2025 Volume 63 Issue 2 Pages 50-56
Amid concerns over an aging workforce and labor shortage in Japanese agriculture, securing labor has become critical, particularly in the labor-intensive cherry production. Yamagata, a leading cherry-production region, has recently seen the expansion of “daywork,” an online matching service for 1-day agricultural jobs. This study investigates the use of “daywork” in Yamagata and compares it with previous studies in Hokkaido. In Hokkaido, securing manpower led to a shift from wheat to vegetable farming and an increase in production scale. In contrast, in Yamagata, daywork serves as a supplement to conventional manpower, rather than directly contributing to the expansion of production. However, it could promote farms, improve the working environment through interaction, and, for job seekers, expand and deepen their involvement with local agriculture.
