Japan Press Weekly

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2008 March 19 - 25 [AGRICULTURE]

Farmers take action to protect Japanese agriculture

The Tohoku (Northern Japanese) Federation of the Farmers Movement (Tohoku Nodanren) held a rally on March 24 in Sendai City calling for the protection of Japanese agriculture. About 100 farmers took part in the action despite being in the busy season for planting rice seeds.

Participants marched in demonstration holding a banner that read, “Safe food is from Japanese soil. Don’t force us to reduce rice production while importing foreign rice.”

The rally adopted a resolution calling on the government to improve its agricultural measures, such as increasing rice farmers’ hourly wage from 256 yen to “at least 600 yen.”

Tohoku Nodanren President Sato Choemon criticized a poster made by the Tohoku Regional Agricultural Administration Office stating that it is “wasteful” to overproduce rice. “This statement denies the joy of producing food,” he said, and called for the government’s effort to increase the food self-sufficiency rate from the current 39 percent.

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On the same day, an official of the Tohoku Regional Agricultural Administration Office said that the phrasing of the poster “could cause misunderstanding” at a meeting with Tohoku Nodanren representatives in Sendai City.

President Sato expressed at the meeting that due to the increasing criticism over the poster, all the prefectural buildings in the Tohoku region have already removed it.

Japanese Communist Party House of Representatives member Takahashi Chizuko attended the meeting.
- Akahata, March 25, 2008