The Trend of Tourist Farms in Urbanized Region along the River Tama, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture

The suburban agriculture around big cities generally shows a declining tendency because of rapid urbanization, and many studies of its actual situation are presented in the field such as geography, sociology and economics. However, about the detailed development process of tourist farms as suburban agriculture around cities, it is not sufficiently explained.In this paper, taking the right shore of the River Tama as an example, we have mainly investigated the actual condition of what developmental process the tourist orchards of Tamagawa Pear, which have long history, have gone through, and how they have corresponded to and been transformed by the surge of rapid urbanization of Kawasaki after the middle of 1950s. The results of this paper are as follows;At the right shore of the Tama in northern Kawasaki City, though the urbanization has been proceeded rapidly, tourist pear orchards in pluck-for-oneself system are widely distributed now, being crowded briskly in Autumn. Those pear orchards have co-existed with residences, apartment houses, shops and carparks scattered among them, where urbanized use of land is prevailing, showing a conspicuous sight.The tourist orchards have developed since the combined activity of local farms with the Odakyu Electric Railway Co. Ltd. in 1928, when the Electric Railway opened. During ten years since 1956, owing to the dull market price of pear, many farms had changed their character to tourist farm and become profitable. At present, they have come to sell 46% of annual production by tourist pear orchards in pluck-for-oneself system, and 52% by direct sales along the road system. At the same time, they generally operate their farms with the aid of another jobs depending on real property such as rental housing, apartment houses, and carparks.In the northern part of Kawasaki City, urbanization accompanied by residential development was already past its peak, but the development is still progressing steadily and tourist pear orchards are decreasing gradually. The prospect of those orchards are beclouded owing to the deterioration of farming environments and the difficulty of keeping their successors.Under these circumstnces, there comes up a new corresponding plan. It is the tourist farm policy of Kawasaki City authorities including establishment of citizenry orchards, fruit parks and citizenry farms. It is worthy of note that this shows the integration of such viewpoints as promoting urban farming, preserving green belt, and citizenry recreation.