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Can Japanese Agriculture Overcome Dependence and Decline?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Yukie Yoshikawa
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Agriculture in Japan suffers from a wide range of problems, including a low food self-sufficiency rate of only 41% and an inflexible farmland market. Rather than seriously tackling these problems, the Japanese government has chosen to compensate farmers through import restrictions, subsidies and price supports. These measures, aimed at addressing the widening urban-rural income gap and assuring the Liberal Democratic Party's rural base, raised Japanese rice prices to among the highest in the world and further reduced food self-sufficiency. Japan's farm support initiatives began in the 1960s and were promoted by Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei as “Nihon Rettō Kaizō Ron” (Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago). The large infrastructure projects launched under this program provided public works jobs in rural and urban areas that boosted incomes of rural communities but did little to stay the decline of agriculture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 26 , June 2010 , e3
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2010

References

Notes

1 2008 figure. Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery, Japan (MAFF) website.

2 The Republic of Korea (ROK) followed Japan around the late 1980s. For example, in Japan the percentage of the national budget devoted to agriculture doubled agriculture's portion of the GDP for the first time in the late 1960s, while in the ROK that happened in the 2000s. In China in the mid-1970s, Deng Xiaoping announced that China was entering the first stage of modernization under the slogan of the Four Modernizations, claiming that those who could get rich quickly (including in the coastal region, such as Shenzhen) should indeed get rich. Signs of the transition to the second stage in China are starting to show today. See Hara Takeshi and Waseda Daigaku Taiwan Kenkyūjo ed, Gurōbarizēshon-ka no Higashi Ajia no Nōgyō to Nōson: Nichi/ Chū/ Kan/ Tai no Hikaku [East Asian Agriculture and Rural Villages under Globalization: Comparison of Japan, China, Korea, and Taiwan] (Tokyo: Fujiwara Shoten, 2008), 167; Chen Zhonghuan, Crisis of Chinese Agriculture and the Meaning of its Transition into Protection Policy (Tokyo: Hihyōsha, 2008), 3.

3 MAFF website.

4 The Japanese archipelagos except Hokkaidō are mountainous or hilly (73% of the total area has these features) and have few plains. Hokkaidō is regarded as exceptional. Thus, the figures used in this article exclude Hokkaidō, unless otherwise indicated.

5 The 2009 figure. MAFF website.

6 Gōdō Yoshihisa, Nihon no Shoku to Nō: Kiki no Honshitsu [Food and Agriculture in Japan: Core of Crisis] (Tokyo: NTT Shuppan, 2006), 134.

7 MAFF, Farmland Census, 2005.

8 The 2009 figure. MAFF website.

9 MAFF website.

10 Gōdō Yoshihisa, Nihon no Shoku to Nō: Kiki no Honshitsu [Food and Agriculture in Japan: Core of Crisis] (Tokyo: NTT Shuppan, 2006), 146.

11 Ibid, 131-4.

12 Ibid.

13 Yamashita Kazuhito, “Let Corporations Play a Role in Reviving Japanese Agriculture”, December 2, 2008, Tokyo Foundation website.

14 MAFF website.

15 Gōdō Yoshihisa, Nihon no Shoku to Nō: Kiki no Honshitsu [Food and Agriculture in Japan: Core of Crisis] (Tokyo: NTT Shuppan, 2006), 138-9.

16 Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Statistics Bureau website. Links 1, 2.

17 Ibid.

18 Gōdō Yoshihisa, Nihon no Shoku to Nō: Kiki no Honshitsu [Food and Agriculture in Japan: Core of Crisis] (Tokyo: NTT Shuppan, 2006), 147-8.

19 Ibid, 156-9.

20 MAFF, Farmland Census, 2005.

21 MAFF, “Kōchi Menseki [Farmland Areas], various years, MAFF website.

22 Gōdō Yoshihisa, Nihon no Shoku to Nō: Kiki no Honshitsu [Food and Agriculture in Japan: Core of Crisis] (Tokyo: NTT Shuppan, 2006), 157-8.

23 Includes well-known expensive rice brand farmers in Uonuma city, Niigata.

24 Yamashita Kazuhito, “The Pros and Cons of Japan's Rice Acreage-Reduction Policy”, October, 07, 2008, Tokyo Foundation website.

25 Gōdō Yoshihisa, Nihon no Shoku to Nō: Kiki no Honshitsu [Food and Agriculture in Japan: Core of Crisis] (Tokyo: NTT Shuppan, 2006), 100-4.

26 Ibid.

27 Yamashita Kazuhito, “The Pros and Cons of Japan's Rice Acreage-Reduction Policy”, October, 07, 2008, Tokyo Foundation website.

28 Yamashita Kazuhito, “Nihon no Shokuryō Jikyūritsu ha Naze Teika shitanoka [Why did Japan's Food Self-Sufficiency Rate is so low?]”, August 27, 2008, Tokyo Foundation website.

29 Tokyo Foundation website.

32 Hara Takeshi and Waseda Daigaku Taiwan Kenkyūjo ed, Gurōbarizēshon-ka no Higashi Ajia no Nōgyō to Nōson: Nichi/ Chū/ Kan/ Tai no Hikaku [East Asian Agriculture and Rural Villages under Globalization: Comparison of Japan, China, Korea, and Taiwan] (Tokyo: Fujiwara Shoten, 2008), 51.

33 MAFF, “WTO Nōgyō Kōshō no Genjō [The Current Status of WTO Agricultural Negotiations]”, March, 2010, MAFF website, 3.

34 MAFF website.

35 2009 figure. MAFF website.

36 Yamashita Kazuhito, “Minshutō no Manifesuto no Mondai [Problems on the DPJ's Manifesto]”, August 20, 2009, Tokyo Foundation website.

37 Yamashita Kazuhito, “Tokei no Hari wo 30nen Modoshita Jimintō Nōsei [The LDP Agricultural Policy that Made Japanese Agriculture Obsolete for 30 Years]”, July 9, 2009, Tokyo Foundation website.

38 MAFF, “21 Seiki Shin Nōsei 2008: Shokuryō Jijō no Henka ni Taiō shita Shokuryō no Antei Kyōkyū Taisei no Kakuritsu ni Mukete” [New Agricultural Policy 2008 in the 21st Century: Targeting a Stable Food Supply System in Align with Changes in Agriculture], May 7, 2008, MAFF website.

39 Ibid.

40 Hara Takeshi and Waseda Daigaku Taiwan Kenkyūjo ed, Gurōbarizēshon-ka no Higashi Ajia no Nōgyō to Nōson: Nichi/ Chū/ Kan/ Tai no Hikaku [East Asian Agriculture and Rural Villages under Globalization: Comparison of Japan, China, Korea, and Taiwan] (Tokyo: Fujiwara Shoten, 2008), 59-74.

41 MAFF website.

42 According to the DPJ's Nōgyōsha Kobetsu Shotoku Hoshō bill submitted to the Upper House in 2007, the DPJ estimated the cost as 1 trillion yen. Upper House, Nōgyōsha Kobetsu Shotoku Hoshō Hōan [Bill for Kobetsu Shotoku Hoshō to Farmers], Upper House website.

43 Hara Takeshi and Waseda Daigaku Taiwan Kenkyūjo ed, Gurōbarizēshon-ka no Higashi Ajia no Nōgyō to Nōson: Nichi/ Chū/ Kan/ Tai no Hikaku [East Asian Agriculture and Rural Villages under Globalization: Comparison of Japan, China, Korea, and Taiwan] (Tokyo: Fujiwara Shoten, 2008), 95.

44 The MAFF renamed the policies Suiden/ Hatasaku Keiei Shotoku Antei Taisaku in 2008. The MAFF website.

45 DPJ, Minshutō Seisakushū INDEX 2009, DPJ website.

46 Yamashita Kazuhito, “Minshutō no Manifesuto no Mondai [Problems on the DPJ's Manifesto]”, August 20, 2009, Tokyo Foundation website.

47 Gōdō Yoshihisa, Nihon no Shoku to Nō: Kiki no Honshitsu [Food and Agriculture in Japan: Core of Crisis] (Tokyo: NTT Shuppan, 2006), 117-8.

48 Hara Takeshi. Nihon no Nōgyō [Japanese Agriculture] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1994), 40.

49 The subsidized area will be the total area minus 10 a, assuming the crop from the 10 a is consumed by the farmer's family.

50 MAFF, “Heisei 22 Nendo Nōrin Suisan Kankei Yosan no Shuyō Jikō”, MAFF website.

51 MAFF, “Heisei 22nendo Nōrin Suisan Yosan Gaisan Yōkyū no Shūyō Jikō [Primary Agenda in Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Budget Request for FY2010]”, October 2009, MAFF website.

52 Yamashita Kazuhito, “Minshutō ha Nōsei Toraianguru wo Hōkai saseru [The DPJ will destroy the Agricultural Circle Triangle]”, July 22, 2009, Tokyo Foundation website.

53 Ibid.

54 MAFF, “Heisei 22nendo Nōrin Suisan Yosan Gaisan Yōkyū no Shūyō Jikō [Primary Agenda in Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Budget Request for FY2010]”, October 2009, MAFF website.