Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2014 September 24 - 30 [ECONOMY]

Hokkaido faces serious decline in dairy farming

In Hokkaido, which produces more than half of the milk in Japan, the number of dairy farmers showed a sharp drop, arousing grave concern among people connected to the dairy industry.

Dairy farmers in Hokkaido decreased from 8,700 in 2000 to 6,137 in April 2014. More than 200 farmers gave up milking cows for three consecutive years, according to the Hokkaido prefectural federation of agricultural cooperatives.

In one farmers’ cooperative in eastern Hokkaido, for example, 22 of 583 member dairy farmers abandoned their farms during FY 2013 and milk production decreased by 3.7% from the previous year. The total number of dairy cows kept by the cooperative members keeps decreasing by 1,000 every year.

Regarding the reason of the recent decline in the number of cows, the president of the cooperative pointed out that the weaker yen, which was caused by so-called “Abenomics” economic policy, increased the price of fuel oil and imported feed. He added that the Abe government’s move to join the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement poses a further serious threat to farmers.

Successive governments have been encouraging farmers in Hokkaido to expand their businesses. As a result, many Hokkaido farmers accumulated enormous debts to purchase land, equipment, and machines. Their net income remained stagnant as the increased spending tended to exceed that of gross income.

The push for bigger operations also brought about various adverse side effects, such as unhealthy cows due to crowded barns and reliance on imported feeds.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Kami Tomoko, who is very familiar with the issues affecting agriculture in Hokkaido, stressed that the Japanese government should withdraw from the Japan-Australia EPA and the negotiations for the TPP in order to protect dairy farmers in Hokkaido. She stressed that the government should allow promotion of various types of dairy farming in Hokkaido based on locally harvested feeds and set an appropriate proportion of cows relative to the amount of land and labor force available.