There have been several free trade agreements between Japan and other countries concluded by now. GATT Article 24 stipulates that the duties be eliminated on substantially all the trade in a free trade area. There have been exceptions to this rule for about 10% of the trade in most of FTAs signed so far in the world. But I do not think this exception is not at all enough to maintain the rice sector and other agricultural, forestry and fishery sectors in Japan. Rice, especially, is the staple food for most Asians and 90% of the world rice production has been produced by about a half billion small family farms in Asia mainly for their self-consumption. Consequently, the world rice trade market has been very thin, unstable and unreliable, and most Asian countries have pursued rice self-sufficiency policy in order to maintain food security and multi-functionalities of their agriculture for their nations. In order to keep appropriate sizes of sustainable primary industries with cyclical resource interdependence on Japanese archipelago and the other Asian countries, and to provide appropriate amount of their multi-functionalities to the nations, we should maintain rice self-sufficiency and should not promote FTAs in the future.

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