A New, Sustainable Form for Farming Villages and the Role of Migrants from the City

Abstract

This chapter lays out the current situation and issues in farming villages confronting population decline, tracks the efforts for community revitalisation centring on young migrants from outside, and discusses new, sustainable forms for farming villages. Within Japan, population decline and ageing are particularly marked in hilly and mountainous areas. In a serious triple D situation, in the name of a regional revitalisation policy, there has been a change of policy away from hyper-centralisation in Tokyo and towards a return to the regions. The national government is promoting a policy of migration to and settlement in the regions by young people, Community Revitalization Cooperation Fellows (CRCF). The young people who are overcoming the triple Ds, aiming to bring about a sustainable society, and creating a new, connected way of life which goes beyond the local area while building connections there, are a source of hope.

1 Introduction

This paper lays out the current situation and issues in farming villages confronting populations decline, tracks the efforts for community revitalisation centring on young migrants from outside, and discusses new, sustainable forms for farming villages.

2 Hilly and Mountainous Areas Facing a Crisis

2.1 The Role of Japan’s Hilly and Mountainous Areas

Within Japan, population decline and ageing are particularly marked in hilly and mountainous areas (HMAs).¹ HMAs designate everything from the perimeters of the plains to mountainous districts, and in Japan, which has many forested mountains, they account for 70% of the land area. The conditions in these areas are less favourable to agriculture, but even today, they account for 40% of cultivated lands nationwide by area, with the number of farmers also making up about 40% of the total, meaning that they occupy an important position in Japan’s agricultural sector.

These HMAs are called “satoyama”: this cyclical model of living in which humans coexist with nature characterises Japan’s farming villages. It has produced a diversity of local characteristics, where wisdom about ways of life rooted in the area and seasonal ingredients year-round have nurtured a rich food culture. It is no mistake to say that this is something which has shaped the Japanese people’s identity. Moreover, the secondary natural environments in such areas are said to play an important role in sustaining and improving biodiversity.² If these secondary natural environments are no longer preserved, due to depopulation, this becomes a cause of ever greater natural disasters. Insufficient management of planted forests has been indicated as a cause of the growing damage from heavy rains in recent years.

From the perspective of food security, also, the preservation and revitalisation of agriculture in HMAs is essential to Japan. Furthermore, a point which should be emphasised is that in HMAs, wisdom concerning the coexistence of people with nature and with each other, underpinned by a religious outlook of nature worship characteristic of Japanese people, still remains. Of course, this satoyama way of life is decreasing against a background of urbanisation. Nevertheless, a social system of mutual aid still exists in farming villages. In other words, the disappearance of hilly and mountainous communities means the loss of this wisdom needed to build a society based on coexistence. It is no exaggeration to say that the survival of Japan as a nation is bound up with the survival of hilly and mountainous communities.

2.2 Distinctive Characteristics of Issues for Japan’s Agriculture

Japanese agriculture is characterised by its small scale and the high proportion of farmers who also have another occupation. The average of farmland scale is 2.41 hectare. This is caused not simply by the topographical feature of steep and hilly land; the customs of agricultural society and agricultural policies also have a substantial impact. After the Second World War, agrarian reforms abolished the landlord system and tenants came to own agricultural land, creating many smallholders. This scale has basically continued until today. The acreage reduction policy³ can be adduced as the reason why there has been no large-scale aggregation of land. This policy not only caused small-scale agriculture and the increase of farmers with other occupations, but resulted in robbing farmers of their motivation for production.

Another reason why farmers did not relinquish their farmland was a feeling of reverence towards their ancestors, who had safeguarded this land: a sense that they could not be the generation to lose the farmland which their ancestors had gone to such pains to obtain. Of course, it was the framework of part-time farming and the acreage reduction policy which made this financially viable. In the period of rapid economic growth, the textile and steel industries developed in the regions, with companies and factories constructed close to farming villages, creating employment opportunities for farmers. In addition, the amount of labour required by agriculture and, in particular, for rice production, decreased due to post-War improvements in agricultural technology and resources and to mechanisation, making it viable to carry out agriculture at weekends alone. In many cases, working for a company became the way people earned their living, while the meaning of agriculture was to preserve farmlands.

2.3 The Current Situation of Issues for Japan’s Farming Villages

However, the period of rapid economic growth ended and, after the bursting of the property bubble, Japan’s regional industries rapidly fell into decline. The part-time farming industry, too, which had been viable hitherto, ceased to be so with the decrease in employment opportunities, and many people moved to the cities in search of work. Under these circumstances, depopulation advanced at great speed. The term “marginal settlements”,⁴ proposed by Ono (2005), has made known to the general population the situation of communities in hilly and mountainous areas which had left behind by the emphasis on economic growth up to that point.

The rate of ageing in HMAs has reached 31.1%. When it comes to the agricultural workforce, it is extremely high, at 41.75% (2010 research).⁵

The ageing of and reduction in agricultural workers is serious. There are 1,816,000 people working in agriculture nationwide, a figure which is falling by 100,000 each year. The average age in 2017 was 66.7 years (Figs. 6.1 and 6.2).

Fig. 6.1

Change in Japan’s population of agricultural workers. (Source: “Statistics on the agricultural labour force in Japan”, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries http://www.maff.go.jp/i/tokei/sihyo/data/08html)

Fig. 6.2

Change in the average age of Japan’s agricultural workers. (Source: “Statistics on the agricultural labour force in Japan”, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries http://www.maff.go.jp/i/tokei/sihyo/data/08html)

Within a few years, the majority of farmers will be 70, the de facto retirement age, so it is said that there will be a mass departure of small-scale farmers from the land (Kubota 2017). Moreover, in order to sustain agriculture, the cooperation of the community is required for tasks such as managing irrigation channels, cutting weeds, and preventing damage by wild animals. Due to the ageing of farmers, it is not possible for agricultural workers alone to carry out such tasks, and in many areas, they are sustained by volunteers from among local residents. The national government provides subsidies for such agricultural environmental maintenance activities, but without a new generation of farmers to take over the responsibility for agriculture, motivation to preserve farmland remains low. Application procedures for subsidies, too, are a burden for elderly people, making manpower necessary.

The growing number of people leaving agriculture⁶leads to an increase in abandoned and uncultivated farmland, accompanied by a decline in food self-sufficiency and increasing damage from wild animals. The problem of vacant houses is also a pressing issue. Even where the occupants have moved to the city, in many cases, the house falls into ruin without anyone living there, since the owners feel that they cannot easily give up the land and house passed down by their ancestors through the generations, or that they use it when they return home once or twice a year at the Obon festival or New Year. Moreover, in recent years, natural disasters are occurring more frequently and on a larger scale, dealing devastating blows to hilly and mountainous regions. Elderly farmers are unable to resume farming and, in some cases, move to live with their children in the city. In these ways, community functions themselves rapidly decline.

It is not that there have been no cases of the revitalisation of farming villages thus far. However, in traditional communities, there is a tendency to exclude foreign elements. A strong resolve, abilities, and skills were necessary in order to go on living there. In other words, only very few people were able to settle there, in limited numbers insufficient to give rise to new communication and change society. In order for a deadlock in society to be deconstructed and for social innovation to be prompted, according to Luhmann’s social system theory, unceasing emergent communication is essential. This is true not only of communication between people, but also of that between people and nature.

3 From Regional Revitalisation to the Revival of Farming and Mountain Villages: National Policies and the Return of Young People to the Countryside

Until now, the Japanese government has pursued development based on economic rationality alone. However, in the current century, confronted with unpredictable disasters and irreversible accidents, we are forced to consider the nature of human happiness and of wealth. Within an increasingly individualistic society, people have begun to realise the value of interpersonal connections and of the blessings of nature. On the other hand, the government has disregarded the issue of farming, mountain, and fishing villages thus far. However, in a serious triple Ds (Depopulation, Deindustrialisation, and Disasters) situation, in the name of a regional revitalisation policy, there has been a change of policy away from hyper-centralisation in Tokyo and towards a return to the regions.

3.1 Project Development Under the “Regional Revitalisation” Policy

A policy with the slogan of “regional revitalisation” was launched in 2014. Under this framework, a certain amount of the budget is devoted to agricultural reform projects, due to the severity of the issues.

Take, for example, the cultivation of agricultural workers. Under the Scheme to support new agricultural workers, subsidies of up to 1.5 million yen per year are paid for a maximum of seven years to new farmers under 45. In fact, the number of new agricultural workers under 44 has started to increase. However, the number of agricultural workers is falling by some 100,000 people each year, risking a large-scale departure from agriculture a few years from now. Under these circumstances, the rationalisation and expansion in agriculture, as well as the improvement of business skills among the farmers responsible for these lands are important.

A project being promoted by the government as a measure to deal with this is all-round agricultural innovation making use of information and communication technology (ICT) and artificial intelligence (AI). The Project for the Development and Rapid Deployment of Innovative Technology is the focus of efforts, with 11.7 billion yen being set aside in a supplementary budget.

Japan leads the world in sensing technology. Growth and taste management and the acceleration and spread of the acquisition of technological knowhow are possible through the accumulation and analysis of data. One actual example of this is the Kubota Smart Agri System (KSAS), a cloud service developed by the leading agricultural equipment manufacturer Kubota, and the use of combines compatible with this system. Japan has also been leading in the development of robots, such as power assist suits for agricultural work, harvesting robots, and so on, which is making use of deep learning, and actually the first agricultural drone to integrate deep learning is being developed in Kyushu (Kubota 2017).

Such technological innovations are essential elements in the resolution of the issues facing agriculture. However, cutting-edge technologies will be meaningless if farmers themselves, rather than just researchers and experts, do not become able to use them. In fact, this is a pressing issue on the ground. The value of such initiatives to the revival of farming villages is that collaborations between agriculture and other industries have arisen, so that diverse stakeholders have become involved with these villages. These technologies have begun to be utilised to resolve not simply issues in agriculture, but also issues in farming villages. At the end of the day, technology is no more than a tool of innovation, which cannot become innovation itself. Without promoting the emergence of communication between farmers or the local inhabitants and people from other industries, it will not lead to social innovation.

3.2 Policies to Promote the Migration and Settlement of Young People: Community Revitalisation Cooperation Fellows (CRCF)

Reviving agriculture and creating a favourable economic environment in farming villages are important, but without those who can support the functions of farming communities, such communities cannot be maintained. In response, the national government is promoting a policy of migration to and settlement in the regions by young people. A scheme which is producing successes is the CRCF.

The CRCF scheme is an initiative under which local governments delegate people who have moved from metropolitan regions to disadvantaged areas as CRCF. During a set period, these volunteers work on the development of a regional brand, sales, and Public Relations; work in agricultural, forestry, or fishing industries; or carry out “Community Collaboration Activities” to support the lives of local residents. At the same time, the scheme aims to have them settle and become established in the area. The scheme began in 2009 as a project of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. It was adopted by 31 local governments in the first year, but participation has increased rapidly, with 998 local governments and 4830 volunteers in 2017. According to a survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2018, 60% of the volunteers settle in the area to which they are deployed, meaning that the scheme is successful to some extent.

At the time when the scheme began, the job responsibilities of the volunteers were sometimes vague, leaving them unable to fit into the local communities before their tenure ended; however, with the passage of time, local residents have grown to understand the presence of the CRCF. Many cases can be seen nationwide in which the local residents themselves are inspired by the sight of these young people thinking seriously about and working to do something for their areas, which they had believed to possess no special qualities, and the sprouting of a sense of autonomy induces activities for regional revitalisation.

On the other hand, the number of local governments concentrating their efforts on policies to promote migration and settlement is also increasing. Migration information and advice points are established, acting as an intermediary for employment and vacant houses. Those who hope to migrate have a variety of motives. There is a need to provide employment opportunities outside agriculture, and various measures are being taken forward. For example, several local governments have developed industrial estates and embarked on efforts to attract companies. Moreover, based on the prediction that a large number of small and medium enterprises will go out of business in 2025, when the baby boomer generation enters old age, efforts have been launched to ensure the survival of leading local companies and of employment opportunities through measures such as the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency’s Business Succession Support Project and the Regional Start-up Promotion Support Project.

3.3 “The Return of Young People to the Countryside”

This phenomenon of young people heading for the regions is said to be a “return to the countryside”. This phrase appears in 2015 government publications (2015 White Paper on Food, Agriculture, and Farming Villages and National Spatial Strategy). In the results of research into migrants carried out by Odagiri and others,⁷ there were 2864 migrants in 2009, which increased more than fourfold to 11,375 in 2014. Furthermore, in the report by the “Research Group into ‘the Return to the Countryside’” (“The research report on the Return to the Countryside” conducted by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2018), the number of migrants from the cities increased in 397 out of 1523 depopulated zones nationwide. In addition, it was learned that while the number of zones seeing an increase was 108 between 2000 and 2010, it rose 3.7 times to 397 between 2010 and 2015. Among the elements of an acceleration of this phenomenon, the existence of private-sector bodies cannot be ignored. These organisations underpin national and local government policies. For example, in Kyoto Prefecture, the young start-up Kyoto Migration Project is responsible for Kyoto Prefecture’s settlement promotion work.

Among such organisations, the mega-NPO Hometown Return Support Centre (“Specified Non-profit Corporation Centre for the Promotion and Support of the Return and Circulation of 1 Million People to Hometowns”, hereinafter, “the Centre”), which builds networks with local governments nationwide and supports migration to each prefecture, deserves to be mentioned.

The Centre was incorporated in 2003, and currently, in partnership with around 850 local governments, provides information on each region and rolls out exchange activities with cities, aiming for regional revitalisation by providing support for living in the regions and for those migrating or returning to the countryside, thus acting as a bridge between the cities and farming villages.

Local government booths are located within the Tokyo and Osaka offices, carrying out information provision and migration advice. Each local government booth has a migration advisor, known as a “migration concierge”, who can introduce the area and provide individual consultation on migration. The number of consultations on migration and settlement was 12,867 in the 2014 fiscal year, more than doubling to 27,700 cases in the year 2017 (2016 Annual Report www.furusatokaiki.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/c395913afabbd6464ab384cf96bde0f2.pdf). This shows the rise in interest in migration among the general public.

4 The Development of Policies to Encourage Migration and Settlement in the Northern Part of Kyoto Prefecture

In this way, a variety of stakeholders, from the central to local governments, are concentrating their energies on the migration of young people to the regions, but the results of migration and settlement policies differ greatly according to the measures taken by local governments. This paper considers the migration and settlement policy of Ayabe City, in northern Kyoto Prefecture, as a pioneering example of a local government approach.

4.1 Overview of Ayabe City and Initiatives to Promote Migration and Settlement

Ayabe City is located in the northern part of Kyoto Prefecture, with a land area of around 347 km², 77% of which is accounted for by hills and valleys. It is a disadvantaged area for agriculture, with many farmers also holding other jobs, and textile and machinery industries developed here. However, the region has been in decline since the end of the era of rapid economic growth, and the population, which was 54,055 in 1950, when the city became a municipality, was 33,979 as of January 2018, and is falling by over 500 people each year. Ayabe City was quick to embark on measures to stem this population outflow, rolling out pioneering projects which have exhibited successes.

The Non Profit Organization (NPO) Satoyama Net Ayabe (hereinafter, “Satoyama Net”), established in 2000, can be cited as a figurehead project. At the time, the concept of an NPO had not yet taken root among the general public in Japan. The number of pupils was falling and one elementary school after another was closing, becoming a social problem. If an elementary school closed, the area around it declined rapidly. The residents of Toyosato gave their abandoned school a new lease of life as a facility for exchanges between the city and the countryside, in order to preserve the community. They hold many different programmes making use of the area’s resources, Furthermore, accommodation facilities are available, used for residential activities by local groups, schools, and universities.

4.2 Reinvigoration of Depopulated Areas Through “Water Source Village Ordinances”

The Ayabe City initiative which attracts attention as a pioneering measure is the enactment of “Water source village ordinances”. Amidst an increase in marginal settlements, the city’s then mayor, Yasuo Shikata, stating that the community-managed forests around the villages particularly needed to be protected, replaced the negative title of “marginal settlement” with “water source village”, as areas playing an important role in defending the lives of those downstream by replenishing groundwater and preserving mountain forests, and enacted the “water source village ordinances”, the first such in the country, in 2006 to safeguard these areas. These encouraged exchanges between the cities and farming villages, aiming for regional revitalisation through settlement. Residences were made available, and policies to support migration and settlement, such as subsidies for living costs, were put in place. Currently, 15 villages are accredited.

The aim of these policies is not simply to have people migrate, but also to give the residents themselves pride and confidence in their areas, making a happy way of life a reality. In order to do so, they have tried to develop and sold processed local goods as a way to discover local resources and create motivation. The project planning, publicity, and management of participants are carried out by Satoyama Net. This is because a wide variety of people who have moved to the area are involved with Satoyama Net as staff. Such young people, who used to work in the travel industry or for famous advertising agencies, are entrepreneurs organising research institutes or running accommodation, and they can be said to make a great contribution to the development of Satoyama Net projects.

4.3 From Exchanges Between Cities and Farming Villages to Settlement: Towards the Enactment of Settlement Promotion Ordinances

Ayabe City has been working to promote migration and settlement through exchanges between the cities and farming villages from an early stage. This paper will now examine the history and the mechanisms in place.

With the water source village ordinances as the start, ahead of the rest of the country, a migration and settlement one-stop service, “Settlement Support All-round Contact Point”, was established. Also, the “Town in which People will Want to Live: Settlement Promotion Ordinances” were enacted in 2014. The number of settlers in the city after the launch of the Contact Point, between 2008 and 2016, is a total of 179 households and 435 people. Those in their 30s are the largest age-group, showing that many of the migrant families are in their child-raising years. The specific content of the policy initiatives is detailed below.

What is needed at the time of migration is to secure a place to live and a job. For accommodation, a “vacant house bank” was set up to register those seeking a go-between, as a measure to mobilise vacant houses. At present (January 2018), 678 properties are registered. The vacant house bank is a mechanism by which the local government manages vacant houses, introducing them to and matching them with people who hope to move to the area. Many local governments in depopulated areas have now set up vacant house banks, but even though houses are vacant in practice, the owners do not register them with the bank, so there are difficulties in increasing the number of properties registered. It is also true that local people are suspicious of newcomers from outside who do not understand the ways of the community.

In order to dispel these misgivings of residents towards migrants, the person in charge has interviewed the candidates who wish to migrate about their motives for moving and their thoughts about the local community, and informed about community rules and customs to be absorbed. Only after ascertaining that the person would truly be able to get on well with the community are serious efforts made to recommend vacant houses. Moreover, in order to get more registrations with the vacant house bank, each residents’ association was asked to collect information on vacant houses, after which the staff visited the area in person, sending information about registration to the owners of vacant houses where these were known, explaining the registration system and its merits, and encouraging owners to register. Through these steady efforts by the staffs, the number of properties registered in Ayabe City rose from fewer than 20 in 2016 to 60 in January 2018. This can also be considered evidence that previous migrants have built relationships with the local community and become a positive influence. The process of vacant house mobilisation measures is shown below (Fig. 6.3).

Fig. 6.3

Process of vacant house mobilization. (Source: Ayabe City)

Of course, there are residents who go ahead with sales through estate agents in the cities, without using Ayabe City’s vacant house bank, but in the end, since this leads to trouble between the migrants and local residents in some instances, the city is promoting the use of the vacant house bank.

When moving into a vacant house, the cost of renovations is subsidised. In addition, in order to encourage registration with the vacant house bank, a grant is paid to the owner when a rental or sales contract is concluded. Another distinctive characteristic is the brokerage system for vacant properties. Estate agents within Ayabe City have set up a consultation and brokerage system. Since the agents are introduced by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, there is a high degree of trust. The fact that they are knowledgeable about the area, as local businesses, is another merit. In addition, the person in charge at Ayabe City Hall provides meticulous support, explaining the residents’ association rules to the migrant, encouraging active participation in residents’ association activities, and accompanying the migrant on courtesy calls to the residents’ association upon moving in.

Moreover, since 2011, settlement support houses have been made ready in each area outside the city centre, and these are rented to people who wish to settle there. Under this mechanism, the city leases vacant houses for ten years at no charge, carries out renovations within a fixed budget, and rents the houses to prospective migrants. The migrants must be aged under 50, and can live there for a maximum of three years for a rent of 30,000 yen per month.

As for employment, the local government introduces them to agricultural corporations in partnership with Kyoto Prefecture. In addition, there are many earlier migrants who run farm stays or green tourism, carrying out exchange activities between the cities and rural villages, and so the new migrants are encouraged to participate and build networks with earlier migrants.

In an interview, the staff in charge explained, “We have long carried out migration and settlement policy measures independently as the top of our agenda. We have been able to overcome problems up to this point, and to build the current framework”. The pride felt by city staff in having worked in close partnership with local communities and the self-confidence at being responsible for regional revitalisation could be glimpsed in this answer.

4.4 A New Lifestyle Concept for Young People: “Half Farming, Half X”

There is a lifestyle concept which cannot be omitted when talking about Ayabe City. This is the “Half farming, half X” way of life. Half of one’s time is spent on farming and half on X, a search for one’s life. X can be replaced with various things: what one wants to do, a vocation, the ability to earn one’s living… Naoki Shiomi, the advocate for this lifestyle concept, was born in Ayabe City in 1965. While working for a leading mail order company, he began to have questions about urban living, and returned to Ayabe City in 1999. He began to advocate for “Half farming, half X” as a new way of living for the twenty-first century, setting up a research institute to promote it, and publishing “The Half Farming, Half X Way of Life” in 2003. This book is currently available in translation in Korea, Taiwan, and China.

The book went on to become a paperback, and the concept spread nationwide. In fact, many of the migrants to Ayabe City are developing a variety of businesses while carrying out subsistence-type agriculture. Going beyond Ayabe City, the phenomenon of “the return to the countryside” often involves young people who, while living in harmony with nature, which is to say, including farming in their lifestyles, earn money through another business.

For example, Teruyuki Kuchu, who runs the farm stay Satoyama Guest House Couture, is creating opportunities to come in contact with the abundance of nature and to interact with local residents through cuisine made from local ingredients, river outings, and so on. During his own experiences travelling around the world, he understood that the places which travellers are looking for are not tourist spots but encounters with unique local nature, traditions, and people. Deciding to start a guest house in the Japanese countryside, he apparently visited Ayabe City. Having obtained a qualification as a travel agent, he set up a travel agency in 2016, playing a role in the operation of events planned by Satoyama Net, and becoming an irreplaceable presence in Ayabe City. Couture has also become a hub for a network of migrants and returnees, a venue for sharing issues and generating ideas for new events and projects. It also has the character of an advice point about migration for those who are hoping to move to the area.

5 Building of a Foundation for the Creation of New Regional Value by Migrants (Study)

Looking at the situation in this way, we can see that many diverse human resources are taking some kind of action to revitalise the area in the course of their daily lives there. Nevertheless, most migrants did not initially intend to become involved in area activities. This observation comes from interviews by the author with migrants from the cities to the northern part of Kyoto Prefecture (Oishi 2012; Sekiya and Oishi 2014), as well as from materials by the prefectural government and articles in local newspapers. Some people had a clear desire to start a business, while others were looking for a good environment in which to raise their children; migrants have a variety of different motivations, but when they come into contact with the techniques, knowledge, and wisdom related to clothing, food, and housing which have been passed down within the area from distant ancestors, and realise for themselves that these have been handed on from parents to children, and then to grandchildren, they come to develop a sense of mission to take part themselves in preserving these scenes and way of life for the next generation. Urged on by this wish, they deepen their partnerships with the local residents in order to promote support for migrants and activities which lead to regional revitalisation.

The activities of young migrants appear fresh to community residents, energising them. Moreover, the presence of children, who will be responsible for the future, makes the community lively, and becomes a motivation to resolve current issues in order to sustain the area. Human resources with a variety of experiences gained in the cities interact in the countryside to create new value. It can be thought that through this circulation of diverse human resources, society itself is in the process of coming back to life. This is moving ahead at a rapid pace. Hitherto, migrants tended to be excluded from local communities as outsiders. However, now, their presence is desired by these communities as people who are steadily taking on the responsibility for the area’s future. Nevertheless, there are questions about the appropriateness of migrant support policy, including the creation of structures in the host communities, in order to fully understand this trend and skilfully connect it to social innovation.

The efforts made by Ayabe City staff to painstakingly build relationships between migrants and local residents, through dialogue with the communities, have played a major role in the city’s migration and settlement promotion policy. What is important is an intermediary body to promote communication between local residents and migrants. In the case of Ayabe City, it can be said that the implementation of the policy nurtured human resources who could play this role. The establishment of a settlement support contact point meant that Ayabe City staff became aware of the promotion of migration as an important policy for the city as a whole, changing the consciousness with which they approached their work. The staff in charge spend half the week in the local communities. They go there to survey vacant houses, show them to prospective migrants, pay courtesy calls to residents’ associations, and so on, entering into communication with local residents. They need not simply to look at vacant houses, but also to obtain a wide variety of information which prospective migrants need to consider in order to live there, such as the state of the surrounding roads and water management, relationships with immediate neighbours, the personality of the residents’ association chair, and so on. Such initiatives may also help to develop the kind of local government employee required by the community. Without knowledge of the area, it is impossible to make effective policies.

On the other hand, the CRCF scheme has given an official title to young people from the cities, who were formerly treated as outsiders and had difficulties fitting in, allowing them to gain the understanding of the community. Through bilateral communication with outsiders, local residents become aware of issues and share common goals. At some point, these outsiders become an essential presence in the community. The fact that Ayabe City residents expressed the wish that the person who moved into the settlement support house in the neighbourhood continues living there, leading to the sale and transfer of the house, is surely an example of this.

At the same time, it is also to be hoped that synergies with prefectural and central government policies produce results. Kyoto Prefecture is simultaneously pursuing a migration and settlement policy, but this may seem a superfluous overlap of efforts. Nonetheless, in order to promulgate an image of Kyoto’s appeal as something other than a tourist destination both domestically and abroad, a regional initiative across the northern part of the prefecture is needed, and Kyoto Prefecture should be the one to take such an initiative. Moreover, in order to have migrants and returnees choose Kyoto as their destination, partnerships with the centre, such as the Hometown Return Support Centre, are surely important. A clear division of responsibilities is necessary.

Whatever the case may be, the phenomenon of the return of young people to the countryside is a growing trend in society, with which the central, regional, and municipal government policies are inextricably entwined.

6 Conclusion and Ongoing Prospects: A Form for Rural Villages Which Connects Them with the Future

Among rural village society, once closed off to communication with the outside and on the verge of extinction, some communities have started to come back to life. For the moment, at the very least, the phenomenon of the return to the countryside is becoming a major element in the creation of a new form for farming villages. According to Luhmann, society is built on communication, and communication itself is society. An unbroken sequence of communication is society, and the social system is a chain in which communication breeds communication. Furthermore, in Luhmann’s social system theory, the social system is autopoietic, which is to say, a system in which “the various elements of the system are produced and reproduced only within the elements of the system, in other words, only through recurrence”. An autopoietic system is one which is closed in its operations, without the possibility of introducing these elements from outside the system or of sending them out. All that can happen is reciprocal influence through indirect mediation (Iba 2007, p. 77). If we apply this theory, communication between migrants and returnees, local government staff, and local residents has a reciprocal influence on the social system of rural villages, an autopoietic system, giving rise to emergent communication. This is no longer something which returns to the individual; it is already an emergent event at the societal level (Iba 2007, p. 78). Through this chain of events, the closed nature of traditional communities gradually changes, producing a new social system. Diverse human resources create various forms of communication, giving birth to a new form of rural village.

Japan’s hilly and mountainous regions are currently doing exactly this, trying to generate a new form of rural village. The young people who are overcoming the triple Ds, aiming to bring about a sustainable society, and creating a new, connected way of life which goes beyond the local area while building connections there, are a source of hope.