The Establishment of Turf Farming in Tsukuba City, Japan

Atsushi Onodera Assistant Professor

Shizue Kamikihara Graduate Student

Takehiro Morimoto Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

Institute of Geoscience The University of Tsukuba Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305 Japan

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ABSTRACT

Formative processes of a turf produc­ing region are examined in Tsukuba City, the leading turf producing area in Ja­pan. Turf production in Tsukuba City is carried out together by turf traders and landscape gardeners. Due to the urban­ization of Tsukuba City, almost all farms are now operated part time. Since even elderly farmers can easily produce turf, turf production has become a widely ac­cepted activity. Moreover, a golf course construction boom has lead to a greater demand in turf production and to high prices of turf.

KEY WORDS : Tsukuba City, turf produc­tion, urbanization, Japan, agriculture.

INTRODUCTION

The recent golfing boom in Japan has lead to the increasing production of turf (shiba). Turf was previously produced on volcanic ash soil because its cultivation was possible even in soils of poor qual­ity. Turf was generally considered to be cultivated only in remote areas until several years ago. The production of turf is now regarded as a means to earn high profits with minimal labor in outer met­ropolitan areas due to increasing de­mand for the product. In this research, the growth of the turf production indus­try in Tsukuba City is examined. The purpose of this study is to identify the formative processes of a turf production area in Tsukuba City.

TURF PRODUCTION IN JAPAN

Commercial turf production in Japan began in the early 20th century due to the increased construction of golf courses and Western-style public parks. For ex­ample, the Rokko Golf Course in Hyogo Prefecture was constructed in 1901 and Hibiya Park was established in Tokyo in 1903.

During the 1960s, when the Japanese economy was expanding quickly, turf production rapidly developed due to the golf course construction boom, the To­kyo Olympic Games held in 1964, and the construction of expressways. The planted acreage reached a record high

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o Ibarak! 0 T Ollon 0 Kagoshima 0 Kumamoto

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FIGURE 1. The planted area of turf by prefecture, 1970-1989. (Source : Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.)

in 1973 when 10,000 ha were in produc­tion (Fig . 1). From 1973 to 1980, how­ever, the production decreased because of economic stagnation related to the oil crisis. Since 1980, the demand for turf increased again and by 1989 the pro­duction was over 8,000 ha.

Most of the turf producted in Japan has been either no-shiba (Zoysia japon­ica) or korai-shiba (Zoysia matrel/a) . No­shiba has stems of 10 cm to 20 cm high, and leaves of 5 cm to 10 cm long and 2 mm to 5 mm wide. It grows in acid soils and resists drought and cold. Korai-shiba has stems of 5 cm to 15 cm high, and leaves of 3 cm to 14 cm long and 1.5 mm to 4 mm wide. Korai-shiba has shorter and softer leaves than no-shiba, and is less resistant to cold.

The turf producing areas have changed over the last 20 years (Fig. 2). The major turf producing areas in 1970 included the lower slopes of Mt. Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture, the lower slopes of Mt. Daisen in Tottori Prefecture and in the suburban areas of Metropolitan To­kyo. Turf production in Ibaraki and Ka­goshima Prefectures rapidly expanded until 1973. In spite of the rapid decline of turf production since 1973, the turf

production area in Ibaraki Prefecture has maintained and in fact has become larger than the planted area in any other pre­fectures of Japan. The leading turf pro­ducing area in Ibaraki Prefecture now is Tsukuba City. The planted acreage in Hokkaido increased from 1973 because the cultivation of another cold resistant turf species took place.

TURF PRODUCTION IN TSUKUBA

Tsukuba City has a population of 140,000 and an area of 25,800 ha. The southwestern part of the city is called Tsukuba Science City, which was con­structed by the government, starting in the late 1960s. Tsukuba Science City now has many governmental research insti­tutes, research divisions of many private corporations, one university and two colleges. Tsukuba City (sh" was founded in 1988 by the merger of five munici ­palities: Oho-machi, Toyosato-machi, Yatabe-machi, Tsukuba-machi and Sa­kura-mura.

Most of the city area consists of di­luvial uplands named Tsukuba daichi (uplands), which is 20 to 35 meters above sea level and is covered with soil de­rived from volcanic ash. Except in se­lected parts of Tsukuba Science City, the uplands are dominated by fields and woodlands. The eastern and western fringes of the city are dominated by al ­luvial lowlands utilized as rice paddy fields.

Turf production is concentrated in some villages (o-azas) in the northwest­ern and central parts of the city, where upland fields and woodlands are domi­nant (Fig. 3). Those villages are included in the old municipal area of Oho-machi and Toyosato-machi. Eighty percent of the area of upland fields were planted with turf in those two districts. Recently, turf production has been expanded into paddy fields.

The farms in Shiramizu, a part of a village in the Oho-machi area, is where turf production first began in Tsukuba City (Fig. 4). Shiramizu was one of the new settlements on the reclaimed land from the ruins of Nishi-Tsukuba Military Airfield after World War II (Yamano, 1990). In Shiramizu, the southwestern

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• 200.000

e 100.000

• 50.000

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FIGURE 2. Distribution of turf in Japan, 1970-1989. (Source: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.)

part of the reclaimed land, there were 14 new farm households which came from Nagano Prefecture in 1950. Each of them tried to cultivate crops such as wheat, barley and sweet potatoes in 1.8 ha of allocated land, but the harvest was small

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for several years due to poor soil. Thus the people began to sell wild turf for cash income. From 1958 they began to culti­vate turf in upland fields. The planted area of turf in Shiramizu rapidly in­creased during the first golfing boom.

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FIGURE 3. The planted area of turf by village in Tsukuba City, 1988. (Source : Divi­sion of Industries, Tsukuba City Hall .)

Farms in neighboring villages with sim­ilar soil also began to cultivate turf.

In Tsukuba City, the planted area of korai-shiba had been larger than the area of no-shiba for many years because golf course fairways were generally covered with korai-shiba and roughs with no­shiba. Recently however, the planted area

of no-shiba has become as large as ko­rai-shiba since no-shiba is now often used for planting fairways . The value of no­shiba has thus increased.

In 1991, the gross income from no­shiba was about 20,000 U.S. dollars (2,400,000 yen) per hectare of land, and the value of korai-shiba was about 17,000

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-

o I

500m I

rIa Farmer' Residence

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1';'''''''''"''1 .1 .... ..-, ~ Garden PlanlS D Non·ramers Re idence

~Other pland Plant. 8Building Lot

o Rice

~ Rice (Riklldell)

W Woods

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FIGURE 4. Land utilization in Shiramizu, 1989. (Source: Authors' Field Survey.)

dollars per hectare. Production costs, except for family labor, rent and capital interest, was only about 10 percent of these income values. Therefore, income from turf production is much higher than that of rice production. For example, the gross income from rice was between 11,000 and 13,500 dollars per hectare of land in 1990 compared to at least 18,000 dollars for turf.

Turf is harvested six to seven times over a four or five year period. Four to five years after initial planting, farmers till and manure the fields. Harvested turf is cut into rectangles; the standard size is usually 36 cm wide and 26 cm long. Turf is bought and sold in sheaves of ten pieces (Fig. 5). Turf is cut into long strips for steep slopes of golf courses; each strip is 36 cm wide and 260 cm long.

THE MARKETING OF TURF IN TSUKUBA CITY

According to the Basic Agricultural Research of Ibaraki Prefecture, the har­vested area of turf in Tsukuba City, in 1988, was 2,335.4 ha. However, it is pos­sible to estimate that the real area of turf is larger than the statistical figure . Tsu-

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kuba City, for example, reaches an an­nual turf production of 4,500 ha, with which 90 golf courses with 18 holes (turf plots of approximately 50 hal can be landscaped (Tsukuba Agricultural Exten­sion Office of Ibaraki Prefecture, 1991).

Farmers make contracts with private turf traders as well as with landscape gardeners. In the Yatabe-machi area, many farmers entrust turf sales to the Tsukuba-shi Yatabe Agricultural Co­operative.

After turf is planted, farmers only have to spray herbicides and insecticides. Turf traders, landscape gardeners and the agricultural co-operative employ people to mow and harvest the turf. These em­ployees are called kirikos. They are be­tween 50 and 60 years of age and work in groups of 4 or 5 persons. The labor is organized in such a manner that one man operates lawn mower and clipper while others harvest and package the turf into bundles. Many farmers cultivate turf in one part of their fields, and they are also employed by turf traders and landscape gardeners, and each of them receive an income of at least 65 dollars daily.

Figure 6 shows the marketing flow of

FIGURE 5. The harvest of turf in May 1991 .

I GO LF CO RSE OWNERS 1· .. ···· -: r .. · · .... -I PUBLIC ADM INISTRATIONS I

~ .... _ .. - Construction Orders

_ Flow or Turr Marketing

.. = Construction

o Types or Turr Traders

• • • • • • • • • • • • Farmers

FIGURE 6. Flow diagram of the marketing of turf. (Source : Authors' Survey.)

turf. Every farmer ships turf to turf trad­ers, landscape gardeners, or agricultural co-operatives. The majority of turf col­lected by agricultural co-operatives, of which 95 percent is used for golf courses, is first shipped to construction compa­nies and landscape gardeners.

The sh ipments to traders and land­scape gardeners is organized in the fol ­lowing form . In Tsukuba City, there are approximately 60 legal turf traders and landscape gardeners who are licensed to practice gardening and trade by the

prefecture government. A number of il ­legal turf traders also exist who have no licenses and do not report their income from turf trade (Nakatsuka, 1990). These turf traders and landscape gardeners have been classified into three types based on their administrative organiza­tion, sales destinations and other aspects.

The first type includes small and il­legal traders. They undertake the har­vest of turf and sell the turf to the legal traders and gardeners. Their exact num­ber is unknown.

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FIGURE 7. A house of the second type of trader and a truck for shipping turf.

The second type includes the legal turf traders who employ kirikos, contract grass plots of 200 ha or less and have about 8,000 dollars worth of capital. They are big local landscape gardening enter­prises. They ship turf to gardeners and landscape material wholesalers over wide areas. For example, a trader within this group ships turf to a client 300 to 400 kilometers away (Fig. 7) . This type com­prises about 80 percent of legal traders and gardeners.

The third type is a group of the big­gest traders with a capital of about 80,000 dollars. They represent about 20 percent of the number of legal traders and gar­deners. They also manage both turf trade and landscape gardening. A trader within this group makes contracts for 400 ha of turf and employs 48 persons, including 29 kirikos , 15 landscape gardening work­ers and 4 office workers. These traders receive orders from construction com­panies to ship turf to golf courses and landscape gardening sites in Kanto and Tohoku Regions. This type comprises about 20 percent of legal traders and gardeners.

CONCLUSION

Tsukuba City, located about 60 km northeast of Tokyo, is functioning as a governmental research center. Yet it is also the greatest turf producing area in Japan. This apparent contrasting phe­nomenon is related to the urbanization of Tsukuba City.

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If the turf is cultivated in relatively wide sections of flat arable land, where there are no restrictive natural condi­tions, the turf will be very extensive. In spite of turf being cultivated in poor vol­canic soils in the foothills of mountains, turf production in Tsukuba City is grow­ing the fastest in Japan.

Turf production in Tsukuba City is carried out by turf traders and landscape gardeners who manage it from planting to harvesting and shipping. A minimal amount of farm labor is required. With the urbanization of Tsukuba City, the op­eration of almost all farms changed from a full time to a part time function. Since even elderly farmers can easily produce turf, turf production has become widely accepted. Moreover, the golf course construction boom has lead to increase demand in turf production and to high prices for the product. As a conse­quence, after changing land use pattern, turf is now replacing rice as the most important economic crop of the region.

REFERENCES

Nakatsuka, Y. 1990. Formation and Develop­ment of Turf Producing Region in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture. Unpublished Grad­uation Thesis. University of Tsukuba, Tsu­kuba, Japan (in Japanese).

Onodera, A. , Kamikihara, S. and Morimoto, T. 1991 . Turf production in Tsukuba City, Ja­pan. Annual Report of the Institute of Geo­science, University of Tsukuba, 17 :20-25.

Tsukuba Agricultural Extension Office of Ibar-

aki Prefecture. 1990. Toward the Top Turf Producing Region in Japan. Tsukuba Agri­cultural Extension Office of Ibaraki Prefec­ture. Tsukuba (in Japanese).

Tsukuba Agricultural Extension Office of Ibar­aki Prefecture. 1991 . Tsukuba, the Top Turf

Producing Region in Japan. Tsukuba Agri­cultural Extension Office of Ibaraki Prefec­ture. Tsukuba (in Japanese).

Yamano, A. 1990. Land Use Transformed by Construction of Tsukuba Science City. Chiri, 35(3):97-101 (in Japanese).

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