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Report
No.230802 |
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- Domestic - |
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The Government Headquarters Authorizes Agriculture Minister's New Basic Policy The government Headquarters for the Promotion of Policies for Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas finalized on April 4 'the New Policy on Agricultural Policies Administration for the 21 Century (provisional translation),' proposed by Mr. Shoichi Nakagawa, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, which lays out a basic policy for implementing agricultural policies in the future. The basic policy is made up of two pillars: 'the strengthening of the constitution of domestic agriculture,' and 'the global strategy', both with numerical targets incorporated such as reducing the supply cost of domestically produced foods by 20% in 5 years. All the government ministries will now stand to promote jointly the reform of agricultural policies based on the new policy. The basic policy proposed at this time by Agriculture Minister Nakagawa puts the policy targets in concrete terms with numbers so as to promote the reform of agricultural policies with a sense of urgency, i.e. at an accelerated speed. It was drafted based on 'the New Direction for Implementing Policies of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (the so-call Nakagawa Initiative),' which he submitted earlier to the the Concil on Economic and Fiscal Policy on March 16. Prime Minister Junnichiro Koizumi chairs the headquarters and he endorsed the New Policy on Agricultural Policies Administration for the 21 Century saying "agriculture should also shift gears from 'defence' to 'offence'," and directed all the related cabinet ministers to close ranks in promoting the policy. On the point of strengthening the constitution of domestic agriculture, the new policy explicitly sets out to achieve the fostering of between 330 - 370 thousand 'efficient and stable' family farm operations as well as beween 20 - 40 thousand community-based farming operations by 2015, which had been proposed in 'the Vision of Agriculture Structure,' publicised along with the Basic Plan for Food, Agriculture and Forestry and Fisheries, authorized by the cabinet meeting in March 2005. In addition, the policy sets out the target of trippling the number of agriculture operations incorporated in 5 years for the purpose of encouraging entry of private business concerns. On the point of reducing the cost of food supply, the new policy made it clear to achieve 20% reduction in 5 years on the advice of 'a Cost Reduction Commisson (provisional name)' to be composed of learned persons. The intentions are to promote supplying of low priced farm input materials and also to promote reform in the cost of distribution. This entails reforming of JA ZEN-NOH (National Federation of Agricultural Co-operative Associations) as well. On 'the global strategy,' the policy underlines the stance to "defend where it should be defended, concede where possible, and offend where chances unveil," as a way to deal with negotiations in agriculture at the World Trade Organization talks and in Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations. Standing on that posture, the policy would continue to put efforts to promote export of agriculture, forestry and fishery products. At the same time, for the purpose of establishing the right of intellectual property for the superb agriculture produce of Japan, the policy will encourage applications of plants for new variety registration which it expects to increase by 50% in 5 years, and will also reduce the application screening period to two and half years. Main Targets of 'the New Policy on Agricultural Policies Administration
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