農業経営の第三者継承の特徴とリスク軽減対策

抄録

Beginning farmers without a farm family background have to acquire farm business assets in a short period and thus often face a risk of bankruptcy. Because bankruptcy damages stakeholders ; including farmland owners, traders, neighbor farmers cooperating in machinery operation and others, a risk management policy is important in order to maintain regional agriculture.
There are two means of entry for beginning farmers ; founding a farm and farm transfer. In this paper, the former type means the case of acquiring only tangible assets from a previous farm owner and the latter type means the case of acquiring both tangible assets and intangible assets. MAFF started a program to promote farm transfers beginning in 2008, but it’s becoming clear that promoting farm transfers is more difficult than expected. The purpose of this paper is to analyze two beginning farmers’cases in Hokkaido in order to understand the characteristics of farm transfer and risk management policy. The conclusions are as follows :
1) A farm transfer approach can reduce the risk of bankruptcy and is suitable for taking over a large farm. On the other hand, it does not reduce another the risk of failure of farm transfer, because it’s difficult to maintain a close relationship between a farm owner and a beginning farmer during the period of several months and years needed in order to transfer intangible assets.
2) In the case of founding a farm, a beginning farmer should access a low equity farm to reduce a risk of bankruptcy. Then risks held by stakeholders are also reduced and it becomes easier for a beginning farmer to receive various kinds of supports from neighboring farmers. But such supports are voluntary and uncertain and based on delicate relationships. So farm business success depends on the personal character of a beginning farmer.
3) In the case of farm transfer, not only reducing the risk of bankruptcy through control of capital investment, but also making efforts to avoid breaking off the relationship between a farm owner and a beginning farmer through strong interventions are necessary. In Bifuka town, Hokkaido, seven dairy farm owners without children who would be farm successors have founded an organization to accept young people wishing to be dairy farmers to train them and finally to promote farm transfer. Two farms have been transferred already and the next transfer will be realized soon. It’s very remarkable in this case that every member participates as a guarantor when a beginning farmer starts a farm business and opens an account with an agricultural cooperative. This is nothing other than risk sharing which is one way of reducing a risk of bankruptcy and enables members as concerned parties to be involved in maintaining the relationship between a farm owner and a beginning farmer.