This publication was produced by the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE), led by Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director, as part of the programme of work of the Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC). The OECD would like to thank the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Japan, and Governor Mieko Yoshimura of Yamagata Prefecture, for their support during the elaboration of this report.
This publication was co-ordinated by Michelle Marshalian, Economist and Project Manager in CFE, under the supervision of Jose Enrique Garcilazo, Deputy Head and Dorothée Allain-Dupre, Head of Regional Development and Multi-level Governance Division. The report also greatly benefitted from valuable guidance provided by Nadim Ahmad, Deputy Director of the CFE. Chapters 1 and 2 were drafted by Michelle Marshalian, with statistical support from Takato Murai. Chapter 3 was drafted by Keizo Nonomura (CFE) with contributions from Daisuke Kunii and Takato Murai from the Japan Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF).
This report benefitted from valuable comments and input from other OECD staff members, including from Masayasu Asai (Trade and Agriculture Directorate, OECD), Tetsuya Yoshioka and Kei Oguro (Economics Department, OECD), and Yugo Kimura (CFE). We thank the expert advisory committee of the project that included Shugo Yanaka (INSPIRE) and Mikitaro Shobayashi (Research Institute for Humanity and Nature). We also kindly thank the Japanese delegation to the OECD, in particular Ritsuko Yoneda (MAFF) for in-kind support over the course of the elaboration of the report.
We thank Jeanette Duboys and Roxana Glavanov who prepared the manuscript for publication and Jack Waters who co‑ordinated the production process. Professional editing and formatting were conducted by Eleonore Morena.
The OECD Secretariat thanks the delegates to the RDPC for their valuable input. This work is part of a series of reports in the OECD Enhancing Rural Innovation project. It supports the implementation of the mandate of the OECD Working Party for Rural Policy and the RDPC. The chapters of the report were formally approved by written procedure on 5 December, 2024 [CFE/RDPC/RUR(2024)9].