大会講演
Emerging Policies and Contradictions in Japan: Pathways to Agroecology within the Framework of a Production-oriented Agricultural Policy
2024 年 60 巻 1 号 p. 54-60
詳細
2024 年 60 巻 1 号 p. 54-60
In May 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries launched the Strategy for Sustainable Food Systems in Japan. The strategy’s goals are similar to those of the Farm-to-Fork Strategy in the European Union (EU). However, while the EU has 2030 as the year of completion, the Japanese goal of 2050 does not appear to be imminent. Here, I explore the context behind this difference compared with European countries. First, Japan has mountainous terrain with narrow plains, and suitable land for agricultural production is in intense competition with urban usage. Consequently, agricultural production must have higher land productivity, and a high-input production system has developed. Since the Agricultural Basic Act was adopted in 1961, improving the efficiency of agricultural production and increasing productivity have been flagship policy goals that are yet to be achieved. Second, traditional consumer-supported agricultural schemes have set high standards for agricultural protection. Direct payments play a less important role in incentivizing farmers to adopt environmentally sustainable practices. Third, the 2050 targets rely on technological progress based on eco-efficiency and input substitution, and not on the redesign of the agricultural system. Techniques and farming practices that result in reduced yields are difficult to accept. The main driving force toward the shift to agroecology is the pressure from international forums.
When 116 master’s students in a global bioethics class at the Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, on June 24, 2023 were asked about the popularity of agroecology, 69% heard it for the first time. 20% had heard it before, but did not really understand what it meant. Only 9% knew about it. Thus, the word agroecology is unpopular, even for students studying agricultural sciences.
Despite this unpopularity and the absence of the word agroecology in official documents, the Strategy for Sustainable Food Systems launched by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) in May 2021 could raise hope toward agroecology. Specific targets indicated in the strategy include 50% reduction in pesticide use (risk equivalent), 30% reduction in chemical fertilizer use, and 25% or more of organic farming area in arable land area by 2050 (Table 1). These ambitious targets surprised many people in the Japanese agricultural sector. The targets are similar to those of the Farm-to-Fork Strategy in the European Union (EU). However, although the EU has set 2030 as the year of completion of its strategy, the Japanese goal of 2050 does not appear to be imminent. Here, we explore the context behind these differences and the constraints Japan faces compared with EU countries.
Policy objectives in EU and Japan
| EU Farm to fork strategy |
Japan Strategy for Sustainable Food Systems |
|
|---|---|---|
| Greenhouse gases emission | 2035 Neutral, including non CO2 GHG emission |
2050 Zero CO2 emission from fossil fuel combustion |
| Pesticide | 2030 50% Reduction in use and risk |
2050 50% Reduction in risk weighted use |
| Chemical fertilizer | 2030 20% reduction |
2050 30% reduction |
| Organic agriculture | 2030 25% of total farmland |
2050 25% of total farmland |
Upper Columns: objective year
Source: European commision (2020), MAFF (2021a).
On October 16, 2020, MAFF announced that an interim report on the Strategy for Sustainable Food Systems would be redacted in March 2021 as a new strategy to improve productivity and achieve sustainability through numerous innovations and the strategy would be finalized by May 2021. According to this strategy, MAFF aims to achieve zero carbon emission from fossil fuel combustion in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries by 2050. Around the same time as the Minister’s announcement on the strategy, Prime Minister Suga noted in his policy speech at the 203rd Diet session that Japan aims to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions to zero and have a carbon-neutral society by 2050.
The strategy aims at 50% reduction by 2050 in the risk-weighted use of chemical pesticides by popularizing integrated pest management and newly developed alternatives. By 2040, the goal is to eliminate the need for conventional pesticides, including commonly used neonicotinoids. 30% of chemical fertilizer use must be reduced by 2050. Among the strategy’s goals for 2050, the increase in organic farming to 1 million hectare (equivalent to 25% of farmland) is seen as especially ambitious, given that the actual percentage of organic farming is less than 0.6% of farmland, including equivalent organic farming without certification.
The strategy’s ambitious goals have attracted stakeholders in agriculture: “...It’s so ambitious and it has extremely high objectives...and it gives us a romantic feeling,” and “That’s why I was so surprised by the sudden public announcement and the setting of such high goals” (Taniguchi, 2022). Even experts in agricultural policy were surprised by the sudden announcement and its ambitious goals.
However, compared with the EU’s Farm-to-Fork strategy in May 2020, the goals of Japan’s strategy are far less ambitious. This is illustrated by the EU’s ambitions through the European Green Deal, calling it “a new growth strategy that aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use” (European Commission, 2019). The farm to fork strategy sets targets of 50% reduction in chemical pesticide use, 20% reduction in fertilizer use, 50% reduction in the sales of antimicrobials for farmed animals and in aquaculture, and 25% of total farmland under organic farming by 2030.
What motivated MAFF to rush to establish this strategy? The MAFF Strategy for Sustainable Food Systems website says that “we are also seeing moves in other countries to formulate strategies related to the environment and health. In the future, as domestic and international movements that emphasize SDGs and the environment are expected to accelerate, Japan’s food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries industry must respond appropriately to these trends and build a sustainable food system.”1
In particular, “the EU set ambitious targets for reducing the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers as part of its ‘Farm to Fork Strategy,’ and the international community has already begun to move in the direction of balancing the economy and the environment through innovation” (MAFF, 2021a). Thus, extrinsic motivation was driving the formulation of the strategy, which surprised a wide variety of stakeholders in agriculture.
Following the strategy, an act to promote food systems in harmony with the environment and activities allowing environmental impact reduction, called Sustainable Food Systems low, was enacted in April 2022. According to this act, a food system in harmony with the environment will be established through the understanding and cooperation with stakeholders, such as agriculture, forestry, and fisheries operators, businesses, and consumers, and promoting research and development of technologies that contribute to both reducing environmental impact and improving productivity, and ensuring smooth distribution of agricultural, forestry, and fishery products. The stakeholders mainly included those within the food industry. The Council of Food, Agriculture, and Rural Areas Policy, the main consultative body established by MAFF, comprises farmers, experts in various fields, food industry executives, and members of agricultural and consumer organizations. However, environmental organizations that actively lobby for agricultural policy, as seen in the EU, are not among these stakeholders.
The technologies considered to contribute to both reducing environmental impacts and increasing productivity include: developing high-temperature resistant varieties and production technologies adapting to climate change, and decarbonization innovations in agriculture, particularly with a “smart breeding system,” robots and Information and Communication Technology.
Smart breeding systems aim to breed more efficiently and quickly by combining big data related to crop breeding, such as genome information and crop growth, with artificial intelligence (AI) and new breeding technologies. MAFF thinks highly of genome editing technology and genome-edited crops developed in Japan, saying that they have an advantage over other countries (MAFF, 2022).
The agroecological transition involves three steps (Tittonell, 2014, Hill and MacRae, 1996); eco-efficiency, characterized by changes within conventional systems that reduce consumption and waste of costly and scarce resources; input substitution, where resource-dependent and environmentally disruptive products and procedures are replaced by those that are more environmentally benign; and systems redesign, or solving challenges internally by site- and time-specific design and management approaches instead of by the application of external inputs. Through further innovations, MAFF documents promote eco-efficiency and input substitution by developing new varieties, materials, and ICT instruments, but has not conceived system redesign.
According to a talk by Stéphane Bellon, titled “Scalability of organic agriculture: insights from Europe” at the International Conference on Organic Rice Production System, held in Sendai on September 4 to 7, 20232, agroecological transitions go on throughout a discussion which opposes upscaling, as a top-down process promoted by administrations which can easily derive to conventionalization, and outscaling, as an outreach process which keeps and extends the bottom-up approach along a territory through horizontal alliances. Between upscaling and outscaling, participatory processes are used to create hybrid forums in which local administrations, civic organizations, and organic farmers come together and recognize the need to collaborate.
As seen above, the Strategy for Sustainable Food Systems lacks certain elements, such as system redesign, outscaling, and participatory processes as key words for agroecology.
Agricultural productivism has been described as “a commitment to an intensive, industrially based and expansionist agriculture with state support based primarily on output and increased productivity (Lowe et al., 1993). The term “expansionist” may not be appropriate for a net importer country such as Japan. Productivism is a term used to criticize agricultural policy in the 1980s and 1990s, which brought about an agricultural production system that not only led to the expansion of public expenditure and trade friction due to overproduction in the EU, but also caused environmental pollution. The 1992 CAP reform, commonly known as the McSharley reform, was a turning point in this productivist agricultural policy. In Japan, which has an agricultural policy framework similar to that of the EU, the term productivism has not been used to criticize Japan’s agricultural policy and not gained popularity. Unlike Europe, Japan has experienced a drop in the self-sufficiency rate, decline in productive capability, and weaker interest in the environmental problems caused by agriculture.
Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate has consistently decreased since World War II due to several reasons. The first is the influence of Westernization on diet. The consumption of rice decreased, bread and noodles made with wheat became popular, and dietary habits became more diverse. Rice consumption per capita decreased from 118 kg in 1962 to 65 kg in 2000, and 50.8 kg in 2020. In the early 2010s, household rice purchases fell below those of bread. Furthermore, the consumption of animal proteins, including meat and dairy products, has increased, and with it, the dependence on exporting countries has increased, particularly for livestock feed.
The second is the widening gap between domestic and international prices, and the productivity disparity with exporting countries. As the Japanese economy grew, the value of Japan’s currency increased, resulting in cheaper imports of agricultural products. The pressure on Japan from exporting countries to open the market has increased as its agricultural market has become more attractive.
The third is the weak potential for food production. Consider the agricultural land area per capita: while EU countries have 0.15 to 0.5 ha/inhabitant of agricultural land, Japan only has 0.36 ha/inhabitant. Compared to Asian countries, China (excluding permanent pastureland), Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam have 0.095, 0.224, 0.106, 0.307, and 0.125, respectively. Meanwhile, South Korea and Taiwan have 0.031 and 0.034, respectively. Thus, a serious problem in far East Asian countries is the scarcity of agricultural land, which leads to extremely unfavorable food production conditions.
The productivist policy in agriculture explicitly started with Agricultural Basic Act’s adoption in 1961. The same agricultural policy objectives were shared with the EU in the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community and the Treaty of Rome in 1957: increased gross agricultural production, improved agricultural productivity, a balanced life of agricultural household members with those working in other industries, stabilizing prices, and securing agricultural income.
The 1961 Basic Law on Agriculture was revised in 1999 into the Basic Law on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas. Securing a stable food supply continues to be the basis for increasing domestic agricultural production while encouraging an increase in agricultural productivity.
A reform bill on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas is being prepared for adoption in 2024. The most important issue is ensuring a stable supply of food: “Taking into consideration the unstable factors existing in the world food supply and demand, a stable food supply must be assured basically by increasing domestic agricultural production, with an appropriate combining of imports and public stockpiles. The following are given to increase the production: secure business farmers and farmland concentration/intensification, improve productivity through smart agriculture, increase production of domestic agricultural products or switch to domestic production, increase production of livestock products, fruits, etc., in response to export expansion, promote food education and local food production/consumption” (MAFF, 2023a).
Price support has been used to secure income for producers and maintain production. The Producer Nominal Protection Coefficient, which compares producer prices to international prices, places Japan alongside Iceland, South Korea, Norway, and Switzerland in the particularly high group. Producer incomes are secured by setting domestic prices higher than international prices (Fig. 1). Low net food imports and food self-sufficiency rates have been observed in these countries, including Japan (OECD, 2018).
Producer Nominal Protection Coefficient: Ratio of prices taken by producers to international prices
Source: OECD (2018).
PSE%, which measures producer support as a percentage of gross farm receipts, shows that Japan has a greater proportion of market price support than Norway, Switzerland, and the EU in terms of income support for producers (OECD, 2018). European countries primarily provide income support through public expenditure, which is paid by taxpayers; however, in Japan, consumers are responsible for paying for the price support (Fig. 2).
The percentage Producer Support Estimate (%PSE)
Source: OECD (2018).
Excluding emergency income support measures triggered by sudden price declines, the main subsidies that producers receive are provided for field crops, such as wheat and soybeans, as well as non-staple rice (direct payments for upland field crops and rice paddy utilization). These direct payments aim to reduce the production cost disparity with that of exporting countries, encourage the production of field crops over rice in paddy fields, and provide subsidies to bridge the income gap between rice and other crops. The payments for cultivating wheat and soybeans in paddy fields were 79,000 and 73,000 yen per 10a, respectively, in 2020. The expenditure in 2023 is expected to be 543 billion yen (MAFF, 2023b). These subsidies do not have environmental requirements such as eco-conditionality and greening of direct payments, which apply to payments for farmers in European countries. If environmental requirements were imposed on direct payments that would have to be borne by producers, there would be a great risk that rice farming would be abandoned. In contrast to the EU countries, there are no environmental groups that advocate for the introduction of environmental restrictions.
Direct payments for hilly and mountainous areas were introduced in 2000. Agri-environmental payments, also known as direct payments for environmentally friendly agriculture in Japan, were introduced in 2007. These payments, along with multifunctional payments aimed at preserving farmland and water facilities, are grouped under the name Japanese agricultural direct payments.
Producers can receive agri environmental payments by pledging to continue implementing specific farming practices for five years. The area granted in 2020 was 80,789 ha, which is approximately 2% of the total farmland area in Japan, and the expenditure was 450 million yen. Compost application (24%), cover crops (23%), and organic farming (12%) were the most accepted practices (MAFF, 2021b). Meanwhile, regarding the percentage of farmland with agri-environmental payments in European countries between 2007 and 2014, Finland leads the way with 95%, followed by Austria at 68% and Sweden at 61% (Duval et al., 2016). Denmark stands last at 6%. With their accession to the EU in 1995, agriculture in these three leading countries began competing with other EU countries. All these countries, situated in high-latitude or mountainous areas with poor production conditions, are actively utilizing environmental payments
We examine the status of organic farming in place of agroecology, which remains unknown in Japan. Organic food and agricultural products have a promising market, and continue to grow significantly in the mature and saturated food markets of developed countries. The United States has the largest organic market of 49.5 billion euros, followed by Germany with 15 billion euros and France with 12.7 billion euros. In Asia, the Chinese market exceeds 10 billion euros. By contrast, Japan’s market size is only 1.4 billion euros. Even Austria, with a population of approximately 9 million people, has a larger market than Japan. The top three countries by per capita consumption are Switzerland, Denmark, and Austria at 418, 384, and 254 euros, respectively, compared to 14 euros in Japan (Helga et al., 2022). Thus, the Japanese organic market is still nascent and most people are not inclined to purchase organic products. Indeed, the certified organic cultivation area in Japan’s farmland remains at 0.3%.
This immature organic market can be explained by various reasons. First, as organic foods are generally more expensive than conventional ones, consumer purchasing power substantially affects market expansion. Engel’s coefficient, or the ratio of household food expenditure to total consumption expenditure, has consistently decreased in Japan. In the late 1990s, however, the decline started to slow down, and has increased slightly from the mid-2000s and reached 22% (Ako, 2018). In 2019, households’ expenditure on food and non-alcoholic beverages in the EU represented 13.0% of total consumption expenditure (Eurostat, 2020). Romania (26%) was the only country with this rate is greater than 22%.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the increase accelerated and worsened due to inflation. Consequently, concerns have increased about the lack of purchasing power to support the organic market. Who can support organic production in the future? Can consumers provide more support than they currently do, or should taxpayers or farmers themselves?
Is the Strategy for Sustainable Food Systems, MIDORI, a pathway to agroecology? Many would like it to be. Under the traditional productivist policy in agriculture, increasing production and productivity remain top priorities. The word agroecology has not yet been found in official documents. Due to the poor experience of agroecology, the upscaling approach remains dominant for achieving the strategy’s high and ambitious goals. This is a top-down process promoted by administrations through the version up of advanced technology in agriculture from the fields of information and communication technologies, and new genetic technologies. The integration of environmental concerns into agricultural policy measures, as observed in direct payment schemes, is still not mainstream. Currently, agroecology’s progress in the policy arena is largely due to external pressures, including international commitments such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
