Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet adopted its growth strategy goals and fiscal policy blueprints on Friday, June 14, aimed at pulling the nation out of prolonged deflation and paving the way for economic revitalization. We appreciate the government’s recognition that the nation’s recovery is not possible without restoration of the agricultural sector, but we cannot overlook the fact that the government places high priority on Japan’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks. This contradicts completely its policy of emphasizing the importance of agriculture, and even leads the agricultural sector to further deterioration. In order to revitalize the nation, the government must swiftly withdraw from the TPP negotiations and shift its policies from a single-minded focus on efficiency.
The biggest issue at stake for the Abe administration is to avoid the nation’s socioeconomic conditions, which are hit hard during the so-called “lost 20 years,” from weakening further and to put them back on their feet. Particularly in rural areas, farming and fishing villages are seriously impoverished, industrial plants are closed and many shopping streets are deteriorated. The “lost 20 years” is true for the agricultural sector as well. Prices of agricultural products remain sluggish, and more villages are having difficulty finding successors due to the harsh business environment.
Such situations in the rural areas came about as a result of putting priority on improving cost competitiveness and deregulation in the wave of globalization. Similar trends are now being found in metropolitan areas. To come up with solutions to reenergize the nation, it is necessary to accurately understand the reasons why they came about. Nevertheless, discussions on the growth strategy and fiscal policies, led by the Prime Minister’s Office, mainly focused on making further progress in globalization, including the entry into the TPP negotiations, and implementing vigorous deregulation and structural reform, both of which can worsen still further the situation brought about during the “lost 20 years.”
What is needed now is to break away from the idea of making efficiency the one and only goal. In its counterproposal to the government’s agricultural policies, the Japan Agricultural group noted that there are limits to improving cost competitiveness in the agricultural sector. In order to revitalize farming to support socioeconomic stability in rural areas, it stressed the importance of increasing farmers’ income and food self-sufficiency by making the best use of the strengths of domestic farming, including safety, freshness and high quality.
In its growth strategy, the government set a target of doubling income in the agricultural industry and farm villages in a decade, with the aim of recovering the nation’s agriculture sector. The major policies include creating new businesses through cooperation of the agricultural sector and related industries under what is called the “sixth industry” approach, doubling exports of agricultural products and cutting costs through farmland consolidation. The policies have not yet won the support of farmers, as their effectiveness is still unclear.
The government plans to come up with specific plans by the end of this year, after discussing measures at the newly created headquarters for revitalizing the agricultural sector and rural communities headed by Abe. Yet, concerns remain over pressure for deregulation growing in the government. We ask the government to recognize that depending on improving efficiency alone has reached its limits in revitalizing the nation and its agricultural sector. We strongly urge the government to implement concrete measures to double farmers’ income by utilizing the huge potential of the rural communities, so that the strategy does not turn out to be a pie in the sky.
(June 15, 2013)