Deep Roots

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residents to live safely, as well as providing the vast majority

of the food production in Japan. They have also been playing

a leading role in revitalizing local communities through

rediscovering attractive points of the rural area and making

them appealing to urban residents in recent years.

The JA: a mutual cooperative organization

A ‘JA’ (an agricultural cooperative) is an organization

that is capitalized, managed and utilized by its members.

A hamlet-level settlement, which is a cohesive unit of

neighbour families, is recognized as an operationally

fundamental organization of a JA. Each JA represents 224

settlements on average, and each settlement consists of

around 25 households.

Representatives of the members

and executive board members of the JA are elected from

those settlements.

Recently, efforts to conserve agricultural land as farmland

and assure successive local farming to the next generation

have become more critical as farmers are ageing. Therefore,

the JA Group is now promoting a Local Farming Vision

movement, in which people get together to envision their

desirable future of local farming and living as a whole, and to

put this vision into action in each hamlet-level settlement or

several hamlet organizations together. A local JA in unison

with a local government provides necessary assistance

towards achieving the vision from the aspect of businesses,

activities and policies.

The movement aims to build rich and sound communi-

ties by increasing farm production and farmers’ incomes

through thorough intensive discussion on how to make

an attractive production area by clarifying each individual

farmer’s role. These objectives or goals have in part resulted

in the growth of the above-mentioned corporation enti-

ties, quite a few of which are community farming groups

that have been incorporated as consolidations of family-

operated farms. The JA Group has been promoting this

nationwide movement in order to achieve more attractive

farming based on each family-operated farm as a solid foun-

dation, through enhancing productivity and encouraging

individual family farmers to play more active roles in their

local communities.

Assistance to family farmers

Each JA has many member groups which are organized by

members’ common interests, besides hamlet settlement organ-

izations that serve as the fundamental unit. Every JA makes

every effort to foster its members’ awareness of participating

in the JA movement, and to strengthen its organizational basis

through encouraging members to act on their own initiative

as well as providing necessary assistance.

For instance, member producers organize each ‘commodity

group’ by their respective commodities within a JA, and they

make collective efforts such as improving the quality and the

quantity of their commodities, as well as their safety manage-

ment in farming, by making use of farm guidance services

provided by a JA. Member producers also make their best

efforts together to meet strict shipping standards that reflect

Japanese consumers’ voice, from size, shape, taste and appear-

ance to chemical usage reduction, so that they can sell their

products at the best price and find new markets.

In addition, younger-generation farmers who will play

leading roles in the future of JAs and local communities,

and local women residents interested in issues including

food, environment and the safety of their communities,

JA women’s associations work together to address their common issues and

interests such as food, environment and the safety of their communities

Image: The Japan Agricultural News

The JA charter

The JA Group set its common charter in 1997, in which it proclaims

its commitment to play a major role in contributing to local

economies and societies.

JA charter: our aim

We, members, executives and staff of a JA shall act, based on

the basic definition, values and principles of the cooperative

movement: volition, independence, participation, democratic

member control, equity, solidarity and more.

We shall also commit to innovate our organization, businesses

and operation from the global perspective of environmental

change. In addition, we shall make our best efforts to realize a

more democratic, equitable society through collaborating with

cooperative allies at a local, national and global level.

For this reason, we shall play our social role as an organization

rooted in agriculture and local societies through engaging in the

following. We shall make our best efforts to:

• Keep our food healthy and conserve greenery and water in our

country through promoting local farming

• Realize prosperous and secure local societies through

contributing to environment, culture and welfare

• Achieve our goal in a cooperative manner through voluntary

participation and solidarity

• Operate a JA soundly based on principles of voluntary and

independent management and increase the public trust

• Pursue a meaningful life together through learning and practising

a philosophy of cooperation.

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