農業における後継者の参入形態と参入費用

Abstract

At Present, the issue of farm succession is one of the most important objectives for Japanese agriculture and farm management. This comes from the fact that the number of farm successors is far less than what is needed and desired. There are many reasons for the lack of farm successors. Basically, this phenomenon is due to an increasing labor shortage in Japanese economy in recent years. However, we may add to this such reasons as the change in occupational preference among youngstars and various barriers against new entrance into agriculture. Taking into account of such barriers, this paper tries to analyze entrance cost for farm successors and farm management. In Japanese agriculture, the cost to be borne by the farm successor himself is extremely large. On the other hand, the entrance cost which has to be borne by the farm management to secure such a successor is also large, but this cost has seldom been shouldered by it. In a sense, this entrance cost can be considered to have become such a high level as a private enterprise can undertake. Judging from the view that agriculture plays various significant social functions, a part of such entrance cost should be borne by the local people (region) or the local and national government.