The economic evaluation on the price support policy of the upland field crops in Japan

1960年以后，日本的主要旱地作物(小麦、甜菜、豆类和土豆)面临着产量调整的过程。1)根据对马铃薯和马铃薯淀粉、糖甜菜市场垂直市场结构的经济剩余分析，马铃薯淀粉搭售制度和糖甜菜价格稳定制度对保持其生产规模、稳定生产波动具有显著作用。2)在旱地作物生产要素市场中，通过试探性分析，发现马铃薯淀粉搭售制度和糖甜菜价格稳定制度对保持其生产规模和稳定生产波动具有显著作用。价格支持政策对租金的影响比工资率更大。3)旱地作物的生产往往因气候变化而遭受严重损害，它是在至少四到五种作物的技术组合下管理的。考虑到这些生产特点，我们试图测算旱地作物的供给对支撑价格的响应。农民不仅根据每种旱地作物的自身价格，而且还根据它们之间的相对价格，来决定他的作物种植计划，特别是在1973年后，供应的自有价格弹性趋于更具弹性。1960-1973年大豆产量显著减少的主要原因之一是，由于其价格支持系统，无法在市场上评估与其他大豆相比风险更高的供应。4)旱地作物价格支持的财务成本在整个政府农业预算中所占份额较低，但与其生产规模相比非常大。

The major upland field crops (wheat, sugar beet, beans, and potatos) have faced the ajustment process of their production after 1960, especially in recent years in Japan. The objective of our study is to evaluate the economic function of the price support policy in their market and the protection policy of their processing products.1) According to the economic surplus analysis on the vertical market structure of potato and potato starch, sugar and sugar beet market, the tie-in sale system of potato starch and the price stabilization system of sugar and sugar beet have had significant effects on maintaining their production sizes and stabilizing production fluctuation.2) In the factor market of the production of the upland field crops, though a tentative analysis, price support policy give stronger effect to the rent than the wage rate.3) The production of the upland field crops often suffers heavy damage resulting from climate variation, and it is managed under the technical combination of at least four or five crops. Considering these production characteristics, we try to measure the supply responce of upland field crops to the support prices. The farmer decides his plan of crop planting in responce to not only the own price of each upland field crop but also the relative prices among them, and in particular after 1973 own price elasticities of supply tend to be more elastic. One of the dominant reasons that soybean production had remarkably reduced during 1960 -1973 was that riskier supply compared with other beans could not be evaluated in the market on account of its price support system.4) The financial cost for the price support of the upland field crops has low share in the agricultural budget as a whole of government, however it is very large in comparison to their production sizes.