Farmers movement gets increasing local community support

The three-day convention of the National Federation of Farmers Movement (Nominren) closed on January 16 in Tokyo.

The convention showed that the movement enjoys increasing support from municipalities, consumers, and citizens (including ostensibly conservative groups) in activities to defend Japan's agriculture and food safety.

Farmers in Osaka, who were suffering from a falling price of onions, asked schools to use their onions for school lunches. Many people in local communities become increasingly aware that local agricultural production and consumption can be helpful to the local economy.

At issue has been the government's new rice policy of abandoning the government responsibility to control the supply and demand as well as the price of the staple.

A representative from Hiroshima Prefecture said that an executive director of the Agricultural Cooperatives is a reader of the Nominren newspaper. He cited the director as saying, "Rice import is an absurdity. Without rice import, there would be no need to force farmers into reducing rice paddy acreage."

The government encourages large agricultural households to seek further mechanization in order to enjoy the merit of scale. A story told by a farmer from Akita, however, showed otherwise, and the perspective is gloomier to those who mechanized on a larger scale. (end)