Hatoyama administration promotes liberalization of agricultural imports

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Hatoyama administration promotes liberalization of agricultural imports

The Democratic Party of Japan-led Hatoyama government is enthusiastic about creating trade rules to promote the further liberalization of agricultural imports.

The DPJ during the 2009 general election promised that it would conclude a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S. The Japan-U.S. FTA negotiations have not yet started but once the two countries reach an agreement, Japanese agriculture will suffer catastrophic damage. The Japan-Australia FTA negotiations are currently underway.

In its “new development strategy” adopted late last year, the Hatoyama Cabinet stated that it will establish a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific with the aim to eliminate all barriers to economic activities.

In his allotted question time at the plenary session of the House of Councilors in February, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi urged the government to cancel both the Japan-U.S. and the Japan-Australia FTA negotiations. In reply, Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio said, “In order to liberalize trade investment, the government will push ahead with its policy on international negotiations, including FTAs.

Pointing out the Hatoyama government’s dangerous intention to completely liberalize the import of agricultural products, Vice Chair of the National Federation of Farmers Movement (Nominren) Mashima Yoshitaka said, “The Hatoyama government intends to liberalize the import of agricultural products even more aggressively than the former government. Japan can then supposedly export most of its industrial products with zero tariffs. Japan cannot conclude an FTA without opening the nations’s agriculture market to other countries.”

The Hatoyama government stated that it aims to conclude the WTO agreement, the FTA, and the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), and that all these agreements will not affect an increase in the nation’s food self-sufficiency rate as well as the development of the domestic farming industry.

The Hatoyama administration in its basic plan on agriculture, adopted on March 30, stated that it intends to increase the nation’s food self-sufficiency rate to 50% on a caloric basis within 10 years.

In order to achieve this goal, the government is planning to provide income compensation to individual farmers. This plan, however, is a stopgap measure to make up for the free trade in agricultural goods. A decrease in the food self-sufficiency rate will be unavoidable.

The government must scrap its policy to liberalize agricultural imports, maintain and strengthen necessary tariffs, drastically revise the WTO agricultural agreement, and establish trade rules that secure food sovereignty for all nations.

- Akahata, April 5, 2010