Measuring public relative importance for agricultural and rural multifunctionality: an application of case 1 best–worst scaling

The concept of agricultural and rural multifunctionality expands the public’s understanding of the diverse roles of agriculture and rural areas. However, the establishment of the concept burdens governments with a complicated issue related to formulating an agricultural and rural policy, as the public could have diverse views on the functions that should be promoted via the policy. This study applies case 1 best–worst scaling to measure the relative importance of agricultural and rural multifunctionality in Japan. Sixteen functions, including the primary function of agriculture (agricultural commodity output), were addressed. The results show that, on average, agricultural commodity output was prioritized most, followed by disaster prevention-related, water-related, and biological conservation functions. The clustering results demonstrate that the individuals were divided into seven classes and that the relative importance of functions among the seven classes differed significantly. The heterogeneity in the relative importance of functions among the public indicates that social consensus on weighting multifunctional roles in agricultural and rural policies cannot be reached easily.