稲作農業の担い手育成に果たすべき農協の役割とそれを可能にする条件の検討

Abstract

This paper investigated the following three subjects. The first is specifying the current problem of agricultural bearers as the problems of management forms, to examine the factors influencing the forms. The factors are dichotomized into the socioeconomic factors common to all farm products and those relatively speciific to each farm product. The second is based on the results of the first examination, to investigate the roles of agricultural cooperatives for fostering the bearers of rice farming. The roles identified are (1) to promote restructuring of the agricultural products structure related to diverted crops and creation of an area for a new regional product and (2) to promote recognition of regional agricultural structure. The third is to examine the conditions for cooperatives to be able to perform those roles. There are only a few cooperatives that make splendid performance as to those roles. The reasons for this situation are identified to be (1) lack of managerial ability in the managing class of the cooperatives, (2) lack of capable agricultural extension specialist in the cooperatives, (3) cooperatives' financial difficulty to support extension activities, (4) weak support of the higher strata of the cooperatives system to the individual cooperatives, and (5) the fundamental anxiety about fostering bearers of agriculture. Measures to solve these problems are also sought.