THE REGIONAL STRUCTURE OF JAPANESE AGRICULTURE IN TERMS OF PART-TIME FARMING

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the regional structure of Japanese agriculture in terms of part-time farming. For this purpose, the writer made up a matrix of the characteristics of part-time farming by 1, 140 unit areas (shi and gun) in Japan. And then factor analysis is applied to this. The mapping of the factor scores has revealed the regional structure of part-time farming. The same methods are also applied to both the characteristics of agricultural management and that of non-agricultural employment. As a result, four regional distribution patterns were distinguished with regard to the regional structure of part-time farming (Figs. 1_??_4), eight regional distribution patterns to the agricultural management structure (Figs. 5 and 6), and three regional distribution patterns to the non-agricultural employment structure (Fig. 7). Next, the relationships among those spatial patterns were examined by canonical analysis. Four statistically significant relationships were recognized between the regional structure of part-time farming and that of agricultural management. The major findings are as follows; 1. The regions with more productive farming show larger percentage of full-time farmers, fewer aged agricultural laborers, smaller percentage of female farmers, and smaller percentage of part-time farmers. 2. The regions prosperous for traditional farming on dry fields usually cultivate wheat, barley, potatoes, miscellaneous cereals, pulses and vegetables, or operate horticulture. In those regions, a larger percentage of the people are self-employed or engaged in side business of fishery as well as being continuously employed in other businesses. 3. The agricultural regions with larger percentages of aged laborers, female laborers, or side business types of farming (whether their income is mainly earned from farming or from other activities, or from jobs in other regions) have less prosperous cropping with vegetables, less active horticulture, and lower level of land productivity, while they practice more active traditional farming on dry fields. 4. The regions growing industrial crops and/or operating sericulture have high percentages of farmers engaged in non-agricultural jobs, day laborers, farmers going to other regions to work, or farmers with self-employed enterprises. Moreover, three statistically significant relationships are found between the regional structure of part-time farming and that of non-agricultural employment (Tables 4 and 5) 1. Side-businesses of farms such as farmers with subsidiary jobs, day laborers, or farmers going to other regions to work are more strikingly found both in the regions with meager activities in tertiary industries excluding public service, and also in the regions with active fishery and public service. 2. Farms operating self-employed non-agricultural enterprises and part-time fishery are distributed especially in the regions with active tertiary industries on the one hand. On the other hand, farmers continuously employed in other businesses are more dominantly found in the regions with active manufacturing. 3. The regions characterized by aged and female laborers in agriculture have more activities such as mining, manufacturing, and energy-supplying enterprises. According to those results, it is noted that the influences of part-time farming on the regional structure of agriculture are recognized to be as important as agricultural management and non agricultural employment. And it can safely be said that non-agricultural employment of farmers has closely been related to the spatial distribution of tertiary industries except public service which is dominant in metropolitan or major local centers.