農業構造変動の評価論的分析

Abstract

Agricultural structure consists of four aspects, that is, the structure of farms by different types of business enterprise, the structure of farms by different farm size classes, the structure of farms by different business entities and the structure of farms by different combinations of types of agricultural production. These aspects are closely related with each other and change gradually in the long run. The secular trend of agricultural structure was analyzed in Section I. According to the rapid economic developement for the last two decades since 1955, the farm household economy has transferred its major income source from farm production to off-farm employment in order to keep disguised equilibrium situation with industrial worker's income level. The living condition of average farm household has already exceeded the one of average industrial worker household by 15%, and the per head farm household income reached at the 81% level of the one of the average industrial worker household in 1983. But the percentage of family farms with at least one full-time male worker of 16-59 years old decreased to only 13.8% in 1985. In Section 2, the reasons why the farm land has been tenanted only by small acreage from part-time farmers to full-time farmers were analysed. Part-time farmers tend to estimate highly the net return to land per hectare by underestimating the cost of family labor and depreciation and interest of fixed farm assets. On the other hand, the full-time farmers should estimate their net return to land per hectare equally with or lower than that of the part-time farmers because of their higher estimation of the cost of the family labor, depreciation and interest. Because they need to employ additional family labor and fixed assets irrespective of applying the high-level, modern farm technology. Finally, the level of maximum payable land rent by the full-time farmer is equal to or a little bit higher than the level of minimum land rent required by part-time farmers. The transfer of farm land ownership appears to be furthermore difficult because of the psychological reasons essentially created by the land reform implemented after World War II, in spite of the revision made for the farm land legislation recently, i. e., the conversion from an owner-farmer discipline to a large-scale tenant farmer discipline. We expect that the percentage of rented land will constantly increase by the better understanding of the farm land utilization law, by the increase in scale economies by farm mechanization, and especially by the switch of the farming generation which is expected to take place in the 1990's. Whether the size of farm business increases by land lease or by the extension of the regional cooperative organization would depend on the intention of the government's agricultural policy and increase of stable employment opportunities in rural areas as well as the developement of land improvement which basically constrains an increase in agricultural productivity.