The Council for Promotion of Regulatory Reform, Shinzo Abe’s administration advisory panel, made a final list of recommendations, on November 7, concerning reforms which are to be implemented by ZEN-NOH (National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Association) or a national business organization of agricultural cooperatives (JAs) as well as by designated organizations of raw milk producers.
One of the key recommendations made by the Council calls for ZEN-NOH to drastically reform its farm input supply business which receives commissions from farmers through its member JAs in accordance with supply prices of agricultural inputs.
The panel urges that ZEN-NOH should reform its supply business into a kind of consulting service which provides farmers with advices on purchasing cheaper inputs. ZEN-NOH is recommended to pull out of the supply business and further strengthen its business activities of marketing farm products shipped by farmers.
With regard to a reform on raw milk distribution, the Council recommends that a designated organizations’ consignment marketing system of all the raw milk produced by dairy farmers should be abolished in principle. Concrete proposals for implementing the reforms will be publicized by the end of this week.
Prime Minister Shizo Abe joined the November 7 meeting of the panel and emphasized the necessity of ZEN-NOH’s reform as a touchstone of the structural reform of the Japanese agriculture by saying “ZEN-NOH is now urged to renovate its business system as well as its organizational structure with determination of being reborn as a new organization.”
Prime Minster also mentioned that conditions surrounding the raw milk distribution should be revised into a fair business environment by improving the designated organizations system so that dairy farmers will be able not only to have a wider option of selecting a marketing channel for their raw milk, but also to increase their income by reducing their distribution cost.
“I will take my responsibility of implementing these two reforms,” Shinzo Abe said to conclude his remarks at the meeting of the Council.