JAWRIC has worked since 1 April 1998 to plan, build and maintain Japan's wide-area agricultural and forest roads. We work between national policy and municipal delivery, supporting the road networks that farming, forestry and rural daily life depend on.
Our work spans the full lifecycle of a rural road: survey and planning, design, construction supervision, inspection and repair, disaster response, and the technical standards that make all of it repeatable. Headquartered in Tokyo, we operate through four head-office divisions and five regional offices covering Hokuriku, Chubu, Kinki, Chugoku and Kyushu.
This page summarises our purpose, history and structure. Detailed pages on each topic are published in Japanese; where that is the case, the link is noted.
At a glance
The table below gives the essential facts about the organisation. Our registered address and contact details are listed on the Contact page.
- Name
- Japan-wide Agricultural & Rural Infrastructure Corporation (JAWRIC)
- Purpose
- To plan, build, maintain and research wide-area agricultural and forest roads, thereby supporting agricultural and forestry production, rural living conditions, and disaster-resilient communities.
- Established
- 1 April 1998
- Chair
- Naoto Kageyama
- info@jawric.org
- Office hours
- Weekdays 9:00–17:30 (closed weekends, public holidays, and 29 December – 3 January)
- Scope of business
- Survey, planning, design and construction supervision of wide-area agricultural and forest roads; maintenance and longevity planning; disaster preparedness and recovery support; technical standards and manuals; research and development; municipal technical support and training; public information.
- Regional offices
- Hokuriku, Chubu, Kinki, Chugoku and Kyushu
What we do
Our remit is deliberately narrow in subject and broad in scope. We deal only with agricultural and forest roads, but we follow them from the first survey to the final repair.
In practice this means four things. We plan networks rather than isolated links, so that a road built today still makes sense within the wider system in twenty years. We set and publish the technical standards that designers and contractors work to. We support municipal authorities who lack the engineering capacity to assess their own networks. And we maintain a research function, so that standards change when the evidence does rather than when a crisis forces the issue.
Further detail on each area of activity is available in the Our Business section.
History
JAWRIC was founded in response to a specific gap. By the mid-1990s, rural road networks were ageing, the agricultural workforce was declining, and it had become clear that routes crossing municipal boundaries were falling between the responsibilities of individual authorities. A dedicated organisation was needed to plan and deliver those routes.
From a single Tokyo office, the organisation expanded progressively into five regional offices, published its first comprehensive design guideline in 2008, and shifted its emphasis from new construction towards maintenance, inspection and disaster resilience from the 2010s onwards. The timeline below marks the principal milestones.
- 1998 JAWRIC established on 1 April. Head office opened in Tokyo; survey and planning work for wide-area agricultural and forest roads begins.
- 2001 Hokuriku Regional Office opened. Work begins on road design methods for heavy-snowfall areas.
- 2004 Chubu and Kinki Regional Offices opened, extending operations to four regions.
- 2008 First comprehensive technical standard, the Wide-Area Agricultural and Forest Road Development Guideline, is published.
- 2012 Chugoku and Kyushu Regional Offices opened, completing the five-region structure. Inspection and diagnosis of existing structures becomes a core service.
- 2016 Research Division established with a dedicated maintenance and longevity remit; guidance on extending the service life of rural road structures is published.
- 2019 Field trials of ICT-assisted construction management begin at three model sites, with results adopted into published guidance.
- 2021 Study on securing alternative routes during disasters completed; a disaster-planning support menu for municipal authorities is introduced.
- 2023 Project Evaluation Committee established, introducing structured ex-ante and ex-post assessment of projects. Technical enquiry desk consolidated into a single point of contact.
- 2026 Fourth Medium-Term Plan (FY2026–FY2030) adopted, identifying maintenance, disaster resilience and digital transformation as priority areas.
Organisation
The organisation is led by a board of directors and chaired by the Chair. Beneath the Chair sit four head-office divisions — Corporate Planning, Development, Research, and Administration — together with five regional offices that handle day-to-day delivery in the field.
The regional offices are the organisation's front line: they are the point of contact for municipal authorities, carry out site surveys and local consultation, supervise works, and respond first when a disaster occurs. The head-office divisions exist to give them consistent standards, allocated budgets, technical advice and progress oversight.
| Division | Staff | Principal functions |
|---|---|---|
| Corporate Planning | 28 | Planning and coordination, public relations, project evaluation |
| Development (head office) | 34 | Civil engineering, construction supervision, contracting |
| Research | 22 | Research, technical standards, training programmes |
| Administration | 19 | General affairs, accounting, information systems |
| Regional offices (5) | 61 | Civil engineering, site supervision, regional liaison |
| Total | 164 | — |
An organisation chart with the full reporting structure is published on the Japanese Organisation page.
Governance and committees
JAWRIC operates three standing committees, each chaired by an external member, to review technical content, project viability and information disclosure respectively.
- Technical Committee — reviews and approves the technical standards and manuals we publish, including design, inspection and repair guidance. Meets four times a year.
- Project Evaluation Committee — assesses individual projects before and after implementation, covering necessity, efficiency and regional benefit. Meets three times a year.
- Information Disclosure Review Board — examines whether decisions on requests for disclosure of our information are appropriate, and hears appeals. Meets twice a year, and additionally as required.
Committee membership, remits and meeting frequency are set out in Japanese on the Committees page. A message from the Chair, Naoto Kageyama, is available on the Japanese Message page.
Full directions and office hours are available from the Contact page. Please write to us before visiting so that the relevant team can be ready to receive you.