大規模稲作単一経営体の販売経路と消費者への直接販売の効果

抄録

The purpose of this article is to investigate the structure of market channels and the impacts of the direct marketing on farm sales, focusing on the top one percent rice farms (large rice farms). We have used the agricultural census farm-level data, to which was applied propensity score matching. Our findings in this article are as follows. Firstly, more than half the large rice farms used multiple marketing channels and the number of market channels used were increasing. Secondly, direct marketing to consumers by farms ranked second and shipment to agricultural cooperatives ranked first for both large rice farms and all rice farms. Thirdly, in recent years, for large rice farms, the ratio of the implementation of direct marketing to consumers has been decreasing and the farms are changing shipping destinations from the direct marketing to consumers to retail sellers, food manufacturers and the food-service industry. Fourthly, the results of propensity score matching indicate that direct marketing to consumers increases farm sales for family-owned management entities, while this is not valid for organized management entities.