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Government Project Team to Promote Rural-Urban Exchange With An Eye On Baby-boomers
Project Team for Promoting Symbiosis and Exchange between Urban Areas and Rural, Mountain and Fishing Villages composed of deputy chief cabinet secretary and senior vice-ministers from seven government ministries and agencies including the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) on July 21 drew up a set of measures to promote exchanges between urban areas and rural, mountain and fishing villages, and submitted them to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Main goals of the measures are to help a large cohort of baby-boomers to settle in the countryside after their retirement beginning in the year 2007, and also to advance deregulation to make it easier for farm households to start
minshuku [bed & breakfast-type guesthouses].
The set of promotional measures consists of seven pillars including the following:
| i. |
expanded support for urbanites to get exposed to 'agriculture'; |
| ii. |
promotion of learning by experience in rural, mountain and fishing villages; |
| iii. |
the securing of private sector manpower to be engaged in promoting of symbiosis and exchange; |
| iv. |
promotion of
koryu-kyoju [urban-rural exchange based ocational dwelling], ni-chiiki kyoju [uran and rural two- place dwelling], and
teiju [rural settling], targeting the baby-boom generation. |
Ministries responsible plan to incorporate the proposed measures in their respective outline budget request for the next fiscal year so they could be put to concrete actions.
Support measures for the baby-boom generation will be providing a
wide variety of information about country life etc. from the stage
when they start preparing for retired lives, and will help prepare
or construct shimin no-en [kitchen gardens leased for urban
citizens] equipped with huts for over-night stay and facilities
for koryu-kyoju [urban-rural exchange based ocational
dwelling]. Use will be made of residential houses left unoccupied
in rural, mountain and fishing villages. For would-be permanent
settlers, support will be given to prepare for farming life.
Starting the business of minshuku [bed & breakfast-type guesthouses] meant for people with desire to have farming experience will also be made easier: for farm families planning to start
minshuku business by using existing farm houses, approval to be obtained based on the Food Sanitation Law for running catering business will be given on relaxed criteria in so far as the family has acquired
necessary knowledge through participation in lecture classes. While such criteria are provided for in the prefectural government ordinance, MHLW will make a special request to prefectures for relaxing them in the light of the decision on a set of promotional measures.
Special input will be also made to prepare an environment in which primary and secondary school kids can benefit from learning by experience safely; By increasing the number of registered farms and forests, "Japanese version of educational farms" will be propagated and a safety keeping manual for learning by experience in forest will be drawn up.
The project team intends to make evaluations of the state of implementation of the measures bearing in mind possibility of making legislative proposals. Senior Vice Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Mineichi
Iwanaga, the head of the team, expressed a hope saying, "I wish to see vitality regained in rural villages by implementing these measures."
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