Regional Agriculture Activities and Changes to the Future in Hilled Rural Area (1) : Utilization of Agriculture Census Data for Regional Analysis

Regional conditions of agriculture have been investigated every five years by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Japan and the statistic data were published as agricultural censuses. In this study, the data obtained in 1980, 1985, 1990 and 1995 were used for finding regional agricultural characteristics of 58 towns (administrative districts) in Oita Prefecture. Total land areas of this prefecture are 6,338km^2 and about 76km^2 are used for agricultural production. Most of the remaining parts are composed of mountainous area. 1) As a result of statistic principal component analysis, the first and second principal components are considered to make sense. The first principal component has characteristics expressing the activity level of agriculture. From the distribution pattern of the calculated scores, 58 towns in Oita Prefecture are found to be classified into five distinct groups according to the agricultural activity. 2) The regional characteristics of active level of agriculture were proved to depend on inter relationships between the variables. Among the variables, the scale of cultivated lands, the number of workers and the amount of agricultural income in each farmhouse have related most to the first principal component score. It was supposed that the present agricultural conditions could be grasped by means of the analysis stated above. 3) The variations of active level and statistic data of agriculture for time series showed that the five regional groups in Oita Prefecture have changed with different style during these 15 years. It is effective to analyze the causative variables in the long time course for studying the regional activating technique. 4) From the analysis of correlation between the topographic conditions and agricultural statistic data, it was clarified that the highest land levels of agricultural land in each district were closely related to the factors of the number of farm households possessing large scale cultivated lands and the number of part-time farm households having more agricultural income than non-farm income. The high regression coefficient showed that the topographic conditions obviously affect the agricultural activities.大分県58市町村について1980年から1995年の農業センサスのデータを用いて地域農業の分析を行った. 1)主成分分析を行った結果,第2主成分まで主成分の意味を読み取ることができた.そのうち第1主成分は地域農業やその担い手の活発さを示す特性値であり,このスコアを用いて農業生産活動の活性度の評価を行った.その結果, 5つの地域性が表れた. 2)5地域別に農業の活性度に寄与する要因について検討を行うと,スコアの大小を決定している変量は地域によって異なることが判明した.また,活性度が高い地域は耕地面積が広く,農業担い手が多く,農業収入が多いなどの変量の値が押し並べて高いことが明らかとなった.つまり,ここでいう農業の活性度が高いという意味は,農業生産活動が全般にわたり活発であるということが判明した. 3)5地域別に,農業の活性度の時系列変動を検討した結果,各地域の変動もそれぞれ異なる変量の増減により生じたことが判明した.すなわち農業の活性度の動向にも地域性があり,その原動となっている変量を検討することがその地域の農業の活性化を図る際に有効であると推察される. 4)地理的要因と営農に関する因子との相関分析を行った結果,標高が高いほど広い耕地面積を持つ農家及び農業収入の割合が高い1種兼業農家が増加することが明らかとなった.このように,地理的要因は営農に関する因子に影響を及ぼし,農業の活性度と深い関係をもつと考えられる