Agricultural Structure Improvement Policy and Regional Characteristics of Potato Production in Hokkaido

Abstract

The aim of the Agricultural Basic Law (1961) was to increase farm income by scale enlargement and farm mechanization. In Hokkaido, over the past three decades, upland farms were mechanized and management scale was enlarged. On the contrary, most farmers in Honshu (the main island) became part-time farmers. The law therefore affected the two regions in different ways.
In Hokkaido, mechanization also made it possible to improve land productivity. Deep ploughing by tractors, which replaced horses, allowed more fertilizer input. Mechanization of pesticide and insecticide application helped to extend the growth period. This mechanization proved to be labor saving and brought about increased land productivity. The productivity increase was particularly visible in potato production. The yield per hectare has nearly doubled over thirty years.
Tokachi and Abashiri are the two main potato growing areas in Hokkaido. Both areas, at the beginning of the mechanization phase, had showed the same land productivity. Through mechanization, Abashiri realized higher productivity increases than Tokachi. Tokachi shifted its emphasis from potato starch production to the production of potatoes for home culinary and for processing. Most of the varieties in Tokachi were changed to early-ripening ones. Farmers in Tokachi succesfully produced more profitable potatoes. Farmers in Abashiri, on the other hand, were obliged to remain in starch oriented production partly because of plant diseases which prevented the shift made in Tokachi. Potatoes for starch are slow growth and high yielding varieties. This case study of potato production in Hokkaido shows that high yielding varieties are not necessarily the most profitable. We should be careful to evaluate regional differences in land productivity.