Written by the world’s leading expert in the field, this book examines the evolution of Japanese agricultural policy in the post-war period, focusing particularly from the 1970s onwards when both domestic and external pressures for reform began to intensify. The author explains how the MAFF has safeguarded their institutional capacity to intervene by accommodating both public interest in agricultural policy reform alongside the interests of government in maintaining agricultural support and protection. The book provides a major reinterpretation of agricultural policy, examining how the MAFF’s role as an ‘intervention maximiser’ has been redefined in the face of continued bureaucratic involvement. Making available in English for the first time Japanese policy changes in the post-war period, the book will appeal to political economy specialists and political scientists, and those with an interest in Japanese politics and bureaucratic institutions.

A major paradox in the political economy of Japan is why an enduring majority of citizens, as voters, consumers, and taxpayers, has explicitly supported or implicitly consented to a policy regime of agricultural protection that reduces material welfare and limits consumer choice. This book goes beyond standard political economy approaches that focus on self-interest pursuit by policy actors to contend that ideational factors are an important explanatory variable shaping the policy preferences of individuals towards agriculture and agricultural policy in Japan. The book traces the historical origins of ideas about agriculture, particularly those associated with the nōhonshugi tradition, and offers an original taxonomy classifying the development of agrarian thought from the Tokugawa era until the 1930s. It then analyses postwar media portrayals of agriculture in public policy debates around the 1961 and 1999 agricultural ‘basic laws’, charting the evolution of both economic and non-economic ideas in those periods. Finally, it investigates the predominant ideas held about agriculture by individuals today, as evidenced through public opinion survey data, and demonstrates that concerns about health and food safety, food self-sufficiency, and the environment strongly outweigh economic welfare considerations. The study concludes by examining developments in agricultural policy under the Abe administration in the context of these predominant ideas, and considers how those ideas could be operationalised in agricultural policy responses to major crises including the coronavirus pandemic and climate change.

This book chronicles Japan’s rice farmers who live in mainly rural areas in the west and south of Japan through original interviews conducted in Japanese. It argues that current agricultural policy as well as the tightening relationship between the US and Japan is a death sentence for a traditional lifestyle that is vital to Japan’s notion of national identity. The project covers recent agricultural policies, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and its potential consequences on Japan’s food sovereignty and documents the effect of these policies on rice farmers. This volume is ideal for those interested in Japan’s agricultural policies and rural and traditional Japanese lifestyle.