2021 Volume 94 Issue 4 Pages 211-233
Beef production is one of the few agricultural sectors with an economic rationale for being located on the remote islands of Okinawa. However, the sector has stagnated since the mid-2000s, despite high calf prices. This study aimed to explain the dynamics of beef-calf operations after the 2000s by focusing on changes in the livelihood composition of farm families and on the technical features of the operations. The author surveyed most of the calf operations on Tarama Island by revisiting farms surveyed in 2000 and interviewing farmers not visited in the previous survey.
The stagnation of beef cattle numbers since 2000 is largely due to the retirement of farmers born before the mid-1950s, who had combined sugarcane farming and calf operations, as well as the withdrawal of debtladen large operations relying on empirical rearing technology. With the retirement of that first generation, the second generation, who are relatively more conscious of labor remuneration, repositioned calf operations in their livelihood compositions. Through this process, technical and managerial characteristics of beef-calf operations changed, as did their composition.
In the calf sector, small-scale operations (fewer than 20 breeding cows) that achieved labor savings with low investment through roughage consignment emerged as a source of supplementary income for households relying on flexible but unstable jobs, such as daily workers in the construction industry.
However, the number of small-scale operations decreased with the retirement of the first generation. Medium-scale operations (20-59 cows), equipped with modern barns and harvesting machinery, attracted the second generation as a sector where large incomes could be earned for ordinary family businesses; many full-time farmers moved to this type of operation. Medium-scale operations were enabled by the rise of calf prices as well as increased capital and labor productivity through the mutual learning of livestock management skills and progress in the consignment of roughage production in the area. Large-scale operations (equal to or more than 60 cows) increased the weight of foraging instead of grazing and realized that standardized individual management could depend on hired labor, thus stabilizing the business.
These dynamics have led to significant changes in agriculture and society on Tarama Island. Beef-calf operations offer the potential of adequate income for ordinary family businesses, resulting in many young farmers acquiring skills, increasing their labor force, and reinvesting capital in this sector. These changes are transforming the sugarcane-based agriculture of Okinawa, where technology, labor input, and capital accumulation were severely limited.
Geographical Review of Japa,. Ser. A, Chirigaku Hyoron
