Participants of a rally in Tokyo calls for increased agriculture spending on Tuesday, December 17.
The Japan Agricultural Cooperatives and its national political body held a rally in Tokyo on Tuesday, December 17, to urge the government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to increase budget spending for agriculture, as fiscal 2014 will be the beginning year for the government’s 10-year plan to double farmers’ incomes and the introduction of Japanese-style direct payment system for rice farmers.
Some 500 JA members and 140 Diet members who attended the meeting agreed to demand that the government allocate more than JPY 2.56 trillion on agriculture, equivalent to the amount allocated for fiscal 2009, the time before the power takeover by the Democratic Party of Japan. The LDP, which maintains closer relationship with farmers than the DPJ, regained power in December last year.
Akira Banzai, head of the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives (JA Zenchu), said that in order to remove farmers’ worries over the new agricultural policy and to motivate farmers to develop more, it is indispensable to establish policies and legislations which take into account farmers’ business realities, and allocate sufficient budget spending on agriculture.
Referring to the new payment system to be introduced in fiscal 2014, they asked that the central government secure funding sources to reduce burdens on local authorities. They also called on the government to financially support the farmland consolidation bank which is expected to be set up in each prefecture next year, and to largely increase spending on subsidies which can be used at each region’s discretion to select and develop locally-based crops to switch from rice.
LDP Diet members present at the meeting expressed their determination to increase farm-related spending. Gen Nakatani, former chairman of the LDP’s research commission on agriculture, forestry and fisheries strategy, stressed that the fiscal 2014 budget will be the first one to realize the 10-year plan to double farmers’ income and the revitalization plan for the agricultural industry and rural areas adopted earlier this month. “We will work on expanding the squeezed farm-related budget and implement measures which will be appreciated by local areas,” Nakatani said.
(Dec. 18, 2013)