The area of abandoned farmlands is estimated to total 272,000 hectares nationwide as of 2012, dropping for two consecutive years, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
The decline is due to increasing area of recovered farmlands and shifting of abandoned farmlands into forests and plains. The ministry has since 2008 been encouraging local governments and agricultural commissions in each municipality to take such measures to reduce abandoned farmlands.
As a result, the area of abandoned farmlands peaked at 292,000 hectares in 2010, and has continued to shrink since then, marking 278,000 hectares in 2011 and 272,000 hectares in 2012. Meanwhile, the area of recovered farmlands has been increasing since 2009 when the ministry began compiling the data, amounting to 14,000 hectares in 2012, up 2,000 hectares from the previous year.
In order to further facilitate recovery of farmlands and consolidation of the lands for cultivation by those certified as ambitious farmers, the ministry expanded the amount of subsidies in the supplementary budget for fiscal 2013. The government pays JPY 50,000 per 10 ares for recovering abandoned farmlands to an arable condition by removing weeds and small trees and improving soil, and under the supplementary budget, the payments will be increased by 20 percent if a farmland is restored to be used by farmers certified under the ministry’s plan to revitalize rural areas. The subsidies will be subject not only to regional farmers’ councils but also to farmland consolidation banks which will be established in each prefecture.
The ministry allocated JPY 2.1 billion in the fiscal 2014 budget to continue offering the subsidies.
The ministry estimates the area of abandoned farmlands based on surveys by municipalities. Separate data in the Census of Agriculture and Forestry shows that the area of uncultivated farmland based on reporting from farmers totaled 396,000 hectares.
(Dec. 28, 2013)