Category Archives: Food & Agriculture

  The government’s new advisory council on National Strategic Special Zones held its first meeting on Tuesday, January 7, and decided to focus in the coming two years on tackling so-called “bedrock” regulations, whose abolishment have been hampered for decades by strong opposition from related industries and ministries. The law to designate special zones across Japan with looser regulations and special tax incentives was passed in the Diet in December. The advisory council headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which is vested with strong authority in determining the course of the government, aims to experiment with drastic deregulatory measures in the zones – the centerpiece of Abe’s growth strategy to … Continue reading →

  The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will focus on encouraging consolidation of farmlands between fiscal 2013 and 2015, by establishing a fund to offer more money to districts which provide larger proportion of land to farmland consolidation banks. The banks will be created in each prefecture before the end of March in line with a legislation passed in the Diet. The banks will rent farmlands from aged farmers and others who have difficulty cultivating the land, replot them to form larger plots with proper agricultural infrastructure and lend them to large-scale farmers and agricultural corporations. The ministry hopes to work intensively in the three years to speed up … Continue reading →

  The area of abandoned farmlands is estimated to total 272,000 hectares nationwide as of 2012, dropping for two consecutive years, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The decline is due to increasing area of recovered farmlands and shifting of abandoned farmlands into forests and plains. The ministry has since 2008 been encouraging local governments and agricultural commissions in each municipality to take such measures to reduce abandoned farmlands. As a result, the area of abandoned farmlands peaked at 292,000 hectares in 2010, and has continued to shrink since then, marking 278,000 hectares in 2011 and 272,000 hectares in 2012. Meanwhile, the area of recovered farmlands has … Continue reading →

  The government will allocate more funds for prefectures with larger decline in government-set rice production targets, so that the prefectures can promote changes to other crops, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries told prefectural governments’ officials Wednesday, December 25. The decision came as part of the government’s efforts to decrease nationwide production of rice varieties consumed as staple food, in addition to setting production limits, as declining consumption of rice by Japanese people is prompting the government to offer various incentives for farmers to grow other crops, including wheat, soybeans and rice varieties used for animal feed and processed foods. Since the government’s target to limit production of … Continue reading →