Policy change is needed to rebuild Japanese agriculture and improve food self-sufficiency -- Akahata editorial, July 6

Policies political parties put forward for food and agriculture are being put to the test in the Upper House election.

A string of incidents threatening food safety, including the outbreaks of BSE and bird flu, residual pesticides detected in imported food products, and falsified food labeling, has deepened people's concern about the nation's food self-sufficiency which is at only 40 percent, the lowest among the major countries. Effective measures must be taken to overcome the situation without delay.

The Japanese Communist Party strongly calls for a shift in agricultural policy to increase domestic farm production in many ways and raise the nation's food self-sufficiency to above 50 percent as early as possible.

LDP agricultural policy at an impasse

The Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of Japan, and the Komei Party are calling for Japan's food self-sufficiency rate to be raised to 45-50 percent. To achieve this end, they call for "direct payments" to family farmers in subsidies to support producers' income.

The LDP's agricultural policy, however, is a main cause of the extraordinary drop in the nation's food self-sufficiency rate. Acceding to U.S. and business circles' demands above anything else, the LDP government unconditionally accepted the WTO agreement forcing Japan to completely open its market to foreign farm products, end the price-support policy, and ease the food safety standards. With these measures, domestic farm production has declined and farmers are having difficulties in continuing farming.

If they seriously seek an increase in the food self-sufficiency rate, they must turn the present agricultural policy into a direction that heads for the diverse development of domestic agricultural production. However, the LDP-Komei government led by Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro has done nothing to curb the inflow of foreign farm products or to stop the plunge in farm prices. It instead promotes a policy that only calls for an expansion in scale of domestic farming without taking into account the current conditions. It also tries to postpone achieving the goal of increasing the self-sufficiency rate to 45 percent by 2010 in accordance with the Basic Law on Food, Agriculture, and Rural Areas. The LDP-Komei "election promise" deserves to be regarded as a fraud.

On the premise of trade liberalization of farm products, the policies of the DPJ and the Social Democratic Party also abandon the price-support system which is essential for increasing production.

These parties are calling for the "direct payment system" to be implemented in order to support farmers. Although it is a possible measure to be taken within the framework of the WTO Agriculture Agreement, the WTO prohibits the system from being used to stimulate production. Furthermore, the LDP insists that the direct payment system should be applied only to large farmland owners and corporate bodies, and the Komei Party says that only "meaningful management entities" should be qualified to receive the payment. Such policies will pave the way for abandoning farm producing centers and family farmers, which means that this can be no guarantee to support farmers and improve production.

Support production and family farming

The Japanese Communist Party has been stressing the need to set an agricultural price that guarantees the survival of family farmers and calling for a state program to support the price. It is also calling for the direct payment system to be implemented to support farmers in disadvantaged regions and to value farmland's multiple functions, including maintaining the environment.

Half of the national budget for agriculture and fisheries which is more than 3 trillion yen is used for public development. Although only 30 percent of the budget is used to support the price and farmers' income, it can be increased to 1 trillion yen by reviewing the budget.

EU countries are carrying out programs to support producer prices and directly subsidize farmers. The United States reintroduced its price-support system. It is common in the world to combine those two programs.

An increasing number of people are calling for a revision of the WTO Agricultural Agreement in order to allow each country to support family farmers suffering under profit-seeking multinational corporations, increase self-sufficiency rates, and establish food sovereignty. The JCP is the only Japanese party to stand in firm solidarity with these calls. (end)