{
  "id": 27917,
  "title": "Japan’s Agricultural Workforce Drops Below 1 Million",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/07/28/japans-agricultural-workforce-drops-below-1-million",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-07-28T21:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Nippon.com",
    "slug": "nippon-com",
    "url": "https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h02834/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Japan's agricultural workforce has fallen below the one million mark, with the number of core workers dropping by 50,000 or 4.8% in 2026, according to a survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries. As of 2026, there are 986,600 core agricultural workers, a significant decrease from 2.05 million in 2010. The average age of these workers is 67.7 years, with 56.5% of the workforce being 70 or older. Only 3.8% of agricultural workers are in their thirties, and just 1.2% are under 30. The total number of agricultural operations decreased by 4.4% to 799,700, with individually operated farms dropping by 4.6% to 759,000 and corporate farms increasing by 1.2% to 40,700. The number of corporate employees involved in agricultural operations rose by 2,600, or 2.6%, to 100,900. The average farmland size per operation increased by 5.6% to 3.8 hectares, with Hokkaidō seeing a 2.7% increase to 34.6 hectares. Rice cultivation decreased by 7.2% to 499,500 operations, with 58.7% of these using less than one hectare of land.",
  "summary": "A Japanese government survey found that the number of core agricultural workers has fallen below 1 million, and their average age is 67.7.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}