Effect of the dispersion of fields concentrated to a sugarcane [Saccharum officinarum] agricultural production corporation on agricultural productivity: Analysis by the geographical information system

Although sugarcane agricultural production corporations have been established as the leaders of regional farmers to avoid cultivation abandonment, the sugarcane yield of these agricultural production corporations is low and the leased fields managed by these corporations are scattered. Because of the scattered leased fields, the workers of these corporations have to move from field to field for work and thus farm work becomes inefficient. Thus, it is considered that inefficient work results in a rather low yield of sugarcane for these corporations as compared to the average yield in Okinawa. This study aims to ascertain the correlation between the dispersion of farmlands and productivity by investigating the relation between the unit crop yields and some factors of the evaluation of the geographic condition of the dispersion obtained by the GIS. We proposed three factors of the evaluation of the geographical condition; that is, the area of the farmland, distance of the corporation office, and area of the surrounding farmlands. The area of the surrounding farmlands shows a positive correlation with the unit yields, while the distance of the corporation office shows an inverse correlation with the unit yields. The result shows that the dispersion of the accumulated fields could have some impact on the unit sugarcane yield of the agricultural production corporations.