Regional and temporal changes in agricultural systems of Japan with regard to farm successors

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At present it is necessary to consider the way to continue agricultural production and to find farm successors who maintain farming activities in the future in Japan. This study argues the sustainability of Japanese agriculture and its regional conditions by presenting studies based on a review of literature and on an analysis of statistics for the whole country and intensive case studies of villages in each district. The case studies are pursued on large-scale field crop farming in Hokkaido, on large-scale of rice farming in Tohoku, vegetable growing in Kanto, large-scale tenant rice farming in Hokuriku, grape and peach farming in Tosan, strawberry farming in Tokai, community rice farms in Kinki, dairy farming in Chugoku, mandarin orange farming in Shikoku, and small-scale mixed farming in Kyushu.The following five types of farm successors are found at present in Japan. The first type is individual part-time farmers who carry on both farming and working off-farm. The second type is viable full-type farmers who intend to expand the scale of their farm operations by taking over agricultural activities of part-time or elderly farmers. The third type is industrialized or commercialized farm operations involving farm companies and agricultural producers' co-operatives. The fourth type is community farms, organized by a farm support group made up of village farmers. The final and last type is agricultural services establishments that take over some parts of agricultural activities of part-time or elderly farmers. Among them, the third and forth types will become more important in the near future. In order to realize the sustainability of agriculture in Japan by these successors, natural, economical, social, cultural and political conditions must be improved and vigorous successors who lead Japanese agriculture must be grown.