Effect of decrease of agricultural labor force in vegetable-producing areas in Tohoku district [Japan]
1998
Amano, T. (Tohoku National Agricultural Experiment Station, Morioka (Japan)) | Shimoyama, T. | Takahashi, T.
The ratio of the total population and that of the population under 60 years old engaged in agriculture in vegetable-producing areas are both higher than those in other agricultural areas at present. The ratio, however, will decrease in the near future due to the relatively high decrease of the ratio of the population under 60 years old in vegetable areas. Consequently, vegetable-producing acreage will decrease due to the reduction of the agricultural labor force. We investigated the harvesting processes in focus with heavy weight, vegetables, and found that heavy physical load is required in these working processes especially for lifting heavy products and carrying them from fields. Such heavy physical load in the working process may accelerate the reduction of vegetable production. We combined cohort analysis with recursive linear programming to develop a method of estimation of the population engaged in agriculture and crop acreage simultaneously. The results of the simulation using a data set of a typical vegetable-producing area in Iwate prefecture were as follows: 1) The number of people engaged in agriculture was estimated to decrease by 36% in 2005 compared with 1985. 2) The acreage of vegetables was estimated to decrease by 31% and the acreage of the so called heavy weight vegetables such as radish and cabbage was estimated to decrease by 61% in 2005 compared with 1985
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