Social and Economic Change in Japan’s Post-War Agriculture

Japan’s farm structure, similar to that of most other Western industrialized countries pursuing protectionist agricultural politics, is a triple one comprising:1.the classical, viable ‘family-farmers’ (with a male household head of productive age engaged mainly or full-time in agriculture);2.a majority of part-timers who derive their bulk of income from off-farm sources, or of ‘full-timers’ working beyond retirement age;3.agro-industry pursuing capital intensive primary production at industrial scale.