Japan Press Weekly

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2008 April 23 - 29 [AGRICULTURE]

Farmers’ and consumers’ organizations urge government to act to amend WTO rules

A Japanese democratic farmers’ organization and a liaison organization on the protection of food and health have urged the government to play an active role to promote reducing world hunger and preventing global warming.

At the Foreign Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry on April 25, representatives of the Federation of Farmers’ Movements (Nouminren) and the National Liaison Council for the Protection of National Food and Health expressed concern about the food crisis and stressed the need to change the WTO rules that currently requires Japan to import rice despite its capability to be self-sufficient in rice.

Sakaguchi Masaaki, secretary general of the liaison council said, “It is clear that the WTO’s free trade policy cannot solve the food crisis but only exacerbates it.”

Pointing out that the amount of rice the Philippines needs is almost the same as rice Japan imports from abroad, Majima Yoshitaka, vice chair of Nouminren, said that there is a dearth of rice worldwide and that the rules that increase the poverty rate must not be allowed.

Concerning the effort to prevent global warming, the representatives insisted, “Global warming will not be checked unless the government sets an effective goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions with severe penalty for failure to make efforts to achieve it.”
- Akahata, April 26, 2008