Author(s)

Y. Ohe

Abstract

Agriculture generates positive externalities to society in addition to food production without receiving compensation, which is called the multifunctionality of agriculture. The educational function of agriculture has not been fully examined despite the growing need for such services from urbanites. This paper focused on the educational function of agriculture by considering it as a joint product of farm production in terms of not only technical complementarity, but also of institutional complementarity, which includes institutional aspects such as food and rural culture. Data were obtained from the URL of the Farm Experience Net, launched in May 2003 and operated by the National Association for Promotion of Rural Youth Education in Japan. We employed statistical tests to clarify the features of the bodies or individual farmers who provide experience services. Findings and implications were as follows. Firstly, from the perspective of complementarity, we can classify that crop-wise or operation-wise experiences showed a strong connection with the technical complementarity of farms with seasonality, while food and rural cultural experiences had a strong connection with institutional complementarity with less seasonality. Secondly, non-governmental organizations, the quasipublic sector and farmers’ groups played important roles in food and rural culture experience services. Thus, we should recognize the significance of both technical and institutional complementarity to extend the educational function of agriculture and the rural heritage. The combination of the two types of complementarity is effective in building a wide range of networks of those stakeholders who provide food and rural experience services while easing the constraints of seasonality. Keywords: technical complementarity, institutional complementarity, educational function of agriculture, multifunctionality of agriculture, food and rural experience services, farm diversification, cultural diversity.

Keywords

technical complementarity, institutional complementarity,educational function of agriculture, multifunctionality of agriculture, food andrural experience services, farm diversification, cultural diversity