This paper attempts to clarify the mechanism of the structural change in the local labor market and the impact of the non-agricultural industry in this region. To do so, it analyzes the data from field surveys which were conducted over the past 35 years in a hamlet of Miyada Village, Nagano. As a result, the labor force in farming households moved from agriculture to other industries along with rural industrialization and the rationalization of agriculture, and that made a gender and generation gap in wages also. But the low-wage laborers who engaged in farming exited from the local labor market. From 1985-95, the structure of the labor market changed from 'type Tohoku' to 'type Kinki'. From this point forward, manufacturing industry in this region diminished.

The aim of this study is to describe the development process and history of paddy field policy and rice production adjustment measure in Japan. We examined the consequence of the political change from price support policy and market measure to direct payment, especially focusing on the situation after 2000. The points of this study are follows. The first is to consider the series of policy reforms in relation to the issue of national budget. The second is to compare the chain of Common Agricultural Policy reforms of the European Union to that of Japan. The last is to make clear the effect of the evolution of policy on the management conditions in various farm bodies based on official statistics and case studies. We can conclude that it is difficult for the Japanese Government to carry out direct payment policy such as the EU implements because the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries does not have enough budget. We found that the paddy field policy has improved farm structure through promoting concentration of diversified paddy fields into large-scale farms and that the bigger the farm acreage size would be, the higher the degree of dependence on direct payment would be.

This paper models the price and income policies in Japan’s rice sector from the viewpoint of econometrics. Modeling policies is defined as finding the statistical trends in the development process of the policies. Our main conclusions are the following. Firstly, the government has prevented a drastic decline in the price of rice by adjusting the rice supply, but the adjustment amount has been consistently decided based on market principles since 1987. Secondly, the above trend has not changed according to policies such as the management stabilization measures or the individual income support allowance system. Thirdly, this trend will not be changed by abolishing the rice production adjustment, if high-yielding feed rice varieties spread and suitable budgets are secured for the direct payment subsidy for utilizing paddy fields.

This paper makes the following point clear. It was elucidated that the agricultural structure fluctuation and the development of large-scale paddy farming management can be put under the Farmland or Structural Policies. First, the outline of agricultural structure change and change of Farmland or Structural Policies was indicated. Second, a change in agricultural structure and the locality were pointed out, since the 1990s. Third, the Hokkaido and Hokuriku area were taken up and considered as a forward area for structural reforms. The agricultural structure moved forward, and the development featured large-scale paddy farming. Fourth, future agricultural structure was viewed from a forward area of structural reforms.

This article evaluates the impact of agricultural structure policy on farmland concentration using panel data from the 2000/2005/2010 censuses of agriculture in Japan, and a survey on community-based group farming. As policy measures, we especially focus on participation in the certified-farmer system, the incorporation of farm management, and community-based group farming. We also use propensity score matching and difference-in-differences propensity score matching to address the potential problem of self-selection bias for program evaluation. The main findings of this article are as follows. First, after 1990, the distribution of farm size in Japan became more polarized and farmland was consolidated into large farms. Second, the estimation results of the difference-in-differences propensity score matching using a panel of rural households for these three census years indicate that participation in the certified-farmer system significantly increased farm size and promoted the concentration of farmland. By way of contrast, the incorporation of family farm management has no significant effect on the concentration of farmland. Third, the effect of the incorporation of community-based group farming on farmland concentration differs by the date of the foundation of community-based group farming. The effect of incorporation on farmland concentration is significant for community-based group farming founded before 2005 in many regions, but it is insignificant for community-based group farming founded after 2006 in many regions. These results confirm that the effects of agricultural structure policy on farmland concentration vary based on policy measures, and that the certified-farmer system could contribute to the improvement of the structure of Japanese agriculture effectively. This article is the first attempt to examine the policy evaluation of structural improvement measures of Japanese agriculture using almost all of farm household samples in Japan. Further work is needed on the higher level of evidence-based research using micro data.

This paper examines rural policies. First of all, the rural policies are arranged according to the process during the conversion preparation period from “Old basic law” to “New basic law”. Next, I clarified the realities and problems of the rural policy after “New basic law” had been enacted. In particular, the focus was appropriated to “Direct payment system to farmers in hilly and mountainous areas”, and the problems of this direct payment system were examined by referring to the transition and the effect of this system. This direct payment system has brought rural regions various effects. However, the government budget is insufficient, and neither the division setting nor the grant unit price of the object farmland has been revised for 15 years. It is necessary to verify whether this system immediately suits regional realities, and to improve it to an enhanced direct payment system.

This study reviews the policy evaluation scheme of the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) for the Measures to Conserve and Improve Land, Water and the Environment (MCILWE) ; conducts an impact evaluation of the MCILWE ; and descries future prospects of the Multifunctional Payment System (MPS), which is a successor to the MCILWE. The impact evaluation of the MCILWE’s outcomes shows that support for community activities has positively affected the number of community assemblies held and the management of common-pooled resources in the rural areas, whereas no positive impact was detected on the maintenance and management of abandoned or non-cultivated farmlands other than non-cultivated paddy fields. Support for farming activities turns out to have had almost no significant impact on promoting environment-friendly agricultural practice. When evaluating the MPS in the future, quantitative and measurable goals have to be set for the individual programs in the MPS to make evidence-based policy evaluation possible.