Otofuke Airfield

The closure was primarily due to economic factors and shifts in agricultural practices. Like many small, private agricultural airstrips in Japan, its closure was likely driven by a combination of the declining viability of traditional fixed-wing crop dusting, the high cost of aircraft operation and maintenance, the aging of qualified pilots, and the rise of more modern alternatives such as unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for crop spraying.

The site has been fully reverted to agricultural use. Satellite imagery of the coordinates shows a long, narrow plot of land where the runway used to be. The faint outline of the airstrip is still discernible, but the surface is now covered in grass or crops and is indistinguishable from the surrounding fields. There are no remaining airport infrastructure, such as hangars or service buildings, visible on the site. It is effectively just a field within a larger agricultural landscape.

Otofuke Airfield was a private, non-public airstrip, officially designated as a 'Jōgai ri-chaku-riku-jō' (場外離着陸場), which translates to an 'off-airport landing and takeoff site'. Its primary and critical function was to support agricultural aviation in the Tokachi Subprefecture, one of Japan's most important agricultural regions. The airfield served as a base for crop-dusting aircraft (such as the Cessna Ag-wagon or similar models) that performed aerial spraying of pesticides and fertilizers over the vast farmlands of Otofuke and the surrounding area. It played a direct role in the agricultural productivity of the region for several decades.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening Otofuke Airfield. The economic and technological trends that led to its closure have only accelerated, with drones becoming the standard for precision agriculture. The land has been reclaimed for farming, and there is no practical or economic incentive to re-establish an airfield at this location. Its reopening is considered highly improbable.