2021 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Rural Development and Community Resiliency Through Agriculture Heritage Tourism
| Project/Area Number |
21H03725
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Institution | Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University |
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Principal Investigator |
VAFADARI Kazem 立命館アジア太平洋大学, アジア太平洋学部, 教授 (70628049)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
四本 幸夫 立命館アジア太平洋大学, アジア太平洋学部, 教授 (50449534)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2021-04-01 – 2025-03-31
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| Keywords | Agriculture heritage / Tourism / Conservation / Traditional knowledge / Resiliency / Community development |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Local community interview and direct observation of the Italian newly designated GIAHS site in Folignio, Aspello and Trevi provided basic understanding about the attitude toward GIAHS site management in Italy. This research revealed that branding functionality of GIAHS is yet to be applied.
The designated site is located in a well established traditional agriculture system and it is one of the most famous olive farming are in Italy. The new designation is not attractive enough to add value to the site. Results shows that olive system GIAHS site of Italy that is located near the capital city of Rome has a lot of capacity to improve . Public awareness about GIAHS itself as a program is necessary. GIAHS promotion and management are usually done through community councils and in a bottom up approach as it is always the case in Japan, Korea and china. However, it is not clear that how GIAHS management is practiced in such bottom up approach in the olive GIAHS site. No GIAHS promotion council exist and in the above mentioned cities. local people do not know about GIAHS.The heritage side of agriculture is well developed due to the nature of tourism industry in Italy. The old olive Oil Mills are used for tourism and direct marketing. It conclude that traditional olive farming is not as profitable as mass produce and GIAHS farmers need to develop a more advanced value adding system in order to compete with industrial olive farming. GIAHS is a window toward sustainable olive farming and conservation of agriculture heritage of Italy.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
Original research plan was highly affected by Covid-19 during 2021 and continued by first half of 2022. International field studies were planned in Italy, Spain and Portugal to visit newly designated GIAHS sites were not conducted and arrangements to meet local communities in the GIAHS sites of Europe was postpone or cancelled by recommendation of UNFAO. This research is highly depending on the willingness of local community to take part in interview and other research activities and it was totally unexpected that we cant travel both international and domestically for over a year. Therefore, principal and co-investigator started field work in domestic Japan when travel restrictions allowed. We conducted several online meetings and discussion with tourism scholars and experts of UNWTO and UNFAO including webinars to continue research during travel restriction time. While these activities brought insight to the research, we conducted literature review and preparing for publications on community resiliency in GIAHS sites affected by Covid too. The result of first field work in Italy revealed a big difference between GIAHS based community development and community resiliency in Europe and East Asia due to the nature of tourism in rural areas. We are expecting to recover the entire research plan, replacing by focus on filed work during 2023 to gain our objectives within the 4 years original plan.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Research activity plan for fiscal year 2022 and 2023 are similar. As we carried over the fund form last year, we continue surveying tourist, government officials and local community perspectives at several sites including Spain Portugal and Korea as was originally planned for last year. We need to reconsider travel costs specially the international one according to the current value of Japanese Yen. Field research mainly focus on heritage conservation and travel, use of local networks in community resiliency in GIAHS sites and their recent experience with Covid and the role of heritage tourism in local revitalization. The level of community involvement at destination for each GIAHS site and the role of local government in building partnership is a major focus of observation and data collection.
One or two webinars on community-based GAISH tourism will be hold later in November or December 2023 inviting community and local government representative from the sites in Italy, Spain and Portugal. Experts form UNFAO will be invited. We will present field study results and create a dialog to receive feedback form different GIAHS sites. The last year of research plan is originally planned flexible, we plan to utilize it in case of any need for complementary research.
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