The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) is finalizing its outline request for agriculture, forestry and fisheries-related budgets for FY 2017.
The amount of MAFF’s estimated budget request for the next fiscal year totals 2.635 trillion yen, 14 percent up on its budget allocated for FY 2016, while it is almost similar to its budget request for FY 2016.
Stakeholders will shift their focus to how the MAFF’s budget request will be met at the final budget compilation this December.
MAFF requests the Ministry of Finance to allocate a farm land improvement budget of 355.5 billion yen for its agriculture and rural society consolidation projects, 20 percent more than that of the FY 2016 budget.
With a view to meeting the requests of the ruling parties and stakeholders at grass-root level, MAFF plans to increase the budget of the farm land improvement projects up to the amount which was considerably reduced by the former administration of the then Democratic Party of Japan.
A budget to be requested for the rice production adjustment, or direct payments for feed rice and other non-rice crop producers on paddy fields, will be 332.2 billion yen, 8 percent up on the FY 2016 budget, reflecting the current situation that planting of feed rice has increasingly spread throughout the country.