A basic plan for promoting rice farming near urban area: A case in Aichi prefecture [Japan] under the rice farming policy reform

The targets of the Direct Payment Policy, which is scheduled to be introduced in 2007, are joint-stock cooperation groups that based on Rural Community Farming, and Certified Farmers. Local governments are required to make a basic plan for securing rice farming under this new policy. In Aichi, over 500 rice farmers with over 5 hectares of business size operate one thirds of the 31,000 hectares of total rice harvesting area. The purpose of this report is to review the local rice farming reform program, which was already worked out in 2003, from the point of view of whether it would meet the new national policy. 1. The course of local rice production policy. The present structure of rice farming in Aichi, which is different from most parts of Japan, has experienced long years of various trials for promoting rice farming which is based mainly on rural community cooperative farming. The movement of cooperative rice farming, which has increased rice yields significantly through the coordination of simultaneous operation and the use of unified rice varieties among farmers in a particular area, originated in Aichi in 1959. Since then many kinds of rice farming systems based on group farming have been designed. These systems aim to achieve high productivity under the conditions of maintaining small size farmers and fostering principal rice farmers with sufficient business size. These trials brought about the present system, in which an appropriate number of viable farmers serve many small part -time farmers by supporting the mechanized aspects of their work. In addition to the large scale farmers mentioned above, there are about 600 farmers who grow rice on up to 5 hectares of land in Aichi. They intend to expand their business. In Aichi, we consider that certified farmers predominate over joint-stock cooperation groups in the stable production of rice. Therefore, for the coming change in rice policy, the present local strategy of rice farming which promotes cost efficient production of viable farmers is considered to be appropriate in Aichi. 2. Measures to foster rice production. Developing both cost efficient techniques and improved farmer organization are two important roles for local government to play to secure this strategy. On the technical side, a newly developed direct seeding system, which enables the enlargement of operation area without the need for anadditional labor force is one of the more promising solutions. The other key factor to fulfill this strategy is to promote an organization that has the function of accumulating land and work from part-time farmers in order to enable viable farmers' cost efficient operation.