LDP’s leaflet explaining its 10-year strategy to double farmers’ income (below) and DPJ’s bulletin criticizing the plan (above).
As the Diet’s regular session closed on Wednesday, June 26, political parties are all ready to campaign for the Upper House election in July. In addition to the ongoing argument over Japan’s entry in to the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks, the key agricultural issue at hand is the Liberal Democratic Party’s pledge to double farmers’ income over the next 10 years, as opposition parties are questioning the viability of the plan. The LDP handed out leaflets explaining the plan in detail, while the Democratic Party of Japan published a special edition of its bulletin featuring criticisms on the LDP plan.
Opposition parties volleyed a string of questions on the plan at the Lower House committee on agriculture, forestry and fisheries on Wednesday, June 19, criticizing the plan for not taking into consideration the impact of the TPP. They also questioned the LDP’s goal of doubling exports of agricultural products as a means to increase farmers’ income, as Tadayoshi Nagashima, vice minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, explained that it also includes exports of food products made from imported ingredients. A DPJ member noted that it is quite different from how farmers would interpret the word “income.” Similar criticisms also came from the Japan Restoration Party, Your Party, the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party.
In order to win public support on the plan, the LDP issued a leaflet explaining in detail its 10-year plan to double farmers’ income. It describes using illustrations the key policies for realizing the plan as “15 arrows” shot toward the target. The key policies include doubling the number of new farmers and increasing the use of farmland by large-scale, motivated farmers to 80% from the current 49%. The LDP printed 250,000 copies and handed them out to its prefectural chapters and those planning to run for the Upper House election, with requests for additional copies already coming. Yasuhiro Ozato, director of the party’s agriculture and forestry division, said that they worked on making an easy-to-understand leaflet so that the party’s policies will be more convincible for farmers.
Meanwhile, the DPJ created a special edition bulletin, calling the LDP’s pledge “hype.” Agricultural Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said during Diet discussions that the target of doubling income over the next 10 years will be possible on the presupposition that the Japanese economy marks a 2% growth every year, but Yuichiro Tamaki, a Lower House member of DPJ who was involved in publishing the bulletin, said that it is just a calculation without grounds.
The bulletin notes that the LDP’s target of doubling exports of agricultural products does not really lead to increasing domestic farmers’ income, because the predicted export increase is mainly dependent on rises in exports of processed food such as fermented soybean paste (miso), soy sauce and snacks, many of which include products made completely from imported ingredients.
The bulletin also explains about the legislation for the individual-household income compensation system submitted jointly by Diet members of ruling and opposition parties, in an apparent move to make it the point at issue in the coming election.
(June 27, 2013)