A Regional Comparison of succession and Inheritance in Japanese Agriculture : Aomori, Nara, Kagoshima

1998 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 09660233
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Agro-economics
• Research Institution: IWATE UNIVERSITY (1998); Hirosaki University (1997)
• Principal Investigator: TAMA Shinnosuke Iwate University, United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Professor, 大学院・連合農学研究科, 教授 (20183072)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): AKIYAMA Kunihiro Kagoshima University, Faculty of Agriculture, Associate Professor, 農学部, 助教授 (20167852) ; TOKUNAGA Mistutoshi Osaka University of Economics, Faculty of Economics, Professor, 経済学部, 教授 (30180136)
• Project Period (FY): 1997 – 1998
• Keywords: Succession / Inheritance / Farm household / Aomori prefecture / Nara prefecture / Kagoshima prefecture / Family farming / Incorporated farm

Research Abstract

It is a recent phenomenon in Japanese rural area that the number of successor is getting fewer and farmers are getting older. As a result, the succession of farm business and the inheritance of farmland are one of the most important subjects in Japanese agriculture. Each rural area, however, has its own custom and social norms in term of succession and inheritance.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the diversity in terms of patterns of succession and inheritance in deferent rural areas. For this purpose, we chose three typical places as objects of investigation : The first is Aomori prefecture where the first son is chosen as a successor and inherit the entire family asset ; The second is Nara prefecture where a successor is not limited the first son and also the practice of primogeniture is not demanded completely ; The third is Kagoshima prefecture where a practice of equal division between sons is common in terms of inheritance and the last son succeeds a farm business.
The following are results of our investigation and analysis. The first is that a pattern of succession is in the trend of diversity because of diversifying farm types. While a family farming is still succeeded in the traditional kinship context, an incorporated farm business, like a non-farm business, is not limited among the kinship succession. The second is that inheritance of farmland is also characteristic of diversity in deferent rural areas. So far researchers have prospected that a practice of equal division among children would become more common in the inheritance practice of farmland, because the legal framework had enforced the equal division as a standard since the post war reform. However, as a farmland is the most important means of living for a farm household, it is still common that an almost farmland is inherited by one of the household members at the sacrifice of the right of siblings gone out the household. Social norms still have a strong influence in practice and a degree of urbanization in each area also brings diversity into the inheritance practice.