Japan's agricultural sector has seen a major shift from family-owned businesses to corporate operators employing a growing number of younger farmers, according to the fiscal 2016 white paper on agriculture approved by the Cabinet on Tuesday.
The paper says that the number of farmers under long-term employment of companies stood at 104,285 in 2015, nearly doubling from 52,888 in 2005.
Of them, 47 percent were under 45, indicating companies have attracted relatively young farmers despite the average age across the industry continuing to climb.
In 2015, 1.75 million people engaged in farming as their main business, down 22 percent from 2005, at an average age of 67.0, compared with 64.2 a decade before.
Helped by the expansion of corporate employment, the overall number of people who joined farming in 2015 rose to 65,030, up 13 percent from the year before and exceeding the 60,000 mark for the first time in six years, the report says.
Among the new farmers, those under 50 numbered 23,030, a record high since the government began collecting comparable data in 2007, it says.
The annual report states that the government will spearhead reforms to lower prices for fertilizers and farm equipment under its program for promoting the competitiveness of Japanese agriculture.
The white paper also calls on food producers to obtain certification to provide their produce at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, as the government wants to use the events to promote Japanese food.
Fewer pages were spent on the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement compared with fiscal 2015, after the United States withdrew from the deal under President Donald Trump.
The new white paper merely says Japan will "continue to discuss what it can do with other countries involved" in the TPP.