Abstract
The reduction in farmland area associated with the increased number of abandoned paddy fields in Japan today has expanded the instability of the relation between long-term food supply and demand. As a solution to this problem, the authors have proposed an extensive management program for abandoned paddy fields in order to maintain them in a condition to be reused at any time. In this study, in order to evaluate from an economic viewpoint the validity of extensive management of wet farm land-something that was not examined in our previous research-we modeled the aging characteristics of restoration costs for abandoned paddy fields based on case research. Research was conducted in the Oshima area of Kashiwazaki-shi, Niigata, which is a snow coverage zone. As a result, the following points were clarified.(1) In wet farm lands as well as dry ones, the distribution of restoration cost of abandoned paddy fields can correspond to a logistic curve.(2) The restoration cost for abandoned paddy fields and the aggregate total restoration cost follow almost similar aging patterns in wet farm lands and dry ones.(3) The management expenses tend to be lower for wet farm lands than for dry ones.
