2024 Volume 133 Issue 5 Pages 343-364
At the outer fringes of local cities in Japan, many farm households continued to cultivate small rice fields as part-time farmers with expectations of increasing property values brought about by farmland conversion potential, while earning a livelihood through off-farm employment. In recent years, however, there has been an increase in uncultivated paddies in these areas, and the percentage of abandoned farmland is higher than the national level. The status of rice paddy farming at the outer fringes of local cities is analyzed and the current behavior of farm households within a changing environment is sketched. An analysis of national and Oita statistics shows that the outward expansion of urban areas has generally stagnated, and expectations of farmland conversion in urbanization control areas receded in the 2010s. On the other hand, former expectations of future conversion delayed land improvement projects to consolidate unevenly shaped and dispersed farmland. This delay has created difficulties for the efficient use of machinery and in selling and leasing farmland to other farmers. In addition, the number of part-time farmers who had been responsible for local agriculture has decreased drastically. In District A in Oita, the case study area, most of the paddy fields were cultivated in 2010, but more than half were uncultivated by 2022. Although many of sons and daughters of farmers are living in the same district because commuting is easy, most of the farm households ceased to cultivate their own paddies after the 2010s due to a lack of interest in farming among succeeding generations. Some rice paddies have been leased to farmers outside the district, but narrow and unevenly shaped paddies have been left uncultivated because farm machinery cannot be used efficiently. However, in consideration of the residential environment of nearby residents, farm households who own farmland have been managing uncultivated land, such as by mowing grass. At the fringes of local cities, albeit to different degrees, households are reproducing but rice paddies are being abandoned at the same time, which is becoming a problem, especially for non-farming residents, who will be forced to bear the burden of managing the land.
