The Seventh National Rural Community Summit was held on June 6, 2005 at the conference hall of Nihon Daigaku Kaikan in Tokyo, with 154 participants, including 22 mayors, from farming, forestry and fishing communities, as well as faculty members and students at Nihon University.

At the summit, presentations were given on rural development with human resource building and on local revitalization. Panelists, including mayors, exchanged their views on the values and challenges of rural communities, eagerly discussing how to encourage development in rural economies.

While rural communities in Japan have faced many problems in the past--such as depopulation caused by the social and economic concentration in urban areas with rapid economic growth--some positive changes are afoot for rural revitalization. For example, the nation's shrinking food rate of self-sufficiency is raising public awareness of the importance of domestic agriculture, and green tourism is presenting opportunities to promote rural economies. The summit was aimed at encouraging further efforts for rural development by providing the opportunity to exchange opinions and share experiences on revitalization projects in each community.



Posted: 2005/10/06 11:03:31 AM
Japanese version

TAG Food/Water , Local government , NGO/Citizen , Other , University/Research institute