日本农业劳动力老龄化困境的形成机理与治理策略

The Cause of Japan’s Aging Agricultural Labor Force and Its Solution

日本农业劳动力老龄化现象产生于二战后经济高速增长时期,农业部门青壮年劳动力大量流失的同时,老年劳动力长期被束缚在土地上;经济增速放缓后,高龄劳动力大规模向农业回流,又进一步加深了日本农业劳动力的老龄化程度,从而对农业的产业竞争力提升和村落共同体功能维系产生了明显的负面影响。形成这一困境的重要原因是农业综合效益和收入水平偏低,而阻碍农业收入水平提升的深层原因是大部分农户长期以来经营规模过小。为充分利用大批老年农业劳动力退出农业生产的契机,加快构建以农业核心经营者为基础的新型农业经营体系,日本近年来在农业补贴、土地流转和产业融合等方面实施了一系列新举措。日本为摆脱农业劳动力老龄化困境而进行一系列农业改革的经验,或可为中国农业农村治理和现代化建设提供有益的参考。

The aging of agricultural labor force in Japan began in the post-war period of high-speed economic growth,with the eldly labor force were bound to the land for a long time while the young and middle-aged labor force in the agricultural sector flowed out in large quantities.The situation has become even worse when the aging population moved back to agriculture,which has a negative impact on the competitiveness of agricultural industry and the maintenance of village community function.The cause of that dilemma above is that the comprehensive productivity of agriculture and farmers’income have been relatively low in Japan,with the situation Japanese farmers’production has been operated on a small scale for a long time and hinders the improvement of productivity and farmers’income.In order to make full use of the opportunity of a large number of elderly agricultural labor force to withdraw from the agricultural production and speed up the construction of a new agricultural management system,Japan has implemented a series of new measures in recent years in the areas of agricultural subsidies,land circulation and industrial integration.Japan’s experience in carrying out a series of agricultural reforms to solve the problem of the aging agricultural labor force may provide some reference for China’s agricultural and rural governance.