We intend to derive drastic and dynamic prescriptions for the problem of ‘To what direction we should orient and adjust the Japanese agriculture’, which is considered in a framework of the market economy, coping with the DeRegulation policy, i.e., the current trend of thought in the economic policy.
The Japanese agriculture now is confronted with the edge of a cliff by the urgent and strong demand from foreign countries, above all, U.S.A. of the trade (import) liberalization of rice, which so far, has been the perfectly self-supporting staple food.
The Japanese agriculture now is very week in the international free trade, if the perfect protection policy of rice were changed or modified.
So we plan to investigate the following items:
1) To what level the future international market price of rice will converge in cases of (1) the continuation of the current perfectly self-supporting system; (2) a partial import liberalization; and (3) the perfect import Liberalization, etc.
We can forecast the near future price of rice to be nearly twofold of current international market price, based on the above model, if the following premises are given that the Japan's partial import liberalization (for example, 10 percent of total consumption, i.e., 1, 000 thousand ton) is executed, and both (or either) of the America's notorious “Marketing Loan System” and (or) “Subsidization System of Deficit of Market Rate to the Target Price” will be moderated or abolished, that is, the so-called Decoupling policy will be adopted.
2) We must diminish the production cost of rice to one half or one third as large as the current cost in order to bring our domestic market price close to the near future international market price being twice as large as the current one.
3) So as to cope with the target mentioned above, it follows that in the near future we need the arable land of enlarged lot equivalent to about 15 hectares as the minimum farming scale of production only by making operating land enlarge, but not yet by reforming the quality of arable land better.
4) It is investigated that the most fundamental cause (disease germ) of the Japanese agriculture lies in the utilization of land in a state of ‘scattered & mingled with each other’
*1 and ‘small-sized & segregated’
*2 land.
5) In order to cope with these two disease germs, we must invoke our two‘ policy variables (control variables)’, one of which is a ‘drastical structural reform plan of arable land’
*3 and the other is a ‘lease-promoting plan of arable land
*4, being free from restraint of the proprietary rights’.
The former has been taken up in the above which is a policy variable of large-scaled hardware; and the latter is a software policy variable, which is the mutual letting & hiring scheme of land among the regional constituents named ‘the group utilization scheme of all the land in a region’
*5.
6) So as to put this ‘Group Utilization Scheme of Land’ into operation, however, we must here, propose to switch the executing body from all the existing ones to the fully-equipped joint-stock corporation.
Without the introduction of this type of corporation into rural agricultural regions, we will not be able to promote the efficiency of farm production, and make the Japanese agriculture hold its international competitive power in the market structure of rice in the near future.
All the software policies done by the Ministry of Agriculture like a lease-promoting plan of arable land, so far, have not been successful. The reason lies in the excessively strong adherence of Japanese farmer to the proprietary rights of land. This is a general nature of Japanese.
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