Agricultural land use policy in Japan in an era of declining population

Abstract

 In recent years we are facing a “declining population era” which means a continuously declining population. Along with population, agricultural activities are going into a decline especially in hilly and mountainous areas. Agricultural ecosystems have several ecosystem functions other than food production such as biodiversity conservation. Although traditional agricultural practices maintained biodiversity, recent agricultural situations may have negative consequences on biodiversity. In this paper, I reviewed the current agricultural situation in Japan, summarized studies on agricultural land use in a macro-scale, and discussed the future prospects for agricultural land use in Japan.