Regional Characteristics in the Differentiation of Japanese Peasantry

本稿は北海道,沖繩を除く日本農業の構造変化の状況を農業センサスの農業構造動態統計により概観するとともに,地域的に類型を区分し,特徴的な三つの地域について,農家の経済構造を比較することによって,全般的な構造変化の要因を検出する一助たらしめようとしたものである.農業に比して有利な他の就業機会が限られていることが,経営耕地規模拡大への大きな誘因であるが,地域農業の特性,土地問題なども少なからぬ影響を及ぼしていると判断される.Since about 1960, the area of cultivation by the majority of Japanese peasants has remarkably decreased, while 'large scale' cultivations, formerly rare, have appeared in several parts of the country. In this paper the author examined this kind of differentiation among the peasants in each prefecture, and tried to find out the factors that affected it. Though regional labour markets had strong influence on the expansion movement of peasants' cultivation area, the author believes that other factors, such as profitability of agriculture and possibility of cultivating new land, had considerable effect in a very complicated way. Recentry, however, the regional characteristics of smaller peasants' behaviour are disappearing, and it seems that their acreage of cultivation affects their behaviour more closely than regional labour markets