July 5, 2013
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2013 July 3 - 9 [ECONOMY]
Abe’s announced plan to double farmers’ income criticized by farmers as highly deceptive |
Shiraishi Kazuo, who grows rice on 30 hectares of land in Saitama’s Kasukabe City, one of the major rice growing areas in the Tokyo metropolitan area, said, “To double our income is impossible.”
Pillars of the Abe’s strategy involves cutting rice production costs by 40% through promotion of large-scale farming, establishing the “sixth industry” by linking agricultural production with the processing and sales of agricultural products, and increasing exports of farm produce.
Pointing out that the planned consumption tax hike and the “Abenomics”-caused weaker yen will likely push up the prices of needed inputs such as farming equipment and fertilizer, Shiraishi said, “I can’t imagine how lower production costs will come about.”
He also expressed his concern that if the consumption tax rate rises from the current 5% to 8% in April 2014 and then to 10% in October 2015, this alone will decrease his earnings.
His 39-year-old son said that the announcement of doubling of farmers’ income strategy apparently aims at restraining farmers from protesting against TPP participation. “No farmer sees viability of the strategy,” he added.
Another farmer operating 30-hectare rice farm in the city, Hara Naoki, also criticized the strategy as “just a theory on paper”.
The Japanese Communist Party has proposed a system which provides farmers financial support to cover the difference between the sales price and the producer price based on a three-year average calculation of production costs. It also argues the need to establish an income compensation system evaluating agriculture’s multiple functions, including environmental conservation, and to improve support for those who newly enter farming as a vocation.
Related past article:
> JCP proposal to revitalize agriculture [March 11, 2013]
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