Rice-terrace partnership programs had been increasing since 1993, and there were 165 programs all over Japan as of 2003. However, some of them had already been canceled. The aim of this study is to reveal factors of the sustainability of programs and characteristics of participants. Results indicated that participants were likely to join a program which had enough instructors and was nearer to their residence. Moreover they prefer to receive a larger amount of rice and are willing to pay a larger fee for the program. It was also demonstrated that most of the characteristics of participants were similar to that of allotment users.