集約的農業地域における社会関係からみた農地移動の展開―兵庫県南あわじ市上幡多集落の事例―

抄録

This study aims at revealing how farmlands are managed by examining the roles played by the transfer of farmland rights in farm management and agricultural settlements; the study’s analysis is based on the social relationships among farmers that are involved in the process of transferring farmland rights for farmland maintenance. This study focuses on the spread and connection of social relationships among farm households. Past studies have often integrated the ties between farm households with territorial and kinship relations. This study focuses on the spread and connection of social relationships among farm households. This study classifies territorial relations on the basis of spatial spread as well as kin relations by degree of kinship. It also classifies various other social relationships after a careful consideration of each of their characteristics and analyzes them based on how these social relationships form layers, as explanatory variables, and who uses farmlands through the transfer of farmland rights as explained variables.

The following area was selected as study area: the Kamihata settlement in Minami Awaji City, Hyogo Prefecture, located on the Mihara Plain of Awaji Island, where even small farms in the settlement show an intensive use of farmland all year around. On the Mihara Plain, the “three crop” rotation system—a combination of paddy rice, onions, and cabbages, or paddy rice, lettuce, or Chinese cabbages—has been widely promoted.

On the Mihara Plain, the recipients did not attempt to increase profitability and the farmland transfers were motivated by non-economic factors. In the past, after a farm’s retirement, its farmland was generally transferred among farm households through kinship or same neighborhood relations in order to maintain the “farmland as a family property” and as “farmland of the settlement.” However, it gradually became difficult to secure farmland recipients solely through such relations. In order to sustain the farmlands within the settlement, farm households with a sufficient labor force were passively forced to take on the farmlands of landowners with whom they had no neighborhood or kinship relations. Consequently, full-time farmers with a sufficient labor force undertook the farming of additional farmlands simply because they were located in the same settlement. On the other hand, in the case of transfers of farmland rights extending to farms in other settlements, the main recipients were part-time farm households who took on these farmlands to sustain social relationships such as kesshaen or kinship relations with the landowners. In addition to transfers of farmland rights within the settlement, those outside the settlement were promoted based on the same district, kesshaen, or kinship relations. While same-settlement relations were the basis for sustaining farmlands within a settlement, territorial relations of a wider range than a settlement, kesshaen and kinship relations contributed to the sustainability of farmlands outside a settlement.