A Study on the Qualitative Change in the Price Level of Rice and new Rice Farming Organization

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Presuming the presence of domestic liberalization in the rice market, we have conducted a research to find an appropriate rice farming organization capable of coping up with the assumptive imported rice in terms of cost of production and chose an experimental model village in the northern Honshu of Japan.The main conclusions are categorically presented as follows :(1) Prediction of producer's price of rice under the assumption of liberalization of domestic rice marketUsing an equilibrium model consisting of the demand and supply function of rice, we have obtained \13, 000 as the equilibrium producer's price as of 1988.(2) Labor demand in rice farming in liberalized market situation in the model villageApplying the trans-log type profit function on the data gathered by MAFF from rice farmers in the northern Honshu of Japan, we were able to clarify the functional relation between rice price level and demand for labor in rice farming. It is noticeable that we got such a high elasticity of … More rice labor with respect to price of rice, i. e. 3.08 as of the average of 1982-84.(3) Prediction of the population of the farm households and the numbers of agricultural laborers in year 2000 in the model villageCohort Analysis was applied and from 1990 to year 2000, it showed the following : 1) a 15 % decrease in the population of farm households, 2) a 20 % decrease in the number of agricultural laborers and those in age of more than 60 would approach 70.4% compared to 46.5 in 1990.(4) New rice farming organizationLow producer's price and the deterioration of labor force in the near future, definitely would make current rice farming system very vulnerable and a new concept in rice farming organizations is rendered inevitable. Responding to this need, we submitted "X organization" model, the major concept of which is "whole village farming organization" joined by all rice farmers and all rice area, that is, 1000 farmers and 1000 ha rice area, would be operated by 40-50 feasible rice farmers.(5) Cost of production of X-organizationIn calculating the cost of production of X-organization, many environmental factors, such as meteorological condition, soil condition and rice variety adaptability have been considered. The so-called secondary production cost of X-organization is \ll. 375, fairly lower than the average cost of production in this area, i. e. around \20, 000, and 68 % of current producer's price. Less