Research On The Development Of Agricultural Cooperation Combination In Postwar Japan

ACC is the abbreviation for Agricultural Cooperation Combination in Japan. There are comprehensive ACC and specialized ACC in terms of its type. Because of the large organization and the unneglectable strength of economy and politics, the comprehensive ACC holds the leading position in the economic activities in rural areas while the specialized ACC appears to be insignificant. As a result, it usually refers to comprehensive ACC when it is mentioned.Modern ACC in Japan is an indispensable organization for economic cooperation in rural areas, and it has an extensive scope in daily affairs---combining the daily production with living, as to production, it including a complete one-stop service system, like providing information before production, technology instructions during production, marketing channel after production; while for living, it offering medical, health caring, recreational services to its members. It is such an extraordinary economic organization that attracts attentions of scholars from all over the world. In order to strive for the development of the rural economy of their own countries, and to improve the living standards of the peasants by raising their incomes, scholars trend to learn from the successful experience of ACC in Japan.CC in Japan has been introduced in China by academic circles since 1980s. It was in 1990s, especially after the entry of 20th century, that the research on the ACC in Japan began to swarm, with many relevant theses being published in magazines. But these researches emphasized on the running of the ACC in Japan, organization and administration, and the affairs it evolved, little attention was paid on the history of development, the background of its establishment, and the changes of its functions. Only the pure introduction about the organization and operation of the ACC in Japan cannot be a lesson as "being prosperous or not can be predicted from what has happened in the past", which was especially emphasized in the ancient times in China. In order to know the ACC in Japan, it is inevitable to deeply understand the history of its development to learn from the experience of development. Therefore, this dissertation discusses the ACC in Japan in terms of its history, with the expectation of finding the successful experience or some warnings during its development. And it can be combined with actual situation in our country, to promote its advantages and avoid its disadvantages, providing some suggestions for the development in the rural areas in our country.The earliest history of modern Japanese ACC can be traced back to non-governmental financial organization during Jianghu period, such as "tanomosiko" and "houtokusya". Japanese ACC grew into property combination before the war, "agricultural combination" during the war and modern Japanese ACC after the war finally. And "agricultural combination" during the war can be recognized as the direct predecessor of Japanese ACC.After war, with the progress of Japanese Land Reform, in order to protect the outcome of Land Reform and prevent yeoman from degenerating into tenant, Japan set down the act of ACC and initiated establish of ACC in 1947. In terms of the generating process of ACC, there existed "impatient for success" and "arbitrary establishment" which laid foreshadowing for poor management of ACC and implementation of merger policy. However, new ACC played a definite role in economic recovery of Japan after war.During period of rapid economic development, all causes of Japanese ACC zoomed. This period could be considered as "golden age" of Japanese ACC. Meanwhile, Japanese ACC also played an irreplaceable role in the process of rapid economic development. For instance, Japanese government's implementation of various agricultural policies and the distribution of agricultural subsidies were achieved by ACC, and agricultural products produced by members of ACC and purchase of requisite material also were fulfilled by ACC, thereby, ACC promoted the development of rural economics. However, regarding the self-organization of ACC, "arbitrary establishment " phenomenon at the very beginning of the establishment started to expose its defects, therefore, ACC developed ACC merger and promotion act and carried out it in 1961, beginning to redd up ACC. Till 1970s, affected by oil crisis in 1973, Japanese economics switched to steady development from high-speed development. During this period, in agriculture, owing to policies of expanding plant scale in the period of high-speed economic development, rice became surplus, so Japanese government put forward policy of reducing the area of cultivation, namely, "to reduce anti policy ", so as to alleviate the situation of "surplus rice". Facing this policy, ACC strove for most-favored-subsidy of "cultivating reduction", demonstrating organizing function of "pressure groups". Concerning the situation of ACC's career, the growth of cause was stagnant. After mid-80s, the operation of ACC emerged crisis.During 1990s, great changes have taken place in the environment surrounding ACC. In terms of politics and economics, these changes mainly embodied in "three liberalization", namely, financial liberation, liberation of the flow of agricultural products and import liberation. While in terms of organization, these embodied in changes in basic farmers of ACC that manifest in the reduction of farmers and agricultural employment, as well as, personnel aging. Changes in environment had great impact on ACC. They mainly were fierce competition, whole reduction of cause and operating deterioration in overall. In order to adapt itself to the changes of environment, ACC carried out economic and systematic reform. Economic reform focused on shortening the distribution channel, decreasing the price of material, improving operation of infrastructure and strengthening competition. Major aspect of systematic reform was the reform of three-tier system, changing from three to two.In terms of the entire development process of Japanese ACC, it has played a significant role in economic recovery and high-speed development after war. In today's society of economic globalization, with increasing international cooperation, individual farming operations need to organize themselves all the more, and then, they can adapt themselves to the ever-changing international market. Therefore, although now Japanese ACC has such problems as "deviating from members" operating deterioration, its existence cannot be ignored and from post-war to now, it is comparatively successful. Its successful experiences mainly are sound organization, strong support of government, safeguard of relevant legal, changing decision making according to changing situation, and so on. Of course, people should draw lesson from some aspects, such as the emergence of business, that is, Japanese ACC is only to operate, ignoring he needs of members, so lose the trust of members.In recent years, our country also has carried out the construction of farmers' professional cooperatives and started up legal setting, but there are still many problems. From the developing history of Japanese ACC, to develop ACC people should pay attention to step up publicity efforts, so that the idea of cooperatives infiltrate people's minds and farmers can organize themselves in accordance with the need consciously, in addition, to develop cooperatives according to local condition, avoiding "reinforcing the same message" and "radicalness". Combining with Japanese ACC's staged characteristics, our country should put forward such assumption that establish the envisaged Agricultural Mutual Aid Association.Agricultural Mutual Aid Associations are ties contacting the county government and local farmers' professional cooperatives. The county ACC can promote the local farmers'cooperatives to develop, and then promote the industrialization and large-scale of regional agricultural economics and achieve regional economic development.