KUFM / KGPR
T. M. Power
Rural Problems: Here and in Japan
We all have the tendency to see problems through our own local experiences. So that when, for instance, economic conditions deteriorate, we assume that the problem is at least partially tied to local circumstances: Maybe our taxes are too high or our government regulations too strict; maybe we are not hospitable enough to new businesses; maybe our workforce is not skilled or disciplined enough; maybe we are too isolated or under-developed. In the demoralization that goes with hard economic times, we lose some of our confidence and begin to blame ourselves for the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Although it is perfectly possible that there are particular local conditions that contribute to our economic difficulties, it is also true that we are embedded in regional, national, and global economies that increasingly have no economic borders. Economic forces that originate great distances from Montana can have powerful impacts here that have nothing to do with anything we do or do not do. It is always worthwhile to investigate whether other regions or, even, other countries are sharing what we are experiencing. That helps us put our own experiences in a more productive context. We may learn something about what part of the problem is local and what part is tied to economic forces that are not local at all. In addition we may find out something about how other communities and regions are coping with the same problems.
Recently I have been looking at some of the problems faced by rural areas in Japan, farm, ranch, and forest areas. Although there are dramatic differences, what are more startling are the similarities between the experiences of rural Japan and the American West.
Over the last several decades both nations have wrestled with the question of how to protect farm incomes and raise living standards in rural areas to levels similar to those enjoyed in the growing urban areas. Over the last century or so, low incomes in rural areas and labor displacing technology have led to rural population loses and urban gains. This has created problems in both places.
Price and income support programs for farmers have been adopted in both countries. One impact has been to support surplus production that has tended to force agricultural prices down even further. Despite those chronically low agricultural prices, farm household income in both countries has risen to close to national averages for reasons that have little to do with government support programs. Farm families increasingly have diversified their own household economies by working off the farm.
For small farms and ranches in the US, almost all household income comes from non-farm sources. But even for relatively large operations about half of farm household income comes from off-farm jobs. Farm families in both Japan and the US have adjusted how they farm and what crops they raise so that they can spend more time in economic activities off the farm. Those off-farm jobs and the non-farm economy allow these farm families to remain in farming.
One fallout from this in the economic statistics is that people in rural areas tend to have a high rate of multiple job holding. Since the on-farm activities are definitely a job and other jobs are pursued seasonally or part-time or even full-time, farm operators are one of the groups most likely to hold multiple jobs. This partially explains why the states in the northern tier stretching from Minnesota across the Dakotas into Montana have among the highest rates of multiple job holding in the nation.
What is interesting is that the same is true in Japan. Only about one in eight Japanese farms is a full-time operation for the family. For two-thirds of Japanese farms, non-farm activities are the dominant source of income. Farm-family members commute to local towns and small cities to work while maintaining their farm after-hours and in intense seasonal efforts.
This makes the development of the non-farm economy crucial to the survival of family farms. Such diversification away from agriculture not only does not threaten agriculture but also is crucial to its survival. But that economic diversification is unlikely to take place in a region settle primarily by farm families. A purely farm region is unlikely to provide the population density or population size to allow very much diversification to take place. That means that the rural areas, small towns, and small cities, have to become more successful at holding the people they now have and attracting new residents so as to modestly grow. That larger population allows the area to become more self-sufficient, supporting a wider range of retail trade and service businesses, reducing the need to shop outside the area, and providing more local jobs for both urban and rural residents.
For this to happen, existing and potential residents must find the quality of life in the small cities and rural areas attractive. This includes the social, human-built, and natural environments. Good schools, an open, friendly community, adequate transportation and communication links, a relatively complete commercial infrastructure, recreation opportunities including outdoor recreation, and a varied, healthy natural landscape all matter. This may sound like a daunting perscription, but many communities in the Mountain West in general and Western Montana in particular have been doing exactly that over the last several decades. It is also on exactly these same issues that rural public policy in Japan has been focused.
Of course this rural transition and transformation comes at a cost. How people make their livings in rural areas changes dramatically. Everyone is not a farmer or rancher and farmers and ranchers do a lot more than that. That has to have an impact on “custom and culture.” For those who want rural areas to remain the same but just be more prosperous, these changes are disruptive if not destructive. But it is not clear that the alternative, ongoing economic and population decline, that is the inevitable outcome of economies and livelihoods frozen in the past, are any less disruptive or painful. A good part of the Great Plains including Montana is currently experiencing that, as are many isolated rural areas in Japan. In that context of ongoing decline, a slow, systematic transition from farm communities to more mixed urban, rural, and ex-urban communities may not look all that bad. Simply derisively sneering at this transition as the “suburbanization” of rural life does not offer much in the way of alternatives.