Restructuring of the Broiler Meat Production Area in South Kyushu with the Increase in Imported Chickens

抄録

The production area forming theory in the selective expansion sector promoted the formation of “peripheral food production areas” in the peripheral regions in Japan. It has been frequently predicted that these peripheral food production areas are pressed for market restructuring by the rapid increase of imported agricultural products. This paper investigates the restructuring mechanism of the broiler meat production area in South Kyushu where marked restructuring appeared quickly due to internationalization. Some of the general trading companies had promoted enlargement of the broiler meat production area in South Kyushu as a cut-up meat products supply region. However, due to the decline of the cut-up meat products price resulting from imported chickens, the broiler meat production area in South Kyushu has been required for rapid restructuring since 1990. In Miyazaki Prefecture, the Koyu area which has a high density of broiler raising farms has exhibited rapid decline, and the three factors that explain this decline were confirmed. They are [1] productivity decline arising from overcrowded broiler raising; [2] changes of the broiler collecting strategies by the leading broiler processing factories; and [3] marked difference of reactions taken by 236 farmers within the Koyu area attributable to low profitability and redemption of investment funds, and these compounded effects expedited restructuring. On the other hand, the general trading companies which took the initiative to form the broiler meat production area did not always play a central role in restructuring. In this way, restructuring of the broiler meat production area in South Kyushu could be understood as a double-layer mechanism in which the decline of the cut-up meat products price elicited the low productivity involved in the regional level. Restructuring of the peripheral food production area is not one-sidedly caused by internationalization, but the problem of overcrowded broiler raising and the changes of broiler collecting strategies by the processing factories played an extremely important role.