The Council for Promotion of Regulatory Reform, Government’s advisory panel, chaired by Hiroko Ota, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, made an announcement on its final recommendation on Japanese agricultural reform on November 28.
At the meeting of the Council, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pointed out that a number of challenges should be tackled by ZEN-NOH and other agricultural cooperative organizations in the country.
With regard to ZEN-NOH (National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations) or a national business organization of agricultural cooperatives (JAs), Prime Minister Abe reiterated that it should promote self-reforms of its business system with determination of being reborn as a new organization, saying, “I hope ZEN-NOH will work out its annual plan and disclose target figures and achievements in ways understandable to farmers as well as the public.
Furthermore, Shinzo Abe directed the advisory panel to closely watch how the ZEN-NOH reform plan will progress.
A centerpiece of the recommendation made by the panel is that ZEN-NOH should supply farm inputs such as fertilizers and feedstuffs to farmers with cheaper prices by strengthening its bargaining power for price negotiations with manufacturers of agricultural materials.
The advisory panel emphasizes in its recommendation that the administration should take every possible step to make ZEN-NOH realize the reform so as to accelerate reformation of the agricultural cooperative organizations.