Category Archives: Food & Agriculture

Revised Act on Protection of the Names of Specific Agricultural, Forestry and Fishery Products and Foodstuffs or Geographical Indication (GI) Act was put into effect on December 26, 2016. The revised GI Act makes it possible for the Japanese government to protect names of farm and other primary industry products mutually with governments of other countries through an international agreement. Under the latest system of the revised Act, local producers will find it unnecessary to individually make an application to a foreign government concerned for GI protection of their products. It is expected not only that the GI protection will be more guaranteed in the overseas market, but also that … Continue reading →

A retail price of rice produced in 2016, a staple food for Japanese people, has not been rising as much as expected, the Japan Agricultural News’ latest survey found. According to the survey, prices of 5-kg rice packages are centering mostly around 1800 yen in the consumer market, 50 to 100 yen or 3 to 5 percent up over the previous year. The increase in price is still smaller than that in advance payments made by local agricultural cooperatives and other trading firms to rice producers, which rose by 10 to 15 percent. In many rice producing areas, the advance payments, which is equivalent to 80 to 90 percent of … Continue reading →

Gross farm output was worth 8.7979 trillion yen in 2015, 5.2 percent up over the previous year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). The gross agricultural production exceeded that in the previous year for the first time in three years due to price level rises not only of livestock products, mainly brought about by a shortage of wagyu (Japanese beef cattle) calf supplies, but also of many vegetables and rice in the market. Behind an increase in the total value of farm output, however, quantity of agricultural production was reduced primarily because of a decrease in a number of producers, which warns that the Japanese farming … Continue reading →

ｃｖ The fiscal 2017 budget draft was approved by the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on December 22. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries-related budgets for fiscal 2017 totaled 2.3071 trillion yen, 2.0 billion yen less than those allocated for fiscal 2016. The budget allocation for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) was given a top priority to measures for enhancing agriculture’s international competitiveness. MAFF will increase its budget spending in fiscal 2017 on agricultural and rural consolidation projects aiming at farm land improvement particularly by expanding paddy field plots in the country. An amount of appropriation for the farm land improvement projects has increased to 402 billion yen … Continue reading →