The legislation, The New Fundamental Law of Food, Agriculture and
Agricultural
Communities " (hereafter referred as the "Fundamental Law") was finally
introduced in the
current session of the National Diet after five years of heated debate.
The most significant
aspects of this bill are its two underlying concepts, "food security" and
"enhancement of the
multi-faceted functions of agriculture and the agricultural community".
More precisely, it should be appreciated that the concept of food
security is being
seriously recognized by setting the increase of food self-sufficiency rate
as a statutory goal. This
is a manifestation of Japan's will to set and achieve a national goal of
food self-sufficiency at a
particular level. This move is the result of a national consensus, which
has determined that
improvement in the the food self-sufficiency rate is in the national
interest.
It is now clear that the basis of food security policy is the expansion
of Japan's food
production capacity. This policy includes determining how much planted
acreage there should
be, how to best preserve agricultural land and how to educate and retain
experienced
agricultural practitioners.
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