Abstract
In order to gain a foothold in resolving the issue of absentee landowners, steps must be taken to gain insight into the attitude of these landowners toward their farmland, and to analyze farmers’views toward absentee landowners and their intentions to carry out farming operations into the future. This paper summarizes the actual attitudes held by both groups toward agriculture and farmland, and the differences in their attitudes, by focusing on the farmers’view of absentee landowners, an approach that has rarely been taken when addressing the issue of absentee landowners. Additional analysis is carried out through interview-based surveys of absentee landowners to gain insight into how these landowners might retain their ties with the community and in what roles they might be able to provide cooperative input. While ongoing efforts to approach absentee landowners directly are necessary to resolve the issue of absentee landowners, efforts must also be taken to prepare an agreement which is to be entered into by the heirs of farmers and other parties with community residents when they relocate to other locations, and to utilize these agreements in decision-making processes regarding community preservation and agricultural guidelines into the future.
