Types of Agriculture in Japan 日本の農業の種類

Types of Agriculture in Japan 日本の農業の種類

1.What are the different types of agriculture in Japan?

What kind of work do you think of agriculture? You may have a strong image of just growing rice and vegetables. In reality, there is a wide range of work included under the term agriculture.

In the “Japan Standard Industrial Classification (revised in October 2013)” established by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, agriculture is classified into five categories: “Establishments engaged in administrative or ancillary economic activities,” “Crop farming,” “Livestock farming,” “Agricultural services, except gardening services,” and “Gardening services.

However, in general, it is often divided into three types: “crop farming,” , “livestock farming,”  and “agriculture-related business.”

This article will look at the specific contents of these three types of agriculture.

2.What is “Crop Farming”?

Crop farming is the cultivation of rice, other grains, vegetables, fruit trees, flowers and other plants, etc.  The work environment varies greatly depending on the scale of farm and type of crop.

The work of large-scale farms often involves the use of agricultural machinery. Smaller farms or those in environments where agricultural machinery is not available may work mainly by hand.

Furthermore, in open-field or greenhouse cultivation, workers have to work with exposure to the outside temperature, which would be hard in the hot summer months. On the other hand, in a plant factory, workers may work in an environment where the temperature and humidity are artificially controlled.

3.What is “Livestock farming”?

Livestock farming refers to raising, fattening, and incubating livestock and poultry, such as cattle, pigs, chickens, horses, sheep, and ducks. Typical examples are dairy farming, beef cattle production, and poultry farming.

Dairy farming is the production of milk. It may also involve selling cheese and ice cream, which are processed products of milk, or operating as a tourist farm.

Beef cattle production is the job of raising cattle for beef. Recently, the development and production of regional branded beef has become a hot topic. There are two types of farms: breeding farms, where mothers raise calves for a certain period of time, and fattening farms, where calves are bought at a market and are raised to a large size, although some farmers carry out both processes in an integrated manner.

Poultry farming is into two categories: egg production and meat production. Poultry farming in Japan is becoming increasingly modern and large-scale, and, commonly, a single farmer often manages tens of thousands of chickens.

4.What is “Agriculture-related business”?

Agribusiness is a general term for a wide range of industries related to agriculture. It is sometimes referred to as agribusiness, a term coined by combining the words agriculture and business.

Agribusiness mainly involves working to support people engaged in crop farming and livestock farming and connecting producers with consumers.

For example, one of agribusinesses activities is developing a distribution system to sell both agricultural products and processed products directly to consumers. In addition, there has been much attention in recent years on the use of robots, ICT, and other technologies in agriculture to save labor and improve quality control for producers.

As mentioned above, there is a wide range of work related to agriculture in Japan.