Kobe University collaborates actively with local communities in agriculture. In addition to research and education, the university proactively engages in practices aimed at solving problems in rural areas and fostering talent. Kobe University has established bases, such as the “Tambasasayama Field Station,” in Tambasasayama City, Hyogo Prefecture, in cooperation with the local government where students learn about agriculture and researchers work with local talent to contribute to community development. This spring, they also launched the “Kobe University Food Community,” an organization that aims to create value and networks around food and agriculture. How will these initiatives benefit the local community and the university? We asked Professor NAKATSUKA Masaya, who specializes in farm and rural management studies, and who is the director of the Center for Regional Partnership, Graduate School of Agricultural Science.

How has Tambasasayama City become the Graduate School of Agricultural Science’s hub for community collaboration?

Nakatsuka:

A predecessor of Kobe University’s Faculty of Agriculture, the prefectural Hyogo University of Agriculture was located in Tambasasayama after World War II. Even after that university was dissolved in 1969, many locals still remembered the time when researchers and students were around. Some professors at Kobe University were also familiar with that era. Therefore, there was no question of “Why collaborate with Tambasasayama?” due to this background.

The Center for Regional Partnership of the Graduate School of Agricultural Science was established in 2003. At that time, collaboration between the university and the local community was not as prominent as it is now, and the office was just a small storage room on campus. I was engaged in research at the Tanba-no-mori Research Institute (now the Hyogo Tanba-no-mori Research Institute) and started to work concurrently as a researcher at the Center for Regional Partnership in 2005.

Since I had been working closely with municipal employees and local residents in Hyogo Prefecture and the Tamba area, these relationships became the core of the collaboration between the university and the community.

Understanding rural communities through practice, developing talent on-site

In 2007, the Graduate School of Agricultural Science and Tambasasayama City entered into a community collaboration agreement, which was expanded to a university-wide agreement with Kobe University in 2010. Can you tell us more about that?

Nakatsuka:

At that time, the dean received feedback from students saying, “We are studying in the Faculty of Agriculture, but we have little involvement with actual agriculture.” There was a sentiment among the faculty members that they wanted to create opportunities for students to engage with agriculture and rural communities. In response, a trial course called “Exercise on agriculture and rural areas” later renamed “Introduction to practical agronomy and agronomics” was launched in 2007, allowing students to visit Tambasasayama City once a month.

Currently, we offer “Introduction to practical agronomy and agronomics” for first-year students and “Practical agronomy and agronomics” for second-year students. These ongoing courses, along with the “Agriculture and environment in Hyogo Prefecture” course conducted in cooperation with the Hyogo prefectural government and the Hyogo Prefectural Union of Agricultural Cooperatives, are collectively positioned as part of the “Cooperative education on food and agriculture” program. 

“Introduction to practical agronomy and agronomics” is a course where students apprentice with farmers. Once a month, about 40 students are divided into groups of four or five and are taken care of by local farmers. The activities vary according to the lifestyle of each farmer; sometimes the students do weeding and other times they engage in indoor tasks. The focus is not on cultivation techniques but on understanding the overall lifestyle of farmers. We believe that visiting throughout the year is meaningful.

One of the unique aspects of the program is that the host community changes every year. Various community development councils within Tambasasayama City take turns in hosting students. From the university’s perspective, maintaining a continuous partnership with a single community would reduce the coordination burden. However, we hope to stimulate and positively impact various communities by having university students interact with them, even if just a little. This system also helps to lessen the burden on the host communities.

This course is open to the entire university, and about a quarter of the students are from other faculties. Another notable feature of this course is that many female students participate.

The “Tambasasayama Field Station” serves as a base for implementing such programs. The local government provided the facility, and it was established at the start of the collaboration agreement. What is the role of this facility?

Nakatsuka:

It is a base for on-site education and research, and Kobe University has resident researchers there. It is also a hub for human resource development, community exchange and information dissemination. Since 2014, the facility has been used as a base for the half-academic, half-regional “Local vitalization cooperator” program, where university and graduate students live in Tambasasayama while working to solve local issues.

As part of our effort to develop human resources, we also launched a public program called “Sasayama Innovators School” in 2016. To support this initiative, we established the “Kobe University and Tambasasayama City Rural Innovation Lab,” a facility directly connected to JR Sasayamaguchi Station. We are utilizing both facilities in an integrated manner.

The Innovators School can be described as a local business school for people who want to challenge themselves with entrepreneurship and job creation unique to rural areas. So far, 239 people have taken the course, and 57 of them have started businesses both inside and outside of the city, and 25 have moved to Tambasasayama afterwards.

At our school, we place emphasis on addressing local issues and contributing to community development. Many students design business models with a focus on work-life balance. The entrepreneurs’ business activities are diverse, ranging from the food and beverage industry, guesthouse management, to web design, among others.

Considering the future of food and agriculture through community

What is the “Kobe University Food Community” initiative that you started this year?

Nakatsuka:

It is an initiative to promote creating value and building networks related to food and agriculture based at Kobe University. This spring, we established the organization as a general incorporated association.

Kobe University has an affiliated farm, the Food Resources Education and Research Center, in Kasai City for research and education, and we started the initiative with the idea of better promoting its agricultural produce. However, we also wanted to promote not only these agricultural products but also those produced by local farmers and organizations we collaborate with, as well as the products of our alums who are currently active as farmers. As one of our first initiatives, we opened the “Kobe University Marche,” a market selling rice, vegetables, and processed products in front of the Center for Regional Partnership of the Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Faculty, staff members, graduate students and undergraduates operate the market cooperatively.

However, while we value the sale of agricultural products and the branding of Kobe University’s food and agriculture, we believe that the cornerstone of this initiative is community building. Through such initiatives, we expand our networks related to food and agriculture, and the diverse food communities that emerge from these networks create and inspire new values, which also lead to research and development. That is the direction we aim for.

Accumulating foundational social capital to diversify practice and solve local issues

What are your thoughts on the challenges of regional cooperation and its future development?

Nakatsuka: 

Local stakeholders, researchers, and students each have fundamentally different perspectives. Local stakeholders likely expect new approaches from universities to transform the region. Researchers, on the other hand, seek to contribute by leveraging their expertise and achieving research results. Students may have thoughts like “I want to solve real-world problems” or “I want to interact with others.”

However, it is not easy to solve local issues or create change in a short period of time. When promoting community collaboration, it is important to consider the phasing of activities.

As a basis, we need to accumulate social relationships within and outside the community. First and foremost, it is necessary to establish a relationship between the university and the community. Building upon that, it is important to develop foundational social capital such as human resources, organizations and activity spaces. The presence of coordinators who build bridges between stakeholders is particularly indispensable.

By strengthening this foundation, the possibility of new encounters and network formation will increase, leading to community development. It is important to continue developing program models that not only superficially address issues but also strengthen the foundational aspects, the capital, and lead to diverse practices.

In the field of agricultural science, research at the DNA level, which is the invisible world, is currently advancing. On the other hand, I believe it is also important to establish relationships with the field and connect research to problem solving and value creation while sharing knowledge with the community. I believe it is important to spread our wings in both areas.

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Related link

• Center for Regional Partnership, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University (Japanese)