黒部川扇状地における農村の変貌

抄録

Part-time farmers (farming families who devote themselves to both farming and side business) have been increasing in number in recent rural regions, and a “Worker-Peasants” phenomenon (Clout, H.D., Rural Geography, pp. 43-81, Oxford, 1972) can be observed in many parts of Japan. The side business has often become important even to define or limit the farm management. In a countryside of this kind real regional characters can not be revealed by an examination of farming activities only. It is therefore necessary to make a different geographical approach to the rural area, including a study of side jobs as well as farming activities. Considering this point, the present writers pay attention in this paper, to the employment structure of farming population, a combination of economic activities in which members of farming families are engaged. Therefore, a discussion will be centered on the processes how the present rural region is being transformed (or evolved) into another by analyzing the general situation of employment of the farming families in the region.
The study area, Urayamashin, is a village located on the Kurobe Alluvial Fan in the Toyama Plain of Central Japan facing the Japan Sea (Fig. 1). From 1964 to 1970, land consolidation was in progress in this area, and it could be concluded that this land improvement work has accelerated the transformation of this rural region. In this connection, a sample survey of a village where land consolidation has already been finished was done since processes of transformation can be explained relatively easily through the writers' observation during a rather short period.
Around 1965, most of the farming families of Urayamashin attached importance to farming activities, which were sometimes a combination of rice and tulip farming and sometimes that of rice and dairy farming. Besides, farmers were engaged in construction work for the season free from farming either in areas near or far away from home for long (Table. 3). Even at that time, the farmers' sons rarely farmed, but commonly found employment in cities and worked as commuters. With the development of land consolidation, size of fields was enlarged, irrigation and drainage canals paths in the fields were improved (Figs. 2 and 3). Various kinds of machines began to be used for rice production. The mechanization and cooperative work of rice farming provided labour surplus, but it was devoted not to other farming activities such as dairy farming and tulip and vegetable growing, but to employment in manufacturing and tertiary activities which have been introduced into the Kurobe Alluvial Fan since about 1965 (Fig. 4). Today, not only farmers' successors but also the head of a family and his wife go out to urban and factory jobs, yet continue to work their farms in the evenings, over weekends, and during annual holidays from factory (Table 4). Worker-Peasants undoubtedly gain higher incomes than could be derived either from just farming or from industrial work. The extra income might be used to improve the family's living conditions or to purchase farming equipment.
Based on this study of analyzing the employment structure of farming family, an experiential and tentative classification of rural areas of the Toyama Plain is formulated. As a result, the plain can be divided into the following five regions. In A region part-time farming, the head of a family and often other members participating in non-agricultural pursuits, is dominant throughout this region. The farmers keep their fields in expectation of higher value of land. In B region the members of farming family have just begun to commute to urban industrial jobs. Side business of farmers' wives is not so stable as those in A region. In C region farming families still regard farming activities as important.