Resumen
This article reports a case study of ?knowledge conversion theory?. The Japanese agricultural sector had been depressed for several decades and discouraged entry into the agricultural sector that led to a shortage of young and full-time farmers. Japanese Agriculture Department and Japanese Agricultural Cooperatives (JA) deployed several initiatives to improve farm management efficiency during this period. However, these initiatives were unfocussed and contradictory and as such created confusion among the farmers. Therefore, a much needed Regional Agricultural Reform was initiated for effective reorganization of the Japanese agricultural sector by creating Farming Center and Area Farming Units (AFU) in every ward. The central issue remained to ensure the continuous participation of local farmers in the reform. In village and ward meetings, the planning team of Farming Center undertook many activities to persuade farmers to support the reform. Farmers were encouraged to identify the problems in existing farming system and to formulate a practical plan to resolve them. A practicable plan was formulated in four stages. First, discussions were held among the planning team and farmers to assess the status quo. The farmers predicted a satisfactory future only if agricultural reform could be achieved. Second, the planning team proposed a radical reorganization in farming activities and motivated the farmers to extend their participation in the reform. Third, mutual trust was developed between the Farming Center and farmers. Fourth, the planning team enumerated all the concerns raised by farmers in the village meetings concerning the reformation plan. Through these steps a knowledge conversion process took place that helped to motivate the farmers to support reform. Keywords: Systematic farming, regional agricultural reform, farming center, area farming union (AFU), mental model, trust, knowledge conversion, tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge.