 What's New
 Index
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 The Objective the Current Fundamental Law of Agriculture |
| The bill, "The New Fundamental Law of Food, Agriculture and Agricultural
Communities" (hereafter the "Fundamental Law") is expected to provide the
future overall legal
framework of Japanese agriculture. What is the gist of the contents of
this legislation and how
was it developed? We have obtained the following explanation directly from
Mr. Toyohisa
Aoyama, a planning officer in the Minister's Secretariat, Ministry of
Agriculture Forestry and
Fisheries . First, concerning the current law: there are fifteen laws in Japan which are "fundamental laws" and the current agricultural fundamental law is the third of these, promulgated in 1961. During that period, Japan was experiencing rapid economic growth, with an excessive population in agricultural communities while urban areas suffered a chronicle labor shortage. So, in those days, our efforts were aimed at the transfer of population from rural communities to urban areas and to shift to large scale farming with fewer farmers. The intended goals were to enhance productivity and profitability, to make agriculture a viable industry and to narrow the gap between urban and rural living standards. That was the blueprint of the current fundamental agricultural law and three pillars sustain this law. 1. Production policy: A portion of the production effort is saved by diminishing demand and this effort is then transferred to production in the growing fields such as livestock, fruits and vegetables while rice production did remain on increasing side as well. 2. Pricing and distribution policy : In those days, the distribution network was quite inefficient and the immediate improvement was the target. Pricing policy was aimed at stabilizing prices so as not to increase the burden on the consumers and to prevent abrupt fluctuation in prices to assure stable production. 3. Structural reformation: Expanding the size of farms so as to make agriculture comparable to the scale of other industries was clearly the aim of the current fundamental law of agricultural. Yet, socio-economic change derailed this approach. The rapid economic growth policy pushed land prices upward, making farmers more conservative and possessive with respect to their land, which in turn made the consolidation of farm land into large scale cooperative operations impossible. The concept was good, but reality made it unobtainable. |
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