This paper discusses the recent reform of Japanese agricultural policies, especially the cross-commodity policy(Japanese-style direct income payments), bringing up principal bearers of agriculture, the farmland system and local agricultural support systems.
The consistency of purpose and measures is most important in the making of agricultural policies. Limiting the direct income payments to only principal bearers of agriculture does not coinside with bringing up principal bearers, corresponding to strengthening the WTO disciplines and improving food self-sufficiency. Total subsidies are not increased, and payments related to the type or volume of production, and the factors of present production is the yellow policy, and lowering tariffs raises the import of agricultural products. If MAFF intends to resolve these problems, it must pay direct income payments to all farmers who sell agricultural products.
Japanese agricultural policies limit the bearers of agricultural production to principal bearers, or certified farmers. But there are various type of bearers of agricultural production, for example, farming organizations based on villags, part-time farmers, one-woman farmers, and aging farmers, and agricultural policies must encourage all of them in order to improve food self-sufficiency and maintain community life.
The merger of cities, towns, villages and agricultural cooperatives weaken the support systems for local agriculture. Under these conditions, there are many new organizations concerning local agriculture. Agricultural cooperatives play a main role in organizing, but they have been facing an economical crisis since the 1990s. Agricultural cooperatives have to promote local agriculture, especially organizing cooperative agriculture in villages in order to open themselves to regional society and encourage activities among cooperative members. In conclusion, the main theme for Japanese agricultural policies is to raise Japan's food self-sufficiency and build "Japanese agriculture in the East Asian community."

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The reform of Japanese agriculture should be promoted at a faster rate to cope with globalization, which is inevitable provided the further reductions in support and protection under the WTO regime and import liberalization with the FTA. This article examines agricultural policy introduced under the New Basic Plan for Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas, from the viewpoints of structural reform and globalization of agriculture.
The key point of the new agricultural policy is to target policy measures on principal farmers who satisfy a set of certain conditions. It gives incentives to those farmers who do not satisfy the conditions to expand the size of their farm operations to satisfy them. But there are no incentives to encourage farmers who already clear the conditions to change, though it is necessary for them to be motivated to introduce larger and more efficient farming operations. It is desirable to introduce policy measures that motivate large farmers, as well, to increase the size and efficiency of operations within a limited time of period.
The urgent agenda for agricultural reform is farmland policy. Farmland is a scarce resource in Japan, but there is much abandoned farmland and land that is not utilized efficiently. Farmland policy should be drastically changed to promote the efficient consolidation and accumulation of farmland in lager units using a new legal framework that emphasizes farmland leasing. It is also necessary to eliminate the expectations of farmland to be converted to non-farm use, which blocks the mobilization of farmland markets.
Japan should make FTA agreements with Asian countries toward an Asian Union in the future, into which agricultural policies are incorporated. Japan should take a leadership role in establishing an institution to discuss common issues of agricultural policies in Asia, which could be a seed for the Asian version of the Common Agricultural Policy.

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