Abstract
The establishment and activities of the Takatana Farm Management Association, and the effect of rice-production control on it were studied. From these analyses, a general modell of rice-producing cooperatives in the metropolitan areas was made. The writer pointed out that this model is applicable to the ricep-producing cooperatives prevailing in the Nishi-Mikawa plain. Then, he considered the factors and conditions which contributed to the reorganization of rice-producing cooperatives. The following are the results of the analyses.
1. The Takatana Farm Management Association, which consists of eleven farm households, caretakes paddy fields which are entrusted by part-time farmers through the Agricultural Cooperative. The Takatana Farm Management Association caretakes one half of the area devoted to rice in the town of Takatana which contains 368 farm households. Selfsupporting farm households play the main functions of the association. The increase in number of farm households with a side job in an attempt to reduce or abandon rice production was one of the reasons for the establishment of the association. Conditions are rather favorable for the association to operate because the agreed-upon period is long (five years). Moreover, the charges for caretaking paddy fields are 1.5 hyo (90 kilograms of rice) per 10 are (the average rice-production per 10 are is 7.5 hyo), with no charges for fallow lands. The second plan to reduce acreage of paddy fields by granting subsidies to change the crop has not given much difficulty for the operation of the Agricultural Management Association. Thus, the model of rice-produing cooperatives is applicable to those in the outskirts of a city where leased paddy fields are abundant.
2. There are 20 similar agricultural management association in the city of An jo, and two in the southern part of the city of Toyota. Reorganization of farm households as outlined in the model above is progressing in the Nishi-Mikawa plain.
3. The increase in the number of farmers with a side job, coincidence of the consolidation of farm lands with the introduction of large agricultural machinery and the plan to reduce the acreage of paddy fields greatly contributed to the reorganization of rice-producing cooperatives. The guidance of agricultural cooperatives to benefit local farmers was another important factor which lead to the success of the rice-producing cooperatives.
4. Local environments which were responsible for the establishment of the rice-producingcooperatives include the adjustment of local agricultural practices to the progress of urbanization, , and the traditional cooperative production system practiced in the area known as a Denmarkk in Japan. Another factor was land conditions which became arable land through the Meiji Irrigation Canal.
