Geographical research on the rehabilitation systems of agricultural areas in today's urbanized Japanese society
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
|Allocation Type||Single-year Grants|
|Research Institution||Saitama University|
MOTOKI Yasushi Saitama University, Liberal Arts, Professor, 教養学部, 教授 (00092023)
|Project Period (FY)
2002 – 2005
Completed(Fiscal Year 2005)
|Budget Amount *help
¥2,200,000 (Direct Cost : ¥2,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2005 : ¥500,000 (Direct Cost : ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 2004 : ¥500,000 (Direct Cost : ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 2003 : ¥500,000 (Direct Cost : ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 2002 : ¥700,000 (Direct Cost : ¥700,000)
|Keywords||Japan / urbanized society / land use type crop / Tanba variety / historical process / rehabilitation systems / sweet industry / low tree height cultivation / 山間地栗園 / 日之影町 / 収穫ネット / 和菓子メーカー / 担い手不足 / 東北地理学会 / 日本の栗 / 品種 / 景観 / 公園 / 京都府 / 宮城県 / 里山型産地 / 栗 / 菓子製造会社 / 地域一体化 / 林業副産物 / 商品作物 / 産地タイプ / 東北日本 / 西日本|
The evolution of today's "urbanized society" in Japan has raised serious problems such as labor shortage, farmers aging and products prices. In order to examine how agricultural areas behave under these new conditions, chestnut planted areas as an example are examined. Following the historical trend of chestnut cultivation areas and recent new trends have emerged.
(1) Chestnut tree (Castanea Crenata) mostly grows wild in Japan. It has been used for many purposes by the Japanese since Jomon period. After rice cultivation was introduced, a Tanba variety chestnut with large fruit was improved from wild varieties around the ancient city at Kinai District, and it has been proliferated around Kanto area during the Edo era. And with the expansion of commercial agriculture after Meiji, the production of Tanba variety chestnut was preferred from the beginning of the Showa era. Furthermore, it spread in wide range during the high economic growth period (the postwar), and increased in both area an
d the yields.
(2) With the progression of urbanization, Japan's chestnut production declined on planted areas and production volumes since the second half of the 1980's until today. However, in chestnut producing areas a remarkable change was widely diffused. Trimming is common in order to obtain low tree to fulfill the market expectations, especially in sweet industry, for quality and simplicity of management.
(3) Contemporary chestnut production is related with (a) low tree heights and machine work for cultivation by the fulltime farmers, and (b) the unique formation of producing districts by collaboration between growers and industrial transformers and (c) in some remote places (hilly-mountains in southwestern Japan), relatively small scale cultivation by contract between growers and industrial transformers has occurred. Although (c) is expected, severe natural conditions and the labor force constraints may put in risk the future of this economic activity. (a) and (b) every time both types accept local conditions, giving a big suggestion is expected in the future. Less
Research Products (9results)