000,000 inhabitants.
The tenants' questionnaires were answered by 75% male and 25% female tenants. This gender imbalance, however, does not imply that women are underrepresented in the Ownership System but rather that more men than women answered the questionnaire (PO: March 26, 2006).
The average age of the 248 responding tenants was 53 years (two invalid answers). Twenty percent were at least 65 years old or older. Compared with the Japanese population, this share represents the Japanese average age structure (20.1% aged 65 and older)41. The class ‘15–64 years’ of the sample comprised 79% (Fig. 4), both over the Japanese average (65.8%) and that of the five prefectures41. The age group of 0–14 years accounts for 13.7% for the whole of Japan. In the sample of tenants this group does not appear, as children, even when participating with their parents and/or grandparents, did not answer the questionnaire (PO: working events 2005/2006).
Figure 4. Age structure of the responding tenants (248).
From the 30 main supporters, 11 answered the questionnaire (three women and eight men). The average age was 64 years. The average age of the three landowners (all male), who answered the questionnaire was 76 years.
A big share of the tenants (82%) participated in the company (about three-quarters with family members, one-quarter with friends). Only 17% (43 respondents) stated that they are not accompanied (among them 11 singles and 28 married). In 50% of the accompanied respondents, the participating ‘family member’ was wife or husband only. The other 50% referred to different combinations of spouse, children, parents, parents-in-law, grandchildren, son, daughter, son- or daughter-in-law.
Tenants’ professional background and relation to agriculture
Out of 248 responding tenants, 63% were in employment and 32% were not in employment (49 retirees, 21 housewives, five students and four unemployed persons); 5% of the answers could not be clearly assigned. Among the persons in employment, 150 people (96%) worked in the tertiary sector, 2.6% in the secondary and 1.3% in the primary sector. The proportion of 63% employed persons among the tenants’ sample is slightly higher compared to the Japanese average in 2006 (58%)42. The share of tenants working in the tertiary sector is significantly higher (96%) in contrast to the Japanese average (67.2%) in 200543 and, similarly, the share of tenants of 60 years or older who are still in employment (39 versus 15% Japanese average42).
One question addressed in the tenants’ questionnaire was: ‘How was your relation to agriculture, before attending the activities in Ōyamasenmaida?’ From 251 valid answers (multiple answers were possible; three tenants abstained from answering), 65% stated that they had no connection before, whereas 16% were directly descended from agricultural families or had farmers as relatives (such as parents-in-law, grandparents). In each case, 4% had a farmer as neighbor, visited the countryside at the weekends or grew their own vegetables in kitchen gardens. The remaining 20 answers were very diverse, for example: ‘I collect materials about agriculture for my picture books’, ‘Produce a musical with the theme on a farming village’, ‘When we become 40 years, we would like to become farmers’, ‘I worked as a university professor in the field of agriculture for many years’, ‘I am alumnus of a Japanese University, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences’.
Tenants’ motivation
When asked for the main reason for their participation in the Ownership System, the most common answer was ‘Because I like tanada’ (Fig. 5). This question was asked in a semi-closed style: 14 response options were given and there was also the possibility to add further motivations. The tenants could indicate a maximum of five motivations. From 248 respondents, three abstained from voting and eight selected more than five answers and were therefore rejected.
Figure 5. Tenants’ motivation for participation (897 valid answers from 237 persons).
Among the 31 additional motivations (Fig. 5), nine concerned the interest in rice wine, soybean and/or indigo. The remaining answers were unique, e.g., ‘In order to compose haiku’ [Japanese poetry], ‘Convalescence from a mental illness’, ‘In order to understand Japanese culture through rice cultivation’.
Relevance of cultural landscapes and ways to maintain it
For 58% of the 248 tenants surveyed, cultural landscape was very important, for 28% important, for 9% less and for 1% not important at all. Nine persons (4%) did not answer this question.
Regarding the question, how to conserve the traditional cultural landscapes, 8% would be willing to pay more taxes, 9% to donate money for farmers once a year and 15% to pay higher prices for farm products. Working as a volunteer once a year (47%) was the most accepted measure to support traditional cultural landscapes. Only 1% of the respondents saw the current landscape development as satisfying.
Discussion
If we try to compare the Japanese Ownership System with similar activities in Europe, North America and Australia (Table 1), we can make out two rough categories of hobbyist, voluntary work on farm land:
(1) ‘Self-harvest’ projects in several European cities, allowing the urban population to grow their own vegetables on leased farm land.
(2) Volunteers collectively participating in landscape stewardship and nature conservation on farm land.
In the self-harvesting project, well analyzed by Vogl et al.Reference Vogl, Axmann and Vogl-Lukasser44, 861 self-harvesters cultivate plots of 20, 40 or 80 m2 of arable land, prepared and sown by 12 organic farmers in Vienna.
Table 1. Comparison of the differences and commonalities among the Ownership System, self-harvesting and conservation volunteering.
Conservation volunteers are organized on local, national or even international level as civil society movements and work on farm landReference Bell, Marzano, Cent, Kobierska, Podjed, Vandinzskaite, Reinert, Armaitiene, Grodińska-Jurczak and Muršič45–Reference Mühlmann47. There are also corporate volunteering and (semi-) commercial organizations placing individual volunteer tourists on organic farms or in nature conservation projects worldwideReference Coghlan48, Reference Kieninger and Penker49.
Common ground between all three forms of voluntary work on farm land
Despite the different geographic contexts and diverging forms of organization, there are astonishing similarities in the motivation. Common to all three forms of voluntary work is that they clearly reflect the shift from food production to consumption of recreation, landscape stewardship, meditation and education (Table 1). In rural geography and sociology, this fundamental pattern of rural change has been discussed under the notion of consumptive or post-productivist countrysideReference Marsden56, Reference Mather, Hill and Nijnik57.
Although detailed socio-demographic data are missing, the comparison of the case study results with the literature on self-harvesting and conservation volunteers clearly indicates that the volunteers are not a particular group in terms of socio-demographic characteristics (apart from maybe higher-education level and urban background), but they share similar values and norms, such as the pleasure of socializing, readiness to work manually, and the will to contribute to common goals such as nature or landscape conservationReference Mühlmann47, Reference Enengel58.
Ownership System versus self-harvesting
Self-harvesting clearly differs from the Ownership System by its individualistic approach, focusing on organic food production, on individual learning and innovations.
The self-harvesters live much closer to the plots (on average 1.8 kmReference Vogl, Axmann and Vogl-Lukasser44) and work on them much more often. They come and go according to their individual schedule, make their own choice of plants and there is even a kind of ambition to plant exotic/rare plants which the neighboring plots do not haveReference Vogl, Axmann and Vogl-Lukasser44. In contrast, the Japanese tenants meet for around seven collective working days a year for synchronized planting, weeding and harvesting the same variety of rice.
All of the self-harvesting farms just offer a small share of their land for rent, whereas the retired Japanese landowners lease out nearly everything. The continuity of (the rice) cultivation and the conservation of the landscape scenery is their main motivation. Austrian farmers contrarily are also motivated by economic advantages. An agricultural journal targeted to farmers in Austria and GermanyReference Moritz51 promotes self-harvesting with hourly revenue rates from 12 to 39 € per working hour invested by the farm family (100% of the rent goes directly to the farmers). In Japan, only 10% of the tenant's rent goes to the farmers, the rest to the PA. MoritzReference Moritz51 also points out the advantage for farmers of the self-harvesting system of having the rent in their bank account before harvest time and without any weather risk. Direct marketing of farm products to self-harvesters also contributes to the farm incomeReference Vogl, Axmann and Vogl-Lukasser44.
Neither Japanese nor Austrian tenants are motivated by producing cheap food. It is rather about producing something you cannot buy at supermarkets: self-cultivated and harvested food. The self-harvest initiative can be seen as an organic local food system in reaction to the Chernobyl disasterReference Moritz51. The Ownership System, however, is based on conventional food and might be a consequence of false labeling scandals in the 1980s and 1990s and a general mistrust in the globalized food system in Japan. In the mid-1990s—parallel to the Ownership System—a local food movement called chisan–chisho (literally translated as ‘locally produced, locally consumed’) appeared and sprouted all over JapanReference Nishiyama and Tsutsumi59, Reference Yoshino, Katayama, Morofuji and Tsutsumi60. Local food is perceived by the Japanese as safer, more delicious, trustworthy, environmentally friendly and as a means of boosting the local economyReference Kimura and Nishiyama61.
Ownership System versus conservation volunteering
Mühlmann et al.Reference Mühlmann47 and Bell et al.Reference Bell, Marzano, Cent, Kobierska, Podjed, Vandinzskaite, Reinert, Armaitiene, Grodińska-Jurczak and Muršič45 categorized different types of voluntary conservation organizations:
• Local associations supporting the stewardship of their local landscapes as their place of living and recreation.
• Predominately urban voluntary tourists engaging in restoration projects or on organic farms, i.e., for landscapes outside of their living environment.
• Corporate volunteering activities.
An example for the first type is the ‘Aktion Heugabel’ in Austria, where local non-farmers help farmers to conserve the local landscape with its extensively managed grasslands41. The second group of organizations place volunteers on organic farms (e.g., ‘WWOOF’: World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) or into conservation projects worldwideReference Kieninger and Penker49. An example for corporate volunteering is the company ‘swiss.com’ which organizes the so-called ‘Nature-Action-Days’ in cooperation with the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), where employees can engage in landscape stewardship, e.g., mowing wet meadowsReference Mühlmann47.
Apart from most of the local associations, the engagement tends to be short term. Work holidays or landscape stewardship days are time limited and confined to a particular area. This reflects a general trend in Western voluntary organizations: away from lifelong participation toward targeted and temporary engagementReference Schlute, Bremer, Erdmann and Hopf62; long-term membership becomes less attractiveReference Heinze, Olk, Kistler, Noll and Priller63, Reference Lossing, Toennes and Noeke64. Local clubs, who are committed to the long-term cultivation of endangered landscapes (such as wet meadows) are based on volunteers, motivated to take care for the landscape they live in. But they also have difficulties in finding young members, willing to engage for a longer periodReference Kieninger and Penker49. This development in conservation volunteering is in contrast with the long-term urban–rural coalition of the Japanese Ownership System.
In contrast to the Ownership System, wherein the production of own rice is an important element, food production does not play any role in the voluntary conservation activities.
Social experience, however, and the management of relations between experts and professionals on the one hand and amateurs on the other handReference Bell, Marzano, Cent, Kobierska, Podjed, Vandinzskaite, Reinert, Armaitiene, Grodińska-Jurczak and Muršič45 are motivating factors in both schemes.
Conclusions
The Japanese population highly values traditional cultural landscapes for tradition, culture, identity, biodiversity, quality of life and recreation. In the context of unwanted landscape changes caused by agricultural land abandonment, urban dwellers take over the responsibility for landscape stewardship. They invest time, manual labor and money to support the conservation of the traditional cultural landscape.
In contrast to self-harvesting initiatives in Europe concentrating on organic food production or volunteering focusing on nature conservation, the Japanese Ownership System combines:
• the volunteers’ efforts for the common ‘good’ landscape;
• the individuals benefit by producing their own local food.
The success of the Ownership System might be explained by the fact that motivations for common purposes such as landscape conservation work are supported by individual benefits, such as rice or social benefits.
The urban tenants of the highly urbanized Japanese society appreciate the opportunity to accompany all steps of food production and its consumption, the sensual perception of nature, seasons, weather, phases of growth and decay, new experiences or positive effects on the education of their children. The practical rice cultivation is also, for many, a way to come closer to culture and tradition. The long-term rural–urban cooperation does not only yield satisfaction to the urban volunteers, it is highly beneficial for the conservation of agro-biodiversity and the cultural landscapes. And last but not least, the local landowners are valued and can hand on their experience and skills and thus still contribute to the cultivation of their land despite their retirement age.
A comparison with the European self-harvesting initiatives and conservation volunteering in North America, Australia, North and Central Europe demonstrates that the Ownership System is special because of its collective nature and long-term institutionalized involvement (see Table 1). However, all those forms of voluntary work on farm land reflect a clear shift from food production in the postwar period to non-productive motivations such as nature conservation, education and leisure.
In Japan, the widely spread Ownership Systems are perceived as a promising way of stopping or slowing down the process of land abandonment. However, it remains unclear whether it will help Japan to engage non-farmers to take up farming as a profession, which is also one of the objectives of the Ownership System. It might be one of a bundle of measures to keep up agricultural land use also in the less favored mountainous areas.
Technically, the Ownership System can be transferred to any kind of traditional land use that is characterized by manual labor and the production of some commodity, as for example, wine in wine terraces, or fruits in traditional orchards. The ‘conserving’ areas, however, should be close to urban agglomerations. Given that the prospective tenants should be able to produce and use their own products, one of the most threatened elements of rural landscapes in Austria—low-productivity grasslands, which are endangered by abandonment and/or afforestation—are not suitable for the Ownership System, as grass and weeds cannot be eaten. From the social-organizational point of view, the long-term urban–rural collaboration poses a challenge for transferability. This stands in clear contrast to tendencies in Europe, Australia and North America where citizens are reluctant toward a long-term commitment to an organizationReference Kimura and Nishiyama61. They tend to favor project-based short-term activities, combining the need to do something useful with the need for recreation and socializing.
Acknowledgements
This paper is an outcome of a PhD project. The research in Japan was funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The authors would like to express their deep gratitude to the Ōyamasanmaida Preservation Association for providing information and supporting this survey, especially to Mitsuji Ishida, Yoshiko Sudo, Hitomi Taira and to all participants of the Ownership System, which agreed to participate in the questionnaire poll. We are beholden to Drs Nobuhiko Sawai, Kentaro Aoki and Ayako Toko, who assisted in the translation process of the questionnaires. Sincere thank also to Professor Dr Wolfgang Holzner, PhD superviser of Pia Kieninger, for encouraging the studies for this paper. Thanks to the colleagues of the Institute of Nature Conservation Research (BOKU University) as well as to the anonymous reviewers and the editors of RAFS, for their valuable annotations to this paper.
