A Study on Multi-Purpose Utilization of Agro-resources in Hill Regions

1995 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 06660286
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Agro-economics
• Research Institution: UNIVERSITY of OSAKA PREFECTURE
• Principal Investigator: HORITA Tadao UNIV.OSAKA PREFECTURE Agriculture Professor, 農学部, 教授 (40036439)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): URADE Toshikazu UNIV.OSAKA PREFECTURE Agriculture Research Associate, 農学部, 助手 (80244664) ; KATURA Akihiro UNIV.OSAKA PREFECTURE Agriculture Research Associate, 農学部, 助手 (90233767) ; USAMI Yoshifumi UNIV.OSAKA PREFECTURE Agriculture Assistant Professor, 農学部, 講師 (40081559)
• Project Period (FY): 1994 – 1995
• Keywords: Agro-resources / Cultivable wastes / Farm land under-utilization / Urbanization / Farm land preservation / Common property

Research Abstract

Hill region in Japan plays an important role in agricultural production, accounting for about 40 percent of total agricultural product, and in environmental conservation, such as preventing natural calamities and providing scenic landscape. It is' however, regrettable that rich agro-resources in hill region, farm land in particular, have been recently kept unutilized and degraded to a great extent. The purpose of this study is to analyze the mechanism of the phenomena and consider the means to coping with it. Considering that the intensity of urban impacts (beneficial as well as injurious to agriculture) declines with the distance from urban center, we selected three hill regions with different distance from the respective urban center. In addition, a brief international comparison was carried out.
(1)The village survey conducted in Tsuge village in Nara Prefecture revealed the process of degradation of agricultural labor force along with farm households' life cycle and its relation wit h cultivable wastes. To enhance effective utilization (efficient and equitable) of farm land and farm labor force, villagers' participation to the local farming group is required.
(2)"Jike Furusato Mura" in Yokohama city in Kanagawa Prefecture is known as a successful case of preserving farm land and farm landscape. The in-depth study on the local government measures taken to support the above made clear that the government control with regulations would be only a necessary condition, and to supplement it local people's participating activities are quite important.
(3)The principal component regression analysis using the agricultural census data of Fukui Prefecture revealed that conditions of farm land (location, size, slope and so on) have more strongly affected to farm land under-utilization rather than degradation of agricultural labor force available in farm households.
(4)Agro-resource problems in US and in India were taken up for an international comparison. Studies on impacts of urbanization on agriculture, impermanence syndrome for example, and farm land preservation policies in US were reviewed and problems related to cultivable wastes and common access property in India were examined.