No. 1354 Bill to Revise Basic Act on Agriculture – Future Hope Not Indicated
Debates are currently going in the House of Councilors on the bill to revise the Basic Act on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas, following its approval by the House of Representatives. It is the first, full-scale revision after 25 years from the enactment. What is needed is improving a food self-sufficiency ratio, restoring the income compensation scheme for individual private farmers and intensifying the Green Strategy.
A KEY IS TO IMPROVE FOOD SELF-SUFFICIENCY RATE
Japan’s agriculture and lives in rural regions have suffered from three difficulties for years, that is, depopulation, aging private farmers and absence of successors; they are consequences of liberalization of agricultural and livestock farming items. A 400 thousand hectares of cropland has been abandoned and 1.15 million farmers have given up cultivation. A rural life is on the verge of collapse.
Food self-sufficiency ratio remains around 20%
Amendments are proposed in the wake of a fact that people in general are acutely interested in food security, which comes from the crisis-ridden food supply system due to the recent Covid-19 catastrophe and the continuing war of Russia and Ukraine.
Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate has been lingered around 40-37% for the past 20 years. If ‘self-sufficiency of seeds and seedlings is combined, the figure declines to 20-strong percent’ (Specially-Appointed Professor Suzuki Nobuhiro, University of Tokyo). When this ratio is compared with those of other developed countries where 100% has been maintained, the situation in Japan is quite poor.
Withdraw a policy on ‘agriculture to cope with emergencies’
If a food self-sufficiency rate goes up, including restoring the Plant Variety Protection and Seed Act, that will be a key to reactivate agriculture in the country, not limited to increasing food production. The government must recover the ratio by mobilizing all means to deliver food to the people in a stable way.
The proposed bill, however, sticks, again and again, to a scheme to boost a large-scale agriculture production model, emphasizing ‘concentration of arable lands’, ‘enhancement of smart agriculture’, and ‘participation of business entities in agriculture’ - an idea based on an assumption that the core farm workers will be reduced to 300 thousand in coming 20 years (today 1.16 million private farmers).
The bill lacks consideration and review on the fact why agriculture in Japan has gone into decline. It does not show any hopeful future.
Meanwhile, the bill instructs to enact ‘a law to cope with situations in which food supply is hard’; it clearly states that the government will force farmers to cultivate rice, wheat and potato in ‘emergencies’, and if producers resist the direction, they will be fined. This represents ‘an emergency agriculture policy’. Such a bill will not solve difficulties we face today in agriculture, food and rural lives. It must be abolished immediately.
A locally-circulating production and consumption model
Consequently, to establish food security means reactivating agriculture - to remove anxieties of farming families and workers, prevent global warming and contribute to averting environmental and climatic crises.
For this purpose, it is necessary
to restore the income compensation scheme for individual private farmers, which was welcomed with great joy, including raising the food self-sufficiency rate,
to enhance the Green Strategy for Food System, in which the government will increase cultivation land up to 1 million hectares for organic agriculture and pay subsidies for environment preservation efforts, and
to create a system of ‘locally-circulating production and consumption’, whose main pillar is to use locally-produced agriculture and cattle farming goods for school lunch programs.
日本の農業・農山村はこの間、農畜産物の輸入自由化によって農業３Ｋ状態（過疎、高齢化、後継者不足）に陥り、40万haに及ぶ耕作放棄地の発生、離農者の続出（ １ １ ５ 万人）などにより崩壊寸前である。
自給率は二十数％
更に、新型コロナ禍やロシア・ウクライナ戦争による食料危機の進行などで、食料安全保障への国民の関心が一気に高まったところに今回の改定案となった。
わが国の食料自給率は20年以上も40％〜37％と低迷しており、「種子・種苗の自給も加えれば自給率は二十数％でしかない」（鈴木宣弘東大特任教授）という情況にある。自給率１００％を堅持する先進諸国と比較すれば全くお粗末というほかない。
「有事農政」撤回を
自給率の向上は、種子法の復活を含めて食料増産だけでなく農業再生のカギとなる。政府はあらゆる施策を総動員して自給率を向上させ、国民に安全な食料を安定的に保障しなければならない。
しかし、今回の改定案は基幹的農業者が20年後30万人（現状１１６万人）に減少することを前提に「農地の集約」、「スマート農a業の推進」、「企業の農業参入」など、相も変わらず大規模農業推進体制に固執する。
改定案には、日本の農業を衰退させた反省や総括はなく、農の未来も全く見えてこないのである。
一方で「食料供給困難事態対策法」を制定し、「有事」には農家にコメやムギ、イモなどの作付けを強要し、抵抗すれば罰金という「有事農政」が露骨だ。「食料供給困難対策法案」は農業・食料・農村の事態打開には繋がらない。直ちに撤回すべきだ。
「地域循環型」こそ
食料安全保障の確立は、つまるところ農業の再生ということであろう。それは農家・農業者の不安を取り除き、地球温暖化防止や環境・気候危機防止に貢献することである。
それには自給率向上はもとより、農家が大歓迎した「戸別所得補償制度」の復活、有機農業１００万haと環境支払いをあ実現させる「みどりの食料システム戦略」（みどり戦略）の振興、学校給食に地域の農畜産物を供給することを柱にした「地域循環農業」の確立が必要だ。
改定案には、そのことを強く求める。
英語版 ↓
No. 1354 Bill to Revise Basic Act on Agriculture – Future Hope Not Indicated
Debates are currently going in the House of Councilors on the bill to revise the Basic Act on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas, following its approval by the House of Representatives. It is the first, full-scale revision after 25 years from the enactment. What is needed is improving a food self-sufficiency ratio, restoring the income compensation scheme for individual private farmers and intensifying the Green Strategy.
A KEY IS TO IMPROVE FOOD SELF-SUFFICIENCY RATE
Japan’s agriculture and lives in rural regions have suffered from three difficulties for years, that is, depopulation, aging private farmers and absence of successors; they are consequences of liberalization of agricultural and livestock farming items. A 400 thousand hectares of cropland has been abandoned and 1.15 million farmers have given up cultivation. A rural life is on the verge of collapse.
Food self-sufficiency ratio remains around 20%
Amendments are proposed in the wake of a fact that people in general are acutely interested in food security, which comes from the crisis-ridden food supply system due to the recent Covid-19 catastrophe and the continuing war of Russia and Ukraine.
Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate has been lingered around 40-37% for the past 20 years. If ‘self-sufficiency of seeds and seedlings is combined, the figure declines to 20-strong percent’ (Specially-Appointed Professor Suzuki Nobuhiro, University of Tokyo). When this ratio is compared with those of other developed countries where 100% has been maintained, the situation in Japan is quite poor.
Withdraw a policy on ‘agriculture to cope with emergencies’
If a food self-sufficiency rate goes up, including restoring the Plant Variety Protection and Seed Act, that will be a key to reactivate agriculture in the country, not limited to increasing food production. The government must recover the ratio by mobilizing all means to deliver food to the people in a stable way.
The proposed bill, however, sticks, again and again, to a scheme to boost a large-scale agriculture production model, emphasizing ‘concentration of arable lands’, ‘enhancement of smart agriculture’, and ‘participation of business entities in agriculture’ - an idea based on an assumption that the core farm workers will be reduced to 300 thousand in coming 20 years (today 1.16 million private farmers).
The bill lacks consideration and review on the fact why agriculture in Japan has gone into decline. It does not show any hopeful future.
Meanwhile, the bill instructs to enact ‘a law to cope with situations in which food supply is hard’; it clearly states that the government will force farmers to cultivate rice, wheat and potato in ‘emergencies’, and if producers resist the direction, they will be fined. This represents ‘an emergency agriculture policy’. Such a bill will not solve difficulties we face today in agriculture, food and rural lives. It must be abolished immediately.
A locally-circulating production and consumption model
Consequently, to establish food security means reactivating agriculture - to remove anxieties of farming families and workers, prevent global warming and contribute to averting environmental and climatic crises.
For this purpose, it is necessary
The bill should design these concepts.
May 8, 2024