How should we recultivate farmland in Japan?

After Prime Minister Noda announced that he decided to join TPP, agriculture issues have come to the spotlight. Fruits and vegetables are produced by 2.6M farmers in our country, which makes up 3% of total of the Japanese population.

According to Agriculture and fishery Ministry survey, they reported that Japanese self sufficiency rate in food has droped by less than 40% in 2011. This is based on domestic calory consumption, not domestic gross production.  After World War Ⅱ, Japan has shifted agriculture focused  industry into manufucturing industry, consequently Japan made miracle recovery from the ashes and expanded GDP explosively.

But Japanese government has left agriculture industry issue unsolved.  Apparently there are several critical issues in agriculture.  One thing is, aging problem. farmer's average age is around 65.  Aging farmer and dwindling engagers number are on the rise. Second is labor shortage. Many farmer give up succeeding to their business because there is no successor. Thrid is, total uncultivated land size in Japan has reached as large as Saitama prefecuture. Although we have enough lands to cultivate crops or rice, human resource issue is the key factor to revitalize farm lands.

To recover these declining situation, government decided to pay incentive for unmotivated farmer to quit farming and consolidate farmland to enhance productivity. Japanese Democratic party implemented financial reimbursement system for both full time farmers and part-time farmers in 2007.    

Government pays 15,000 yen per 10 al square of the farmland to protect farmers livelihood. The problem is, whether he is a full time farmer or a part time farmer or not, they can fairly get financial support. There are some opinions arise that government should  pay more the full time farmers rather than the part time farmers to boost agricultural activities and their business. Aside from our domestic issue, the overpopulation around the world will threaten global food supply in the near future. Before we face food crisis, we should make use of our affluent and bountiful mother nature.