Book Review Part 5

Three Issues Related to Rice in Contemporary Japan

About 80 percent of total population in Japan did farming at the beginning of Meiji Peiod, however, only 3.5 percent did in 1985. Moreover, the number of agriculture in full-time are few and 85 percent of rice farming is part-time job. Also, elderly people do in rural area.  They have a huge impact of the voting. Especially, people of rice farming in  part-time job have more influences than full-time.

In 1985, the average income of farmers is 1 million higher than the income of the other jobs, but they can't afford to live elegantly. The reason is that many facilities and expenditures spend much cost and only 60 percent of them can repay their fault regularly. However, people in urban areas think farmers  don't satisfy with their treatment although they are protected by Japanese government and they have a complaint for it.

Today, many youngers don't wish they derive agriculture from their parents. In Hukagawa of Hokkaido, 136 farmer's houses quited farming in three years because they have huge debts of investing the farming machinery and purchasing lands. According to the international statics, one third of farmers are more than 60 years old people and 40 percent of them have successors.

In brief, Japan has three problems mainly. The first issue is that the population of agriculture is decreasing and people of part-time jobs of farming have more impact than full-time. The second issue is the collision between farmers and urbanites. The third issue is a serious shortage of successors.