Abstract
This chapter lays out the current situation and issues in farming villages confronting population decline, tracks the efforts for community revitalisation centring on young migrants from outside, and discusses new, sustainable forms for farming villages. Within Japan, population decline and ageing are particularly marked in hilly and mountainous areas. In a serious triple D situation, in the name of a regional revitalisation policy, there has been a change of policy away from hyper-centralisation in Tokyo and towards a return to the regions. The national government is promoting a policy of migration to and settlement in the regions by young people, Community Revitalization Cooperation Fellows (CRCF). The young people who are overcoming the triple Ds, aiming to bring about a sustainable society, and creating a new, connected way of life which goes beyond the local area while building connections there, are a source of hope.
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Notes
- 1.
The legal definition of “hilly and mountainous areas” in projects by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, such as the Comprehensive Development Project for Hilly and Mountainous Areas and the Project for the Promotion of Mountain Villages, is determined by conditions such as gradient, population density, proportion of area covered by paddy and vegetable fields, and so on. The condition details: http://www.maff.go.jp/e/data/publish/attach/pdf/index-61.pdf. (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries website, http://www.maff.go.jp/j/study/other/cyusan_siharai/matome/ref_data1.html).
- 2.
The International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPS) http://satoyama-initiative.org/ja/about/).
- 3.
Adjustment of rice production carried out by the government in order to maintain the price of rice. As the volume of rice consumed decreased due to factors such as the westernisation of diets, the volume of rice produced increased because of improvements in agricultural techniques, leading to a surplus. In order to suppress the volume of rice production, farmers were allocated a certain amount of rice to produce, and instructed to decrease the volume produced and to switch over to other crops. Since small-scale farmers were unable to make a living if rice production volumes were reduced, the government paid grants of 7500 yen/10 ac to farmers who collaborated with this reduction. This protected smallholders and maintained small-scale farming. Moreover, business-minded farmers who hoped to expand the scale of their land were criticised by the community for opposing the local government. In this way, the motivation of farmers who hoped to develop Japan’s agriculture was discouraged, creating a situation which is unfeasible without subsidies, and leading to the continued decline of Japanese farming.
- 4.
One of the categories of mountain village was proposed by the sociologist Akira Ono (1940–) around 1990, while a professor at Kochi University. It refers to settlements in which the majority of the population is aged 65 or more, and securing people to take responsibility for tasks and maintaining social community life have become difficult. The term sounded the alarm about the imminent danger that marginal settlements would become abandoned settlements as ageing progressed. In the 2000s, the issue of widening economic disparities between regions due to ageing and depopulation was raised in the Diet and attracted attention. The phenomenon is particularly concentrated in hilly and mountainous areas, mountain villages, and outlying islands.
- 5.
Norinsuisansho, Chusankan Chiiki to Chokusetsu Shiharai Seido no Saishu Hyoka. http://www.maff.go.jp/j/nousin/tyusan/siharai_seido/pdf/sankou_h26.pdf
- 6.
In the agricultural census, defined as “Land which was once cultivated, but has not been used for growing crops for a year or more, and which there is no intention to cultivate once more in the next few years”.
- 7.
In this research, the definition of “migrants” includes strict conditions: (1) People who have moved in from another prefecture, and (2) People who made use of migrant information and advice contact points or support measures; so it is supposed that the number of “migrants”, as generally understood, is greater than this figure (Odagiri and Tsutsui 2016, p. 12).
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Oishi, N. (2019). A New, Sustainable Form for Farming Villages and the Role of Migrants from the City. In: Shiraishi, K., Matoba, N. (eds) Depopulation, Deindustrialisation and Disasters. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14475-3_6
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