Solar Lease or Apple Orchard? Land Use in Tsugaru
An agricultural cooperative in Tsugaru, Aomori, manages 24 hectares of apple orchards. Forty member farms average 71 years old; only two have named successors. Orchard revenue averages 3.2 million yen per hectare, but 6 hectares have been fallow for three years. A Tokyo solar developer offers a 20-year lease at 450,000 yen per hectare per year for 20 hectares. The area receives about 3.8 kWh per square meter per day of solar irradiation in summer, but snow cover can reach 2.5 meters and panels need clearing. Apples require cold storage within 24 hours of harvest; the cooperative's store is 18 km away and runs at 85% capacity in October. The town offers a 30% subsidy for cold-storage expansion but no subsidy for solar. At a packed meeting, older farmers support the lease; younger farmers want to keep orchard land and expand storage.
1. Which land should the cooperative offer for the solar lease, and which should it protect for apples? Use the figures to justify a land-allocation rule.
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Start with the 6 hectares that have been fallow for three years. They yield no orchard revenue, so the lease payment of 450,000 yen per hectare is nearly pure additional income: about 2.7 million yen per year for 6 hectares. Do not begin with the 18 hectares in production. Each productive hectare earns 3.2 million yen, so leasing it for 450,000 yen gives up about 2.75 million yen per hectare per year in orchard income. The developer wants 20 hectares, which is larger than the fallow area, so the cooperative cannot meet the request without converting some orchard. A defensible rule is to lease all 6 fallow hectares, then offer only the lowest-yielding orchard hectares, and cap conversion so at least 12 to 14 hectares remain in production. That protects the core apple base while using idle land. If the developer insists on 20 hectares, the cooperative should negotiate a smaller lease or higher rent rather than sacrifice its best orchards.
2. Explain how Aomori's climate affects both options and why summer irradiation alone is misleading.
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Apples benefit from the region's cool climate, but the harvest also depends on rapid cold storage: the cooperative's store is 18 km away and already 85% full in October. Solar panels face a different climate constraint. The summer figure of 3.8 kWh per square meter per day does not describe the whole year. Snow cover of up to 2.5 meters can block panels, and clearing snow adds labor, equipment costs, and risk of damage. Winter days are short and production is low, so annual output will be well below a summer-only estimate. The developer should provide a full-year yield estimate after snow losses. For apples, the climate risk is storage and transport timing; for solar, it is winter maintenance and seasonal output. Comparing only summer irradiation would overstate the solar option.
3. Design a compromise that addresses the successor shortage and the storage bottleneck.
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A workable compromise is a smaller solar lease of about 8 to 10 hectares: the 6 fallow hectares plus 2 to 4 low-yielding orchard hectares. At 450,000 yen per hectare, that brings in roughly 3.6 to 4.5 million yen per year. The cooperative could combine that income with the town's 30% cold-storage subsidy to expand capacity and reduce the October bottleneck. At the same time, it should consolidate the orchards of retiring farmers and set a five-year review of the lease. The cooperative should keep its best 14 to 16 hectares in apples and require the developer to pay for snow clearing and land restoration. This uses idle land, funds storage, and avoids permanently converting the productive orchard base.