Japan's new food supply emergency measures law takes effect

As important as food supplies are, state-controlled agriculture almost always fails and often even results in famine. Plenty of real-life examples. Even in Japan, the police confiscated rice from hungry families following the war due to a "rice shortage" while the wealthy and government-connected had secret huge stocks. The government should support farmers, but this sounds more like control.

Of course it’s control. Also, the farmers don’t get fair prices from the agricultural cooperatives which process the produce for resale.

If farming were a very lucrative business in Japan then we wouldn’t be able to see so many neglected and deserted farms in the Japanese countryside.

Still, Japan imports most of of its food currently which is more cheaper to source than Japanese produce.

The government could reduce food inflation tomorrow by reducing food taxes but it won’t.

I live in the country , I see lots and lots of small rice paddies growing just weeds.

Japan's Great Leap Forward will certainly result is significantly lower food production.

What Japan can’t legislate? The age of farmers.

More farmland goes fallow every year because the average farmer’s age is over 65. Their kids took trains an hour away for high school, moved away entirely for university, got jobs in the big city, and aren’t moving back to take over the family farm.

The government can ask for plans to increase production, but what does a 75-year-old have to offer? In any other line of work, he’d be fully retired. But people in Tokyo need their grown-in-Japan rice, so the government asks old men to give more.

Japanese agri-food needs a liberation day from government regulations and the monopolistic JA.

The rail systems and telecommunications industries have boomed since the monopoly was broken up and the government stepped aside and let private industry and the free market meet consumer demand.

The government is the root cause of the rice shortage when paying farmers not to grow it.

I know young farmers in our Hyogo location.

The 5-year average corn yield in Hokkaido is 4.3 tons/ha compared to 10.8 tons/ha in the US.

Japan is a huge importer of corn from the US.

It is well past time for Japan, a country full of scientists, to "follow the science" and allow farmers to grow GMO corn and other GMO crops. Join the 21st century.

Though LDP government had weakened farmer or food self-sufficiency by prioritizing industries and now cannot even grasp domestic rice-supply, they are sill self-conceited that they can control situation at emergency.

 "follow the science" and allow farmers to grow GMO corn and other GMO crops.

It most certainly is not. GMO isnt about crop yields, its about profit yields for big biz; and the knock on effects to the environment are not a consideration for them. Stay away from GMO

The 5-year average corn yield in Hokkaido is 4.3 tons/ha compared to 10.8 tons/ha in the US.

How much is the yield difference down to crop variety vs. weather? Corn likes hot weather. Rain at the wrong times can impede pollination or cause corn to rot before harvest. Japan’s rainy season makes corn a difficult cash crop to grow consistently in most parts of Japan. Hokkaido, without a rainy season, has an advantage, but the climate is also cooler than that of most corn-producing states in the U.S. Different climate, different yields.

Another big difference is the industrial scale in the U.S. Farms in the U.S. operate on scales often 20 times or even 100 times larger than typical Japanese farms. It is not about the seeds that they plant, but the fact that they can afford at that scale high-tech sensors and automated systems based on GPS to regulate soil water content and fertilizer needs. Japanese farms would need to consolidate and make huge capital investments (hundreds of millions of yen per farm) to achieve similar efficiency and yields.

It’s not just about the seed varieties that farmers plant.

Farm Farm Farm.....Kick start the industry again...give young people and families an incentive to live the rural farm life...make it a liveable career. Japan must become as self sufficient as possible

There is not enough water going to the rice fields because of lack of rain in tohoku area. Also, making highways and train rails also meant making tunnels in the mountains and destroying the water supply. All the fallow fields around here have no water.

@zulander

Oh, no, profits! Everyone in the supply chain needs to make a profit.

The continued increase in the cost of land to over $12,000 an acres in corn country tells me, farmers are making money. That is around $1 million for 80 acres.

If Japan really wants to boost its food security, it should support its farmers and not regulate and require them to boost production. If we retain the idea, this entire thing would read out like something from the medieval ages where the king is requiring all peasants to increase crop yield while providing no material support or even an incentive. Come on Japan, you're better than this. This country has prevailed for centuries through famine and war. There's probably some archaic practice that was used to increase crops without the cost of wearing out the farmers.

Oh, no, profits! Everyone in the supply chain needs to make a profit

 its about profit yields for big biz - ie not small to medium businesses.

There is making a profit from sustainable business, and there is making a profit by externalizing social costs and practices to hinder smaller businesses.

So think critically instead of misrepresenting an argument please.