Abstract
This paper discusses about the fallowed Paddies under the goverment program for rice set-aside from the viewpoint of rural land use. They are to be not only realized explicitly as the compulsory forced-fallow by regulation, but also realized implicitly as the 'Social Fallow' because of the unsufficience of labor of their user's farms.
In Japanese rural society, there have been common sense that farmer would not have been seemed as lazy farmers. Especially, the typical index whether he is lazy or not is how carefully he endeavor to weed. Therefore, at some paddies, it was observed that farmers worked hard to weed over the minimum creteria which is stipurated on the program of rice set-aside.
However, it was also observed at some paddies that farmers substantially abondaned to maintain the condition of paddies at least to the lebel under which farmer could reversiblely re-start to grow rice after the period of fallow.
Thes phenominon can be explained as the 'Social Fallow' which is widely observed suburban areas among other advanced countries. Farms in which labor resources are unsufficient seems to get the land use of their farms extensive, besidely, to neglect the care of their fallowed paddies.
The problem is that there is the difference between elder generation and youger generation about the consiousness for the care of fallowed paddies, especially for the weeding. Elder generation tend to consider the reputation of them within the villege community and it indue them to weed carefully. But, most of them do not have their farms' successor. In future, it would be doutfull that such kinds of behavior continue to exist in modernised rural society.