Abstract
The number of farmland renters and leases are increasing in number against a background of farm household aging in recent years of the Hokkaido paddy field zone. The deployment of large-scale management through leased-land accumulation is particularly active in the Kamikawa central area.
However, these management structures are formed through the accumulation of leases in two or more rural communities. Therefore, the decentralization of farmland becomes a problem. On the other hand, public organization play a role in farmland adjustment in Toma-town. In this way, the creation of contiguous farmland has been achieved through the connection of leased land.
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the factors that contribute to farmland relocation in Kamikawa center area’s Toma-town. The analysis results are as follows.
First of all, the differentiation of the farmer hierarchy composition can be pointed out. The differentiation and the selection of the leasing farmers has widened while the number of renter farms has been limited. On the other hand, it also has been easy for large-scale management to relocate farmland.
Next, the characteristics of the rural society are pointed out. One characteristic has been the non-fixed nature of the relationship between borrowers and lenders. That is, it has been a characteristic of the relationship that social relations are often reconnected. A second characteristic is how farmland ownership has been recognized as a productive resources by both borrowers and lenders. A third characteristic is that the function of the rural community to restrict individual farmers is weak. Therefore, adjustments by public organizations have directly influenced individual farmers.
