This thesis explores the rise of pro-rural migration and the possibilities of agricultural modes of livelihood in Japan. The question driving this research was why, despite the growing trend of new entry in agriculture since the mid-2010s, half of new farmers from a non-farming background fail to secure sufficient income to live on from their activity five years into farm management. Based on twelve months fieldwork in eastern Nagano prefecture and Kyoto city, and on participant observation conducted for eight months in an agricultural cooperative, this study investigates the four key hurdles faced by agricultural new entrants in the establishment of a farming business: the acquisition of land and housing, farming know-how, capital, and market outlets. New farmers look with fresh eyes at agricultural issues, and their experiences provide a vantage point over the institutions shaping rural and agricultural life. This thesis documents the mounting problem of land and house abandonment in regional Japan, showing how norms and institutions shape the bundle of rights surrounding property and how this reflects on rural communities’ revitalisation. This study also challenges the widespread view in the English literature explaining Japanese agriculture’s decline as being largely due to institutional inertia and entrenched vested interests. Ethnographic material documents the larger constellation of forces driving the reproduction of Japan’s agrarian structure, while also providing a more comprehensive account of agricultural cooperatives and JA group. To avoid reinforcing Japan’s exceptionalism, this study contextualises Japanese agriculture within a broader agri-food framework. Agricultural policy, farming practices, and fresh food distribution are compared with EU countries and Italy in particular, shedding new light on processes of agrarian change and different configurations of food provisioning in capitalist economies. The analysis of fresh food production and distribution, with special attention given to issues of asymmetric market power and price formation in food supply chains, contributes to debates in the anthropology of markets and agrarian political economy.