New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Japanese Agriculture

This book is the first of its kind to offer a comprehensive analysis of innovation, entrepreneurship, and human resource development in Japanese agriculture. In general, innovation is the driving force behind the development of an industry. Innovation leads to new values and changes in society through idea-based transformations, while entrepreneurship encompasses the attitude, ideas, and abilities needed to make that innovation a reality. Developing talented individuals who possess entrepreneurship is critical to the sustainable development of any industry.
 
Japanese agriculture has recently seen the emergence of impressive agribusiness practices across the country, with a growth in innovative initiatives including agricultural clusters, sixth-sector industrialization, agricultural-commercial-industrial collaboration, networks, franchises, firm entry, and industrial growth. However, the fact remains that Japanese agriculture as a whole is shrinking. The sector is facing major challenges, in particular, the decline in its competitiveness and its sustainability as an industry due to an aging labor force coupled with reduction in farmland. Faced with these issues, the main thrust of Japanese agricultural policy until now has been the accumulation of farmland and securing of agricultural workforce. However, there has been a growing awareness that, from the perspective of industrial and regional development, policies focusing on unlocking innovation to be the driving force behind economic development are more effective. The Farm Management Society of Japan held annual symposiums in 2016 and 2017 with this awareness at its heart, with the discussions that took place at these events used as a springboard to summarize a comprehensive range of research findings concerning innovation and entrepreneurship in Japanese agriculture in the form of this book.
 
This book explores from various angles, the innovation needed in Japanese agriculture, the conditions that enable the entrepreneurship leading to innovation, and the issues associated with actualizing innovation-based agricultural development. In doing so, it focuses on innovation as a form of relational change in value chains, casting light on how entrepreneurship creates new markets and links with actual consumers through networks and communications while sustainably unlocking innovation and developing it further into even greater innovation. The author drew on a pool of experts with a wealth of experience ranging from academics to agricultural corporate executives and agribusiness venture capitalists to deliver an analysis focused on practical problem solving. Elucidating the interrelationships between innovation, entrepreneurship, and human resource development, this book offers effective policy suggestions to promote Japanese agriculture and rural development, while also providing research findings that will contribute to the development of farm business management, regional science, and other related fields.

 

(Written by KIMINAMI Akira, Professor, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences / 2020)