Process revealed through case study The Shinshu-Ueda Tomi region was chosen

for a major winery project that planned to cultivate grapes on a 30-ha scale. The present condition of this region was determined by three key persons who had gathered for this project. The fi rst one was Tomio Tamamura, who worked at the research institution of this winery as director and is a famous writer. The second person was Shogo Asai, one of the leading winemakers in Japan who worked at Mercian. After retirement, Asai was invited by Tamamura to work as an advisor at the research institution. The third member was Cho Konishi, who worked at the research institution after graduating from the Division of Agriculture, Kyoto University. Unfortunately, this project ended abruptly after three years of all-out eff ort.

The reason was that the 30 ha of farmland to be purchased for growing wine grapes was owned by more than 100 farmers and negotiations failed because the farmers had various expectations. Furthermore, because profi ts diminished, the company gave up its wine business. Tamamura started to grow wine grapes in this region after recovering

from a serious illness and organized Villa D’est Winery, the fl agship winery in this region. Konishi gave his utmost eff ort to help organize this winery. Subsequently, other pioneer wineries were established in this region while Tamamura wrote a book about the history and development of his winery for popularization and wisdom. With these events, this region started to attract people who are looking into entering the wine business. These pioneer wineries contributed to the development of this region in many ways, such as by supporting newcomers, and these contributions consequently led to the transformation of the 30 ha of farmland into wine grape fi elds in Tomi region, which was farmland that the wine company tried to buy in the past for growing wine grapes.

This transformation happened because they were able to negotiate with more than 100 farmers using knowledge gained from the last failed negotiation.

Figure 1- The Vinyard in Shinshu-Ueda Tomi region

Fi gure 2 – The map of case study area (in Japan)

Figure 3 – the Training Center to New comers

Newcomers who had dreams of entering the wine business and coming to this region found this region on the internet and chose to stay after comparing with other pioneer regions of wine business. Tamamura’s book about his winery had played a signifi cant role in motivating newcomers to enter the wine business in this region.

Meanwhile, the Shinshu-Ueda farm, which was funded by JA Shinshu-Ueda, also supported newcomers in the following ways. First, it interviewed newcomers, signed them up for work at its institution as trainees, and gave them instructions on agricultural skills. Second, when the newcomers became independent farmers,

they were allowed to arrange and revive farmland for cultivating wine grapes by themselves, and the grapevines were prepared by the institution. In an instruction program, not only wine grape cultivation skills but also vegetable and other fruit tree cultivation skills were taught, so that they could earn money from growing vegetables when grapevines had not yet reached maturity for producing grapes.

Tomi City also had its own support system for newcomers. It leased homes to newcomers, introduced highly skilled farmers who could teach them farming skills, arranged farmland and homes for them when they became independent, guided them even after they had become independent, and helped them fi nd farmland suitable for grape cultivation.

It even supported newcomers who could not work at the institution managed by Shinshu-Ueda farm. Tomi City had played a major role in supporting newcomers in this region.

Newcomers who did not have their own fermentation facilities commissioned

“Arcanvigne” or other pioneer wineries to ferment their wine grapes. However, instead of completely letting the commissioned winery make their wines, they learned fermentation skills from the commissioned winery while renting and using the winery’s de-infraction crusher, juice extraction machine, and fermentation tank.

Because of these eff orts, more and more newcomers who were attracted to the wine business gathered in this region. Table 1 shows the survey results of trainees and farmer graduates of the institution managed by Shinshu-Ueda farm. At fi rst, the reason why they came to this region for winemaking was that they assumed that the wine business has a big frontier and is promising. All of them had strong feelings for wines and most of them believed that wines would sell well if you made them. As the cultivation scale was mostly 3 ha, their farmland was larger than the average of approximately 1 ha in

Japan. Finally, most of them dreamt of having their own wine facilities someday.

Table 1 – The Overvies of the Wine Business

Current Situation Training Viticulture Started Wine Making Started �

30% 40% 30%

Age 30s 40s 50s 60s

30% 10% 50% 10%

Vineyard Scale �1ha 1�3ha 3�5ha 5ha�

10% 40% 40% 10%

Sales Amount No Sales �500,000�1,000,000 �1,000,000

�3,000,000 �3,000,000�5,000,000

50% 10% 30% 10%

About Winery Already Owned Owned in the future Hope for Jointed No Need

Table 2 – The Reasons to Make Wine and Grow Grapes

Exactly Think so Don’t know Don’t think so Not at all

1. I like wine 80% 20% 0% 0% 0%

2. Able to sell a lot 60% 20% 10% 10% 0%

3.Popular area in grapes. 30% 40% 0% 20% 10%

4.Recommendation by the

winery 0% 10% 30% 10% 50%

Figure 4 – The Revival Mechanism of Agricultural Resource(eps. Farmland)