Structural improvement of paddy-field farming

記事区分：調査This paper focuses on analyzing the development process of agricultural structure and structural policy in Japan, and future directions of structural improvement in paddy-field farming. Part 1 critically examines the recent "Report of the Investigation Committee on Fundamental Problems of Food, Agriculture, and Rural Areas" to understand the future directions of structural policy. This is because the New Fundamental Law of Agriculture to be enacted in the near future will mainly be based on that report. Part 2 considers the development process of agricultural structure and structural policy since 1961 when the present Fundamental Law of Agriculture was enacted. The Ministry of Agriculture has tried to increase the number of full-time farmers whose farm size is enough large to yield an income equivalent to that of employees in other industries. However, at the present time such well-to-do full-time farmers only amount to 6.5 percent of total farmers and produce on just 21 percent of Japan's cultivated land. Almost all well-to-do farmers are part-time ones whose incomes are mainly earned from nonfarm jobs. They have cultivated their small size production units with virtually no profit under the expectation that land prices would increase. However, land prices are actually decreasing. Most farmers are now becoming too old to continue farming, yet younger generation hesitates to take over such nonprofitable businesses. The Ministry is very concerned about the rapid decrease of cultivated land, projecting it will only amount to 3.96 million hectares in 2020,about 80 persent on the present level. The main reason is because part-time smal size farmers are gradually giving up cultivating their farm land under the continuallty deteriorating conditions which yield neither profit nor land price increases. The reasons are theoretically analyzed in Part 3 about why large size full-time farmers have not generally increased all over Japan, although they have in some regions. In some areas there are large size family farms, cooperative farms made up of a few individuals, cooperative farms organized by most farmers in the village, and cooperative farms supported by the agricultural cooperative or the local government which have been established and successfully managed in recent years. This part also includes analysis about agricultural policies necessary to overcome economic or institutional obstacles. Finally, in Part 4,reasons about why the above-mentioned four types of large size farms have been successful by applying various type of innovations adapted to environmental and personal conditions by the entrepreneurs' spirit and abilities are analyzed based on farm data collected in my own surveys