Recently abandonment of cultivation increases in suburban area. There are many approaches to investigate the factors of abandonment of cultivation. Adopting a questionnaire survey, the purpose of this paper is to make clear the factors of abandonment of cultivation by the condition of farm household. Study areas are Ageo city and Hatoyama town in Saitama prefecture. Mail service was used for the questionnaire survey.
The feature of farm household with abandoned cultivated land made clear. The agricultural labor force is scarce and aged. And the livelihood is depending on off-farm income.
One main factor of abandonment of cultivation is deficiency of agricultural labor force. Because labor force of farm household is inclined to non-agricultural sectors. Another main factor of cultivation abandonment in Hatoyama town is the deficit of agricultural infrastructure improvement. Because topographic condition of Hatoyama town is the same as undulated and mountain region.
And one important factor is the zoning, i. e. the non-cultivated land should not be converted to non-agricultural land.
So the non-cultivated land left as abandoned agricultural land.