Research on the Preservation of the Environment in Farming Areas in an Era of an Aging Population and Declining Birthrate

在这份研究报告中，首先发现农业地区环境破坏的原因不仅有生产技术现代化等外部因素，也有农场工人从过度劳累中解脱出来以及农民因兼职而缩短工作时间等内部因素。因此，研究表明，保护环境的重点是让像爱加莫农民这样从事农业的人能够独立地掌握生产技术、管理、安全与社会变化等事物之间的有机一般关系。一个重要的发现是，近年来，作为“食品和农业”安全运动的一部分，政府的安全意识已经转向安全，但相信“便宜就好”的支离破碎的消费者数量急剧增加，因此这场运动越来越成为有害谣言的温床。接下来，报告考虑了当地社区和环境的主要问题，重点是最近农民家庭规模的缩小。该调查的主要结果是，在4400万户日本家庭中，25.6%是单身家庭，23%是2人家庭，18.5%是3人家庭。这些统计数字清楚地显示了家庭规模缩小的趋势。这一趋势正在全国范围内发生，而不仅仅是在农村地区或城市地区。有人认为，这将是21世纪日本社会的最大弱点。为了应对这一问题，同时经历人口减少的势头，迫切需要重新制定家庭的意义和功能，以及制定人们如何在80多岁时过上轻松生活的范式。

In this research report, firstly the causes for the destruction of the environment in agricultural areas were found to lie not only in external factors such the modernization of production techniques, but also in internal factors such as the release of farm workers from being overworked as well as the shortening in the number of hours that fanners can work due to side jobs. As a result, the research shows that the main point to preserving the environment, is to have people engage in agriculture such as Aigamo farmers who can independently grasp the organically general relationships between such things as production techniques, management, safety, and societal changes, etc. A major finding was that in recent years, the consciousness of the government has been orientated toward safety as part of its "Food and Agriculture" safety campaign, yet the number of fragmented consumers who believe that "it's fine if it's cheap" has increased dramatically, and thus the campaign has increasingly become a hotbed for harmful rumors.Next, the report considers the leading problems of local communities and the environment, with a focus on the recent shrinking in the size of fanning households. A major finding of the research was that among the 44 million Japanese households,25.6% are single member,23% are 2-member, and 18.5% are 3-member. These statistics clearly show the trend of shrinking household size. This trend is occurring throughout the country, not just in either rural areas or city areas. It is believed that this fact will be the biggest weak point for Japanese society in the 21st century. To respond to this problem while experiencing the momentum of a decreasing population, there is a pressing need to reformulate what the significance and function of households are, as well as to formulate a paradigm on how people can lead relaxed lives when they reach their 80s.