The Failure of Agricultural Policy Reform in Neoliberal Japan
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THE FAILURE OF AGRICULTURAL POLICY REFORM IN NEOLIBERAL JAPAN: THE 2007 MULTI-PRODUCT MANAGEMENT STABILIZATION PLAN A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI`I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN GEOGRAPHY August 2014 By Yoshitaka Miyake Dissertation Committee: Mary McDonald, Chairperson Krisna Suryanata Jon Goss Petrice Flowers Lonny Carlile ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks go first to the Geography Department at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa (UHM), my academic home for the past several years, for the guidance of all faculty. I appreciated a Geography teaching assistantship at the beginning of my Ph.D. program. I also thank the Center for Japanese Studies (CJS) at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa and the Research Corporation of the University of Hawai`i (RCUH). CJS provided support to initiate and complete my dissertation research. The John Fee Embree Scholarship in 2007 enabled my preliminary study of cooperative farming under the Multi-Product Plan. Center for Japanese Studies’ Graduate Fellowships in 2008 and 2009 greatly helped me to complete field research and begin dissertation writing. An RCUH Graduate Fellowship in 2010 helped me finish this dissertation. In addition, I thank the Geography Departments at UHM, Hawai`i Pacific University, and Honolulu Community College for giving me precious opportunities to teach courses in human geography. The East-West Center accepted me as a Student Affiliate and exposed me to the most multicultural scholarly environment on the earth. I sincerely thank Mary McDonald, Krisna Suryanata, Jon Goss, Petrice Flowers, and Lonny Carlile for being dissertation committee members. They gave me fundamental and advanced knowledge of disciplines and essential advice through each stage of the Ph.D. program: seminars, comprehensive exams, dissertation proposal, and dissertation writing. I hope to continue our academic conversations after graduation. I also thank Professors Takaaki Koganezawa at Miyagi University of Education and Toru Sasaki at Sapporo Gakuin University. While I was in the Tōhoku region, they kindly took me to various locations in the region to let me observe agriculture. They i worked hard to inform me of the reality of agriculture and rural communities in the region and in Japan. My special thanks go to participants in my study. I thank all of them from Tokyo to Daisen City, especially Masato Takahashi and Tatsuyuki Takayanagi of the City of Daisen, Kazumi Sato, Tokihiro Toyō, and Hidemi Takahashi of JA Akita Obako, and Toshikazu Fujisawa of Daisen City Center to Assist Cooperative Farming and its Incorporation. They helped me though field research in Daisen City, and conversations with them contributed to my holistic understanding about policies and agriculture at a local level. I also thank the Kikuchis in Ōmagari. I enjoyed a comfortable room in their boarding house while I conducted extensive interviews in Daisen City. Now, let me thank friends. In the Department of Geography, I thank Keith Bettinger, Aaron Kingsbury, Leandro Romero, Masami Tsujita, Ryan Longman, Cedar Louis, and Mami Takahashi. While we helped each other academically, we had a good time in the islands! Furthermore, I thank Hiroki Chinen, Sawa Senzaki, and Toru Yamada, and Akemi Nihei for spending time with me. Lastly, without family members, I could not survive this far in education or life. Although I don’t have enough words to thank them, I thank Kumi, Mother, and Yoshinori, Father, from the bottom of my heart. ii ABSTRACT This dissertation is a geography of a failed attempt to change state-society relations in Japanese agriculture, examining a policy that tried to require family farms to become corporate entities. The study traces the rationale for state neoliberalism in Japanese agriculture, the particular reform aimed at the practices of rural communities, and the fate of that policy. Neoliberalism is a range of economic policies favoring free markets, de-coupling from state support, and privatization. Japanese agriculture became a target of neoliberal thinkers because sub-sectors rely on state protections and farm scale and land use are thought inefficient. Anticipating that Japanese agriculture would face wider import streams and lower rice subsidies, neoliberal politicians adopted a 2007 national measure known as the Multi-Product Management Stabilization Plan, Hinmoku Ōdanteki Kei’ei Antei Taisaku. This “Multi-Product Plan” was neoliberal in that it declared only core farmers and Cooperative Farming above a certain size would be eligible for future subsidies, and tried to develop these bodies into profitable operations. The plan required Cooperative Farming land pools to rationalize and incorporate the management of small rice farmers. Small producers could not otherwise remain eligible for subsidies. I investigated how the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry (MAFF) rolled out the Multi-Product Plan, how farmers tried to consolidate their management under the Multi-Product Plan; how farmers struggled with the plan in practice; and how politicians, agents, and researchers evaluated the plan’s fit with the practices of farmers. Methods included interviews with staff in government agencies from national to local scales, and with leaders of rural communities. The Tōhoku Region was the site of the case study owing to its high dependency on rice farming. I iii interviewed staff of governments and related agencies across the six prefectures of that region. To understand the fit of the plan with local production and farmers’ evaluation of the Multi-Product Plan, I chose Daisen City in the Senboku Region, Akita Prefecture, as a focus. My research found that the Multi-Product Plan could not succeed locally, continue politically, nor restructure Japanese agriculture. Farmers derailed Japan’s developmental neoliberal policy in this instance. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Acknowledgements..................................................................................................... i Abstract....................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables .............................................................................................................. ix List of Figures............................................................................................................. x List of Terms Used...................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION........................................................................... 1 1.1. Research Questions........................................................................................ 12 1.2. Significance of the Research.......................................................................... 13 1.3. Chapter Overview .......................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 2. AGRICULTURAL POLICIES, GOVERNANCE AND FARMERS’ REACTIONS IN NEOLIBERAL JAPAN.............................................................. 17 2.1. Introduction.................................................................................................... 17 2.2. Neoliberalism, Government Policies, and Governance ................................. 19 2.3. Neoliberalism and Governance of Globalizing Agriculture .......................... 21 2.4. Agents of Japanese Agriculture ..................................................................... 22 2.4.1. Governments and Related Agents in Japanese Agriculture after WWII................................................................................................................ 22 2.4.2. Neoliberal Policy Change in Japanese Agriculture................................ 27 2.4.3. Agency of Japanese Farmers Since WWII............................................. 30 2.5. Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 34 CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH DESIGN ..................................................................... 36 3.1. Access to Data Sources.................................................................................. 38 3.2. Research Questions and Data Type ............................................................... 42 3.3. Data Analysis................................................................................................. 44 CHAPTER 4. AGRICULTURAL POLICIES AND INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATIONS AFTER WWII .......................................................................... 47 4.1. Introduction.................................................................................................... 47 4.2. Food Control System in the 1930s: Intervention in the Crises of Development......................................................................................................... 48 4.3. Food Control System after WWII: Intervention for Even Development....... 48 4.4. Intervention in Land: Agricultural Land Reform and the 1952 Agricultural Land Law .............................................................................................................. 54 4.5. The 1961 Agricultural Basic Law: Even Development................................. 56 4.6. Acreage Reduction (Gentan): Intervention in Overproduction ..................... 57 4.7. 1976 Policy Shift: Sacrificing Agriculture for Industrial Development........ 59 4.8. US-Japan Negotiations