The government will take new measures from the 2015 fiscal year to pay more subsidies to agricultural activities in “super-steep areas” with extremely steep gradient through the direct payment system for intermediate and mountainous areas, which provides subsidies to agricultural activities in those areas, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) said Wednesday, August 20. They will provide more support to the areas in a worse condition that impose more burdens on farming. The necessary budget will be included in the fiscal 2015 budget requests.
The MAFF proposed a plan of important matters to be included in the fiscal 2015 budget requests at the joint meeting of agriculture and forestry-related groups which the Liberal Democratic Party held Wednesday. The MAFF explained in the meeting how they would revise the system.
Under the current system, rice fields, farms, meadows and grazing land are categorized as “steep slope areas” or “gentle slope areas” according to their gradient. More subsidies are provided to steep slope areas in a severe condition. As for farms, for example, areas with the inclination of more than 15 degrees are regarded as steep slope areas, and those with more than 8 degrees as gentle slope areas. The subsidies per 10 acres are JPY11,500 and JPY3,500 respectively.
There were strong calls, however, for more generous support in the communities where more labor was required to keep conditions of the land. The MAFF concluded that the new measures offering more subsidies to super-steep slope areas are needed in order to change the system in accordance with actual situations of the production areas. The details of the revision such as criteria for choosing super-steep slope areas or for adding subsidies will be discussed by the end of next week.
In the joint meeting, the MAFF also announced that they are examining to loosen income restrictions from the fiscal 2015 concerning “subsidies for young new farmers (who commence farm management)” that provide JPY1.5 million every year to new farmers. Under the present system, they will stop offering the money if the recipient’s income of the previous year exceeds JPY2.5 million. The MAFF will make the system more flexible so that they don’t have to stop the money immediately, but can decrease the amount of subsidies.
Moreover, as the MAFF is trying to introduce “the income-compensation system” that will compensate income decrease due to, for example, a fall in prices of farm products, they will discuss the framework of the system by this fall. It was announced that they will experimentally put it into effect in the 2015 fiscal year.
(Aug. 21, 2014)