2012 年 3 巻 1 号 p. 102-107
This paper highlights the aging farmer population and food security in agriculture, an issue for both Thailand and Japan. The increase of elderly population in both countries is particularly marked in the agricultural labor force as the number of agriculture labor force has continually decreased due to the exodus of young farmers from agriculture. This has significantly impacted food security. The 152 Thai and 10 Japanese respondents, consisting of farmers aged over 55 years were sampled using a purposive sampling technique that was based on the interviewing survey carried out on August-December 2011. For techniques of data analysis, the descriptive statistics and cohort method were used. The results present an increasing trend of aged farming population and aging farmers mainly engaged in farming aging 65 and over in both countries. In case of the increase in Japan, it can be explained by the number of post-retirement farmers. It is interesting to note that the aging trend increases in number partly due to a slower rate of exiting from farming. The disadvantage is that older farmers would be much less efficient in agriculture, especially rice cultivation. However, the role of maintaining a farm land can be entrusted to the aging famers. From the survey, it was found that food insecurity is a risk due to a reduction of the farm labor force and the aging society. Yet, most farmers in both countries believed that a shortage of farm labor force has probably not given rise to a problem of food insecurity because in modern agriculture less labour is needed and the use of machinery is increasing. Thus, the government should improve access to modern technology and machinery to increase efficiency for coping with the above situations.
