Hideo Sakamoto

Vegetable Growers and Labor Management in Kitano-cho, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan

In recent years Japanese vegetable growers tend to employ women who work to make up crops to finished products by arranging and packing. On the other hand it is seen in the same district that the oldmen and women specialize in growing the vegetables without the help of younger men. This cannot be adequately expanded from the available statistical data. The author attended to analyse horticulture districts which have various vegetable growers, and so selected Kitano-cho, Fukuoka Prefecture as a research field.The findings about the vegetable growing groups are as follows: There are 3 types of vegetable growing farms formed from mainly farming-labor family members: (1) The vegetable growers who manage the plastic green houses under fixed structures. They employ usually women, and sell the vegetables to chiefly the agricultural cooperative. (2) The full-time farm households (except above (1) type farms) consisting of young or middle-aged men, lacking fixed green houses. (3) The powerless labor group which consists of oldmen and women. This groups farmhouses sell the vegetables to merchants instead of the agricultural cooperative.In spite of being a small district, Kitano-cho has a large vegetable output which we can measure in the statistical data. Kitano-cho stands in the fertile alluvial plain on the Chikugo River. The common explanation for the large vegetable output comes on the good soil conditions of Kitano-cho. The author points out that Kitano-cho owes the recent development of vegetable production to many employed women. They work to make up the reaped vegetables to finished products by sorting out, putting in order, packing into boxes. Most of them are 40∼60 year-old housewives whose husbands work the offices or factories. As a result, we can interpret of the employed women promoting to increase the agricultural earnings in whole Kitano-cho town. But, the author emphasizes: there may be a hidden distinction between the two sexes in the lower wages for the employed women. Though the Japanese law prohibits to make the sexual distinction any working condition, not all the women can easily find work on favorable terms.In the above (3) group, the powerless growers tend to cultivate usually light weight and small-sized vegetables such as spinach, because of their powerless muscles. After reaping the vegetables, the powerless family members, the old or the women, make up the crops carefully into finished products by sorting out, putting in order, and packing into boxes.There are two land use types in the vegetable culture from the late fall to the spring. The first type is lightweight vegetale culture in plastic greenhouses either fixed structures or temporary small huts. The second type is heavy vegetable culture such as cabbage growing on open land. Just before the second group of vegetables mature, most growers sell them to merchants, leaving them to stand on the land. Then, the merchants harvest and take away them. As this way of trade saves the harvest labor of farmers themselves and improves effectively the land use productivity, many vegetable growers want to sell the crops standing while they work in the plastic greenhouses.

The Circumstances and the Location of Carrot Production in the Furano District, Hokkaido

As carrots prefer a cool season, they are usually grown during the autumn and the early spring on Japanese farms. Hokkaido farmers, however, cultivate carrots during the cool summer and harvest them in the autumn.After being harvested, large quantities of carrots are sent from Hokkaido to markets all over the country, standing unrivaled among the carrot producing regions at the same season. The author has been studying the geography of truck farming, above all from a locational approach, so he investigated the carrot producing regions in Hokkaido, especially the Furano district. The carrot production in the Furano district increased rapidly in the 1970s, and this district has become the representative carrot-producing region in Hokkaido.As the farms of Furano are comparatively larger than the farms of Honshu, they raise carrots with a higher productivity of labor, but with low productivity of the land. It was a stimulus for carrot growing that rice production has been restricted by the government since 1970. The Furano farmers chose to grow carrots and onions instead of rice.Farmers who raise carrots and onions employ many women. Labor intensive farming in Hokkaido including carrot growing, usually is located near the cities, which can supply the many women employees. The main supply region of the agricultural employees in the Furano district is the Furano urban area itself and the coal mine cities which are situated to the northwest, 30∼40km away from Furano city.Farmers who cultivate carrots in their fields plow the land with a powered cultivator, sow with a drill seedes, and weed with powered spray. The employees thin out the carrot plants and pull up the carrot roots, both with their hands. The machinery operation which needs skilled labor gets a higher reward, while the wages of the manual laborers stay in the lower levels. Thus, the farmer manages carrot production by employing relatively cheaper labor.The size of the acreage under cultivation generally restricts the farming type. The average farm acreages in Hokkaido are arrranged in the order of: dairy (33.3ha), upland field cropping (16.5ha), paddy field cropping (5.9ha) and vegetable growing (4.2ha). As the farmers in the Furano district have field acreages in the 5 to 11ha, range, they choose paddy field cropping or vegetable production.

Truck Garden Farming in the Yumi-ga-hama Peninsula, Tottori Prefecture

Yumi-ga-hama, which is thought to have been formed by an upheaval of sea-deposited layers, is covered with sand. Farming in this area has become stabilized since irrigation water-courses were constructed along the length of the peninsula about 200 years ago, and towns and villages have increased in number. The peninsula had been one of the most intensive raw cotton-growing districts in Japan. Later when Japan exported all the silk goods to U.S.A. and other countries, mulberry trees were planted throughout on the peninsula. But, for the last ten years truck farming has been prosperous and vegetables are sent on a large scale to cities as far as 330-430 kilometers.One reason why the farmers singled truck farming out of many other types of farm-work is that this area has only 0.54 hectares of arable land per farm-house. This also explains the fact that the breeding of pigs and domestic fowl (but not cattle) is popular among the farmers here.Garden products are forwarded by a partnership combine through the agricultural cooperation. In some villages where the cooperation finds difficulty to balance accounts, and where farmers prefer to deal products for themselves and have a contact with neighbouring cities, however, truck garden farming is not extensively carried on. As the quantity of dealings with large cities increases, the agricultural cooperation is engaged not merely in selling and transporting products, but also in encouraging each farmer to promote and control the agricultural products. To do this, the agricultural cooperation need a strong controlling power over the farm-houses of villages, as well as a good financial ground. Generally in Japan, a marked tendency observed lately is over-production of agricultural products, especially greens. So the keen competition was seen in the market-places of large cities between garden products transported from each producing-center. Welsh onions (Allium fistulosum), typical among other vegetables sent from the Yumi-ga-hama peninsula, are sold at a high price in the great market-place of Osaka City. This is due to the fact that in the Yumi-ga-hama peninsula, where it is hotter in summer, and coolness of autumn comes earlier, Welsh onions grow up and ripen earlier than in the other districts.