【News】 Let giant potato skeletons link the world (Oct. 11, 2015)

Kazuhiro Eguchi – Big potato artwork on display (Memuro-cho, Hokkaido) – A unique display of big wooden potato skeletons is now open to the public in Memuro-cho, Hokkaido. The artwork is built in an old red brick warehouse, which is owned by JA Memuro, an agricultural co-op in Memuro, by a 78-year-old contemporary artist, Osamu Asano, and local farmers. It took four years for him and his supporters to complete the project whose goal is “making more people to think about   food and peace through art works.” The biggest potato inside the red brick building is six meters high and ten meters wide. Scrap woods gathered from old school buildings … Continue reading

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【Interview】 Japan made too large concessions for the sake of reaching deal in TPP talks: farm policy expert (Oct. 7, 2015)

  Shinji Hattori, head of Kokusai-Nosei Kenkyusho (International Agricultural Policy Research Institute), criticized Japan for making too many concessions in the agricultural sector of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade negotiations, casting doubt over whether the TPP agreement would help boost domestic farming. The Japanese government was so eager to strike a broad agreement under the TPP scheme that it apparently failed to take a hard stance especially against the United States. As for the most controversial issue of rice, Japanese negotiators ended up allocating more import quota for U.S. rice than what was reported earlier. The negotiators should have held their ground until the last moment. The reason why they were … Continue reading

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【Editor’s column】 Now it’s the lawmakers’ turn (Oct. 7, 2015)

  Editor in Chief, Kazushiro Tamiya Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks, member nations are supposed to liberalize 95 percent of the tariff lines. Japan will not be able to achieve this target unless it liberalizes a part of the five key farm items. In addition to this, the government will largely reduce tariffs, including cutting import duty on beef to 9 percent over 15 years, establish special import quotas for rice and dairy products and abolish tariffs on other items, all of which represent unprecedented levels of market liberalization. The deal poses a great risk of considerably weakening the nation’s foundation for agricultural production and food security. If you compare the … Continue reading

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【News】 Government to set Cabinet task force to minimize negative effects of TPP deal: Abe (Oct. 7, 2015)

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday, Oct. 6, that the government will create a task force to tackle any negative impact on domestic industries from a possible surge in agricultural imports, following the agreement of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade scheme reached the previous day. The task force, which will include all Cabinet members, will be launched after Akira Amari, minister in charge of the talks, returns from Atlanta where the TPP member nations held a ministerial meeting. It aims to come up with a package of measures to deal with the issue before the government submits a bill to approve the TPP deal to the Diet. “The whole government will … Continue reading

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【Focus】 Bumpy road ahead for domestic agriculture industry (Oct. 7, 2015)

  TPP agreement: five key items Takanori Okabe, Satomi Tamai and Hayato Niki – Atlanta Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement, Japan accepted large cuts in tariffs and establishment of new import quotas for some of the sensitive agricultural products such as rice and beef. The government has negotiated with the aim of avoiding sharp increases in imports through maintaining government-controlled trading systems and introducing safeguard measures. However, it is unclear whether they are effective enough to prevent damage to the domestic farm industry. Here are what Japan has agreed upon under the TPP talks concerning the five key agricultural items. <Rice> Tariff-free quotas set for U.S. and Australia Rice … Continue reading

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