Japan Press Weekly

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2007 December 12 - 18 [AGRICULTURE]

Forum calls for solidarity for establishing food sovereignty

On December 6, the National Liaison Association to Safeguard the Food and the Health of the Nation (Zenkoku-Shokkenren), an organization composed of farmers, workers, and consumers, hosted a forum on building solidarity in establishing food sovereignty domestically and internationally. A representative of a South Korean farmers’ organization took part.

Damages caused by ‘free trade’

The forum was held with the aim of revealing damages that the neoliberal “free trade” policies have caused in Japan and elsewhere in the world.

National Federation of Farmers Movement (Nominren) President Shiraishi Jun’ichi reported on their struggles against the Liberal Democratic and Komei parties’ government policy of “abandoning uncompetitive small- and medium-scale farmers” while pushing ahead with import liberalization of agricultural products.

Due to growing rice imports and the abolition of the government assistance to maintain rice prices, rice farmers’ hourly income has become 256 yen, less than half of the minimum wage.

Shiraishi said that his organization, by joining forces with Shokkenren and the Japanese Communist Party, has made a “landmark achievement” by having the government take an urgent measure to buy up surplus rice, the major cause of a sharp decline in rice prices.

However, the government is planning for the next year to resume selling off stockpiled rice and to impose a severer rice paddy acreage reduction policy with harsher punishment of farmers who do not comply. Criticizing such a government policy, Shiraishi stressed the need to improve the government subsidy programs supporting farmers in growing rice for animal feed and other crops and establish a system to secure rice prices for farmers.

He also called for a halt to a government policy to limit wheat and soy growers that are eligible for government subsidies since the policy will bring about reductions in income of even those large-scale farmers that receive subsidies.

Reporting on his recent visit to Australia, a major agricultural products exporting country, Shiraishi said that Australia now needs to import rice and wheat due to the drought it has experienced for four consecutive years.

He criticized import liberalization policies by saying, “The policy of destroying domestic agriculture production while increasing food imports has become out of date,” and called for a national movement to revitalize Japan’s agriculture.

Consumers demand food safety

Takada Kimiko, president of the New Japan Women’s Association (Shinfujin) in her report entitled, “Protection of rice production is a task of consumers,” said that food is the source of life and thus must be safe and stably supplied. She stressed that consumers’ demands cannot be met without a strong domestic agriculture.

She reported on cooking lessons held by Shinfujin branches in which veteran members showed young members various ways to cook the rice and fresh vegetables they purchased directly from farmers. A young member later said that her children’s atopic reaction has become soothed since they started eating locally-grown agricultural products, Takada added.

Takada’s organization is also carrying out a campaign to request elementary and nursery schools to use agricultural products that are locally produced or bought directly from farmers for school lunches based on the idea of “locally grown and locally consumed,” she said.

She stressed that as Japan’s staple food, rice should be domestically produced. She also said that at a time when more than 800 million people in the world are starving, Japan must not abandon its ability to produce rice and other agricultural products.