Minggu, 14 Desember 2008

Japan's Food Security, by Alfajri

An article “Japan’s Food Security”, taken from internet(27.2.2008) by “Malcolm Cook of The Lowy Institute for International Policy in Australia” mainly discusses how Japan is to deal with agricultural liberalization as opposed to the the protectionism policy. Japan faces a demographic problem, both the decline of population in rural areas where farmers are born and rapid aging has changed Japan’s approach to food policy. Even though Japan is open to free trade, but there is a strategic plan for self-sufficiency by 2015 when any 45 percent of the total ratio of food consumption will be produced by local farmers.

Japan’s policy to protect the agricultural sector, especially on food security, based on opinion that food is the same important as military, so Japan should not rely on other country. The government through The Ministry of Agricultural Forestry and Fisheries has organized the farmers politically.This policy has been taken to fulfill the farmers interest who have great power in the election poll, because “agricultural villages exist in many of 29 single-seat constituencies with election races”

Ironically, now Japan tries to liberalize the agricultural sector by opening the free trade policy as the impact of demographic obstacle. As an example, Japan has signed a bilateral agreement with Australia which is called as “economic partnership agreement” (EPA). This policy worries the Japanese because Japan allows the large number of foreign product in agricultural sector to penetrate the domestic market.

To protect the local farmers and relief the Japanese worries, the government provide 430 billion Yen in offset for prices differences between Japanese and Australian product. Critics come from the opposition, Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and it proposed to the government to provide full subsidy for the local farmers rather than relied on import. The government responded to that the opposition try to scatter the money because the government is not completely rely on import.

Therefore, the government made a provision to introduce a new subsidy policy for local farmers. By implementing this agenda, it is expected to increase the amount of production and attain 45 percent of the total consumption by 2015.

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