Improvement of tea farming in Nara Prefecture

This paper focuses on analyzing the present situation, problems, and improvement alternatives in Nara Prefecture\u27s tea industry mainly based on this author\u27s survey. Nara\u27s tea industry in this paper means a cooperating business group involving tea cultivating farmers, and the agricultural cooperative which takes charge of marketing the tea. The farmers produce the fresh tea leaves and process them into rough green tea whereupon the agricultural cooperative attempts to sell it to tea middlemen at the best price as possible. In one method the cooperative charges a commission of 2.7% on the wholesale price. In the second, it buys rough tea from the farmers and refines it in its factory into processed tea whereupon it is sold to retailers, or directly to consumers. Part 1 sets forth the environmental conditions on the Yamato Plateau under which farmers have organized themselves into a specialized tea production region. The plateau is marginal land for tea production because of the late frost in spring and the steep sloping land. However farmers have been cultivating tea as the most profitable crop possible by devising production technologies adaptable to cold spring weather. If the plateau were 500 meters or so higher, and had cooler temparatures in summer, farmers would select vegetables like summer spinach or tomatoes as a more profitable crop. Part 2 considers the present situation and future trend in the demand for, and supply of, green tea as well as other substitute drinks such as chinese tea, red tea, coffee, and fruit juices throughout Japan. The demand for green tea has gradually decreased, being substututed by other drinks, especially coffee. But demand for higher quality green tea, that is higher priced tea has been increasing. That has resulted in larger total sale of green tea. This trend will continue in the near future. Both domestic production (about 90,000 tons) and imports (about 5,000 tons) have been stagnating recently, and this trend will continue in the near future. Approximately 40% of Nara Prefecture\u27s green tea production is of low quality and as such has a wholesale price of only \330 per kg. Such low quality green tea will be substituted imports from China, which has a CIF price of \290 per kg. Therefore, Nara tea producers must decrease the share of low quality tea in total production by improving cultivation and processing technologies. Part 3 analyzes current problems confronted by tea farmers in Nara Prefecture. In 1995,Nara Prefecture\u27s share of tea production was 2.9% of total production in Japan. Recently, on the one hand, smaller-size farmers have taken non-farm jobs and have become part-time farmers, thus, they cultivate tea more extensively. On the other hand, larger-size farmers have joined in reclamation of forest land to convert into tea land since 1975. This project was highly subsidized by the government, and full-time farmers have expanded the average size of their tea land to more than 2 hectares. The average size tea cultivation per farmer in Nara Prefecture has increased to 56 ares. Several years ago farmers began to invest in a cooperative automatic tea processing factory. Now there are 6 automatic factories to produce higher quality tea. They have shifted the labor saved at the factory to intensify cultivation of higher quality tea. These producers have to invent labor-saving technologies for tea harvest and other field operations on the steeply sloping land. A second problem is how to change the combination of yield and quality of tea harvested by different seasons on the same tea land, and to improve the marketing method of tea. The third problem is to improve the tea quality in the automatic tea processing factories. Fourthly farm size sturucture must be improved in the near future through promoting leases of tea land or by contracting harvest and other operations to full-time tea farmers or joint groups. Finally, in Part 4, the role of the Tea Marketing Center, as one section of the Agricultural Cooperative named JA Nara Prefecture, is described. Now about 90% of the rough tea produced in Nara is committed to the Center as the tea wholesaler to sell to 55 companies as the middlemen. The farmers deeply rely on the marketing abilities of the Center. This Center is also expected to provide instruction on how to improve the quality of tea adaptable to changes in consumers\u27 taste and marketing firms requests. In addition, they give information about tea production and processing directly to consumers to improve demand for Nara tea. One current problem is renewal of the Center\u27s facilities. Both farmers and tea middlemen would like to keep fees for services of the Center\u27s facilities at the same level. However, the Center cannot keep the balance in the black without government\u27s subsidy of about 45% of renewal investment cost, no matter how economically the facility is run. The government must subsidize it allowing for miscellanious welfare effects through supporting tea production on such a mountainous region in addition to the benefits received by the tea farmers, the agricultural cooperative and middlemen.記事区分：調