Rice fields reflecting invisible hunger: Japan's agrarian reform plan and the era of 40% self-sufficiency (around 2008)

Rice fields reflecting invisible hunger: Japan's agrarian reform plan and the era of 40% self-sufficiency (around 2008)

From the latter half of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century, while Japan's food supply appeared to be growing in abundance, the foundation was quietly thinning at its feet. The calorie-based food self-sufficiency rate, which was close to 80% around 1960, dropped to around 40% in the 2000s, and remained stagnant at that level for a long time. Rice consumption was declining, and a diet rich in meat and fats was spreading, while much of the feed grains and soybeans that supported this diet were imported from overseas. Behind the colorful supermarket shelves, an unseen danger was slowly spreading: Japan's stomachs were deeply connected to the grain markets of the outside world and to ocean transport.

From 2007 to 2008, the sharp rise in world grain prices and the simultaneous rise in oil prices made this danger all the more visible. The price increases of bread and oil made headlines, and the question of what would happen if imports were to be cut off became a realistic one rather than a theoretical one. Meanwhile, in Japan, the policy of reducing rice acreage has continued for many years, with a large percentage of rice paddies being converted to other crops or left fallow because of a surplus. The twisted food structure of Japan, whereby the country is told not to produce rice because it is overproduced, while relying on imports for feed, wheat, and soybeans, has become a target of criticism.

Against this backdrop, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF) came up with the Agricultural Land Reform Plan, which promotes the effective use of farmland. At the core of the policy was the idea of gathering farmland, which was dispersed in small areas and increasingly abandoned due to the aging of farmers, into the hands of motivated and capable farmers. By uniting disparate fields and increasing the scale and efficiency of farming, the government sought to increase the production of domestically produced wheat, soybeans, feed crops, and feed rice, and to reduce dependence on imports, even if only slightly. At the same time, the system was revised to make it easier for companies to enter the farming industry in the form of leases, and a framework was sought to utilize idle farmland by turning it around within the community.

For farmers in the field, however, the plan was a mixture of hope and anxiety. When it is said that farmland will be integrated, there is a suspicion that small-scale farmers and areas with poor conditions, such as mountainous areas, will be cut off. If large-scale farming and the entry of companies into the farming industry are promoted, farming as a business may become stronger, but the question also arises as to who will take on the tasks of the community that has supported the farmland, such as village festivals and the management of irrigation canals. Some people thought that the government, while claiming to increase the self-sufficiency rate, would actually focus its efforts on more profitable crops and agricultural products for export.

Even if international prices for fertilizers and feeds temporarily settled down due to the global recession and the strong yen, it was only a calm between storms. Unless the structure that relies heavily on imported grains is changed, farmers' operations and people's tables will continue to be shaken by every wave of foreign exchange and international market prices. This sense of crisis has gradually shifted the center of gravity of agricultural policy from the need to protect farmland to the need to rethink how to use farmland.

It could be said that the Agrarian Reform Plan was like a combination of a grand idea and the details of the situation on the ground, all written on the same piece of paper. Behind the words "agricultural land accumulation and efficiency," there were elderly farmers wondering how they could entrust their rice paddies to the plan, and young farmers wishing to somehow cultivate their fields again, which would otherwise be overgrown with weeds. The 40% self-sufficiency rate was a banner raised in the midst of this struggle, and the question of how close it could be to reality would continue to be asked throughout the next ten to twenty years.