Akira Banzai, president of the Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives (JA-Zenchu), said Wednesday, Aug. 27 that the JA group’s self-reform will become the focus of his second term as the group’s head.
“We will soon compile our policies based on the JA group’s own will, taking into account its members’ perspective,” Banzai said during a press conference at Japan National Press Club. In considering measures to reform the group, including revising the system of central and prefectural unions of agricultural co-operatives supervising primary co-ops, he said top priority will be put on increasing agricultural production and income.
He stressed that reform measures will be decided in the discussions to be made among the JA group, adding that the government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have said they will work on revising the Agricultural Co-operative Act based on the JA group’s own reform plan.
Banzai also said the group will revise the role and position of the central and prefectural unions in line with recent changes such as increasing mergers of agricultural co-operatives. He said he has asked the group’s advisory panel to discuss how the unions should function in the new system and how they should be treated legally.
Referring to the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade negotiations, Banzai said Japan’s agricultural industry is not in a state of competing with zero tariffs against major agricultural countries. “Japan’s agriculture will be devastated (if tariffs are reduced or eliminated in the TPP talks),” he said, expressing determination to continue urging the government to meet the resolutions adopted by the agricultural committees of the upper and lower houses of the Diet which call for protection of key agricultural products.
(Aug. 28, 2014)