Overview
For Japanese agriculture to survive, we must explore foreign markets by enhancing its price competitiveness as the domestic market shrinks due to an aging and decreasing population. In terms of policies, we have to take measures to achieve a structural reform of agriculture in order to increase its productivity and shift from price support to direct payments which have been introduced in the United States and the European Union. From the Meiji era and on, the majority of the agricultural society has strongly supported the idea of protecting small-scale farmers with price support. Kunio Yanagida, Tanzan Ishibashi, and others, however, actively and positively advocated the necessity of a structural reform of agriculture. I introduce their forgotten ideas in order to contribute to the formation of a structural reform policy of agriculture.
February 13, 2018 - January 31, 2020
