Regional systematic research on the relationships between racehorse stables and sustainable farming.

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Investigators of this research examined the regional relationships between racehorse stables and sustainable ways of farming in vegetable production and rice cultivation.The results confirmed the close relationships between racehorse stables and intensive vegetable farms in Tokyo Metropolitan Area.Since the 1970s, rapid urbanization forced a racehorse training center of the Japan Racing Association and many private racehorse stables to move from the inner suburban area to the outer one. The establishment of Miho Training Center (MTC) promoted many stables developed in Ibaraki Prefecture.The MTC and racehorse stables produce large amount of manure. Manure, processed compost, and "mush-soil" are marketed to horticultural farms in the inner suburban area of Tokyo. These organic fertilizers have been essential to maintain horticulture sustainably in this area. Saito and Morimoto reported that vegetable growers and pear growers in Chiba prefecture buy manure or compost and put them in their field to keep soil productive.According to Tabayashi, medium-or small-sized stud farms are more sustainable than large-scale industrialized stud farms in the Hidaka Region, the leading area in racehorse farming in Japan. Masui reported that the regional resource-manure and straws-circulation systems which included rice farms, racehorse farms, and vegetable farms.Saito, Morimoto, and Tabayashi presented their results in the IGU commission on the sustanability of rural systems in Armidale, Australia.