Behavior Analysis of Core Farmers Expanding Farm Management Scale through Farmland Consolidation Projects

― The case study of Sanwa district, Joetsu city, Niigata prefecture ―

Abstract

The farming areas of core farmers before and after farmland consolidation project were surveyed in seven project areas in Sanwa district, Joetsu city, Niigata prefecture.

The land area of core farmers suitable for expanding their farming scale has substantially increased compared to that before the projects due to the consolidation of almost all fields in Sanwa district into large-sized farming fields. It was elucidated that while core farmers who expanded their farming scale enlarged farmland within the project areas that they had already been farming in, hardly any of them expanded their farmland newly in project areas that they had not been farming in. The scale expansion of core farmers has been accelerated in Sanwa district since the farmland consolidation projects were carried out in almost all of its areas under a situation where large-scale core farmers had already broadly owned farmlands even before the implementation of the projects.

Meanwhile, this broad-based scale expansion has been causing various challenges including the disintegration of farmlands and the decreasing freedom degree of water management. Such situations indicate that it is necessary to designate project areas and adjust land uses in a farmland consolidation plan in consideration of the current status where the scale of core farmers has been expanded broadly.