As Farms in Japan Continue to Use Agencies for Disabled Workers, Concerns About ‘Padding’ & Meaningfulness of Jobs Remain

By Barrier Free Japan

September 7 2024

JAPAN – In early May 2024, it was reported how, as the employment rate for people with disabilities rose in April 2024, the number of businesses providing work opportunities to people with disabilities on behalf of companies is expanding. However, it is becoming clear that many businesses, but seemingly especially farms, use agencies to hire people with disabilities, without giving them actual work to do; one employee who had a disability was told “coming to the farm is your job.”

Although these ‘business agency” programs have helped to secure employment opportunities for people with disabilities, there have been cases where they have not led to the growth or independence of those with disabilities. As a result, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is instructing companies not to use these programs carelessly with the sole aim of achieving the employment rate. 

Some people who have used this welfare program say that much of the time was spent on breaks and it did not lead to personal growth or career advancement.

One man in his 50s with a developmental disability worked on a farm in Chiba Prefecture until about seven years ago, when he signed an employment contract with a machinery manufacturer introduced by a different business operator than Nokyo Kanko.

According to the man, there were about 100 disabled people working in four agricultural greenhouses, with one employee assigned to every three disabled people to provide guidance and manage their health.

“The work was far from professional agriculture, and most of the time was spent on breaks. If there was a harvest, I would do it, but there were days when I just watered the crop. In those cases, it only took about 30 minutes, and I had five or six hours of free time. Some people were on their cell phones or listening to music, and had a lot of free time. They told me that “coming to the farm is your job.”

There have also been claims of abuse made. For example, in Eniwa City Hokkaido, three men with intellectual disabilities filed a lawsuit asking the ranch owner’s family and the city to pay a total of approximately 94 million yen in damages, alleging that they were abused at the ranch where they lived and worked for many years. According to the complaint, all three men are in their 60s and had been living and working at Endo Farm in the same city for 18 to 45 years. As a general rule, there were no days off, and he woke up around 3:30 a.m. and worked from dawn until dusk, milking cows and doing farm work, but they were not paid.

On January 9, 2023, Kyodo News reported that a scheme in which a company rents out farmland to a company and employs people with disabilities there is an “employment agency business.” On the following day, the 10th, testimonies from people involved denying the actual employment situation, such as “the majority of the day was break time,” were widely published in local newspapers across the country.

Businesses with a certain number of employees or more are obligated by law to employ a certain percentage of people with disabilities. In order to formally fulfill this obligation, criticism erupted that “they are paying money and outsourcing employment to other companies.” Spool, a major disability employment support company whose name was mentioned in the article, issued a statement of protest, saying that “the voices of the people involved were hardly reflected and the content was significantly different from the actual situation of our business,” but its stock price temporarily plummeted to a stop-loss price.

Furthermore, in April of the same year, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which had begun to grasp the actual situation, released the results of its investigation. It has been revealed that there are 125 farms and satellite offices for people with disabilities nationwide, with at least 6,568 people working there and over 1,000 companies using them.

An article published in early September 2024 by the Toyo Keizai, upon visiting a “farm-style employment facility”, reported the following:

“Many of the disabled people who choose to work at farms have little or no work experience, and are not in good physical or mental health.”.

On the other hand, this business model used to hire to people with disabilities is not itself illegal and the wages are often higher than those at welfare facilities. In an interview with the Toyo Keizai, Kenji Nishimura, President of a ‘farm facility’ Start Line, said:

“Unfortunately, it is true that there are farms that gather disabled people in order to achieve the employment rate of their customers and provide insufficient care. However, I think such businesses will be eliminated in the future. There are many companies that want to employ disabled people. More and more people are moving from facility to facility in search of a better environment, and if people don’t think, ‘I want to work here,’ they won’t survive.”

However, some have argued that no matter how much the working environment for people with disabilities is improved, there will be criticism that “working on farms cannot be considered participation in economic activity” and “they are doing things that are unrelated to the company’s main business” to which Nishimura responded:

“There are people in general companies who work in departments related to social contribution…They don’t make sales, but I don’t think it’s a meaningless job. The most important thing is the feelings of the person with a disability. If the person is convinced and chooses a farm, and is finding fulfillment in their work, then there should be value in that.”