This presentation was featured at the 11th OECD Rural Development Conference held on 9-12 April 2018 in Edinburgh, Scotland (UK). More information: www.oecd.org/rural/rural-development-conference/

1. HOW COULD WE MAINSTREAM MITIGATION AND
ADAPTATION STRATEGIES IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT POLICIES ?
OECD 11th Rural Development Conference
April 11, 2018
Edinburgh, UK
Mikitaro Shobayashi
Gakushuin Women’s College
Japan

2. Source：Shobayashi and Sasaki(2017）”Agri-environmental policies in Japan”
Policy objectives
Global issues Local issues
Policy
measures
GHG
Mitigation
Biodiversity Biomass Water
Quality
Landscape
1 Regulatory
measures
Regulation × ○ × 〇 △
Cross Compliance △ △ × ○ ×
Emission trading
without offset
projects
× × × × ×
2 Economic
measures
Tax △ × × × ×
Emission trading with
offset projects
△ × △ × ×
Agri-environmental
payments
○ ○ × △ ×
Feed-in-tariff ○ × ○ × ×
3 Voluntary
measures
Ecolabelling (public
sector)
△ △ × ○ △
Ecolabelling (private
sector)
△ ○ △ ○ ×
Greentourism × △ △ × ○
CSR △ △ 〇 △ △
WHAT POLICY TOOLS DO WE HAVE?： A CASE OF JAPAN

3. PRESERVING CONSISTENCY IS A PREREQUISITE FOR SUSTAINABLE RURAL
DEVELOPMENT
 Consistency between centralized policies and decentralized rural
development policies
 Central policy areas: Agricultural policies such as Income support policies
(e.g., Direct payments, Market access (Tariffs)), and agri-environmental
policies to address issues associated with global public goods (e.g., GHG
mitigation and biodiversity preservation). Environmental policies such as
Carbon tax, Emission trading scheme, Feed-in Tariff.
 Local policy areas: Adaptation for climate change, Resources use
policies (especially land and water), Balancing agricultural
competitiveness and rural environment and landscape.
 Private initiatives: Ecolabelling, CSR, Private certifications for Good
Agricultural Practices, Carbon Footprints.

4. PRESERVING CONSISTENCY IS A PREREQUISITE FOR SUSTAINABLE RURAL
DEVELOPMENT

5. ROLES OF CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS, AND PRIVATE SECTOR FOR
ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT
 How could we institutionalize consistency between centralized and
decentralized policies?
 Do local governments have to consider central policies and private
initiatives as “given” conditions when they formulate comprehensive rural
development policies?
 Or, should we establish institutional mechanisms in which major policy
“actors” could work together even when they decide policy objectives?
Source：Batie, S. “Wicked Problems and Applied Economics”

6. OTHER ISSUES FOR SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT
1. ENCOURAGING COLLECTIVE ACTION IS A CHALLENGE
 Geographycally scattered farm plots would increase transaction
costs associated with farmers’ providing society with
environmental services including soil carbon sequestration

 How should we encourage collective action?
 Aggregators
 Additional agri-environmental payments for collective action
 Using existing formal or informal organizations (e.g., Farmers
associations, Water users’ associations) as intermediary organizations
Source：Shingai Land Use Improvement Association

7.  This is extremely important for preserving water resources that
have public goods characteristics.
 The total value of the stock of irrigation and drainage facilities
amounts to around 2,400 billion euros, which could contribute
to making agriculture in Japan adapted to droughts and floods.
 Decisions on maintenance and rehabilitation are being made
by “current” farmers; however, considering that fact that most
of these facilities would last for more than 50years, who should
be considered to be actors that need to be consulted?
OTHER ISSUES FOR SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT
2. WHO COULD BE CONSIDERED TO BE ACTORS WITH THE ABILITY TO HAVE
LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVE?