Journal of Rural Economics
Online ISSN : 2188-1057
Print ISSN : 0387-3234
ISSN-L : 0387-3234
Volume 58, Issue 2
(Special Issue)
Displaying 1-5 of 5 articles from this issue
Chair's address
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  • Shigeru USAMI
    1986Volume 58Issue 2 Pages 68-80
    Published: September 25, 1986
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2025
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
      1) The rice surplus problem has emerged seriously since 1969 in Japan. In the confrontation with rice surplus, government has been conducting programs for production adjustment to balance the demand and supply of rice. Today's production control program called “The Paddy Field Reorientation Program” has started in 1978, which promote conversion from paddy to other crop production, such as wheat, barley, soybean, and forage crops.
      2) Owing to the program, rice production has decreased rapidly but the other grains increased steadily. Nevertheless area of cultivated land, both paddy and upland field, has decreased continually, total domestic production of field crops has not decreased but stagnated. However, expansion of livestock industry in response to the increasing livestock products consumption has required increasing imports of feed grains. As a result, self-sufficiency rate of edible farm products has been decreasing in Japan. Furthermore, agricultural income decreased because physical expenditure has increased under the situation of stagnating gross agricultural output.
      3) Under the condition of decreasing farm income in farm household, livestock raising such as layers, hogs, beef cattle, dairy cattle, differentiation of farms as well as technological progress has been proceeding rapidly. Consequently, the share of large scale livestock raising farmers in gross output has become very large. On the other hand, household economy of rice farmers is supported mainly by non-farm income. Programs for concentrating cultivated land of part-time and small scale farmers to the large scale farmers has not been proceeded so rapidly. Therefore, a large proportion of rice production is undertaken by class Ⅱ type of part-time farmers(farm household earned main income from other jobs).
      4) It is very important to expand management area and to change from rice single cropping to rotation cropping. In the light of this crucial target, it is necessary to be created a social framework for collective land use system by farmers themselves.
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  • Toshiyuki KAKO
    1986Volume 58Issue 2 Pages 81-91
    Published: September 25, 1986
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2025
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
      The purpose of this paper is to clarify the significance of farm size problems under the rice production adjustment program. Our main conclusions could be summarized as follows.
      1) Rice production costs vary considerably with farm size as a result of differences in labor input and depreciation cost of machinery per unit of land. Considerable economies of scale are found as farm size is increased up to 2-2. 5 ha in Tofuken, and 5 ha in Hokkaido, but no further economies of scale are achieved above those size.
      2) The program for retirement and diversification of paddy fields and the deteriorating terms of trade of agricultural sector weakened the farmer's will towards rice production. This resulted in lower annual growth rate of rice yield. Due to the increased wage rate and depreciation costs of machineries and implements, production cost of rice increased considerably, and profitability of rice production worsened.
      3) Reducing the production cost per land and enlarging size of production are important measures in order to earn enough agricultural income to cover the household expenses. One of the most important measures to reduce the production cost is either(a)to enlarge farm size by transfer of ownership or by lease of land, or(b)to enlarge operational scale of farming through group farming. For individual family farm consolidation of scattered small pieces of land as well as enlargement of farm size is important to increase rice yield, and to increase production efficiency. For majority of rice growers who are small-scaled part-time farmers, it is important to enlarge operational scale through group farming. By enlarging operational scale of machineries and facilities overhead cost of rice production could be reduced, and by intensive cultivation rice yield could be increased.
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  • Mikitoshi SUZUKI
    1986Volume 58Issue 2 Pages 92-100
    Published: September 25, 1986
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2025
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
      In this paper the author tries to clarify the agrarian problems under the Paddy Field Reorientation Program through surveying some cases. Major conclusions are as follow.
      1) The Paddy Field Reorientation Program has brought about a kind of “rice production right.” The rent of paddy field as the price of rice production right rose up to the same level of rice production income. As the result, the rent of paddy field is becoming complicated.
      2) In some case, tenant need not to pay the rent from his production income to the landowner, because he can earn it from the subsidies for production adjustment. It means that the lease of this kind derives from the administration's policy for diversification imposed on the rice producers.
      3) Under production adjustment, the trend of farmers’ differentiation is changing. Part-time farmers have lost their intention towards farming.
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  • Toshiaki KITADE
    1986Volume 58Issue 2 Pages 101-109
    Published: September 25, 1986
    Released on J-STAGE: January 31, 2025
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
      When taking into consideration the fact that the self-sufficiency ratio of food is lowest in Japan among the developed countries, the most important task of Japanese agriculture should be how to stabilize supply of food to Japanese people. The price policies of some agricultural products should contribute to this policy target of Japanese agriculture. In this paper, the author has tried to analyze the price policies of agricultural products from this point of view.
      1) The ways of price policies differs according to the products, but some common problem can be found among the price policies of various products. Most importantly, it is necessary to change the present price policies of agricultural products towards the direction of providing the same level of economic profitability to every agricultural products and thus of establishing the stable crop rotation system.
      2) Among the many agricultural products, the author has focussed on the two crops such as paddy and wheat-soybean system.
      3) The rice price has been controlled under the situation of over-supply of rice production. Consequently, the profitability of rice production has declined. Therefore, it has now become necessary to change the method of price and other agricultural products. On the other hand, now it is also necessary to formulate some measures of increasing consumption of rice as feed for animals.
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