Requirement for sustainable farm volunteer system in Japan: From questionnaire survey of volunteers, farmers, and intermediary organizations
2008
Imamura, M.(Wageningen Univ. (Netherlands)) | Shinkai, S. | Hotta, K. | Nanseki, T.
Although the Japanese farming population has been decreasing and aging rapidly, the number of volunteers who wish to work at farm are increasing. Still the total number of volunteers are relatively very small to farming population, however, there are several coordinating organizations are already exist. Behind the popularization of farm volunteer programs in Japan, a whole picture of the farm volunteer system is not clear yet. This paper aims to capture present situation of farm volunteer activities by focusing on major three stakeholders namely, volunteers, farmers, and intermediary organizations. With a wide range of programs, this paper noted the difference in payment systems, which is a key factor to categorize the types of organizations. Clarifying where the difference was derived from, we used the questionnaire survey for the three stakeholders. After examining the background factors of the boom in the farm volunteer system in Japan, the results of the questionnaire were analyzed and discussed. The results showed the tendency of the payment system to be subject to the purposes of intermediary organizations on farm volunteer system. In addition, the investigation evidenced that information and rules of the system were not well shared among those three stakeholders including the method of payment and the meanings of the payments.
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