Japan: Priority Measures for Agricultural Policy Reform
The article analyses the major components of farm reform and possibilities of its realization. The goal of the agricultural reform is to create strong, “aggressive” agriculture, giving priority to reduce production costs without reducing quality of agricultural products in order to make Japan's agriculture competitive in overseas markets. The main measures to achieve this purpose are as follows: expansion and consolidation of farmlands, reorganizing them into larger farming units for larger-scale strongly motivated business farmers; termination of decades-old system for adjusting rice production; the promotion of higher value-added on agriculture; raising of agricultural income; export expansion in greater quantities; development and extension of new varieties and technologies including robot and information/communication technologies for growing labor-saving farm and livestock products superb in quality; amendment of the agricultural cooperative system's activities in a way to make farmers more competitive and raise their income.