ONE reason to take seriously recent moves by Japan’s government to reform the country’s vast, quasi-statist system of agricultural co-operatives is a personal story. The politician pushing hardest for reform—alongside Shinzo Abe, the prime minister—is Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary and Mr Abe’s consigliere. Mr Suga’s late father was a struggling farmer from Akita prefecture, among the poorest, who in middle age gave up trying to make a living from growing rice. He switched to strawberries, starting a growers’ union outside the dominant co-operative system, Japan Agriculture (JA).

Mr Suga has described how he watched his father free himself from JA’s tentacles. He is not alone in his dislike: JA is popular with few outside its 240,000 employees, and many farmers criticise it. It was set up in 1947, when land reform under the American occupation meant that many peasants suddenly became landowners. But even as the farming sector declined, JA mushroomed into a vast bureaucracy. More than half of the 10m members who use its many services, ranging from banking and insurance to funerals and wedding halls, are not even farmers. Yet JA-Zenchu, the lobbying group that sits at the heart of JA, wields disproportionate clout in setting Japan’s agricultural policy.

Mr Abe is now mounting a serious challenge to its influence. Last month his government announced that JA-Zenchu would lose its privileged, semi-public status. It will also forgo its right to audit and guide Japan’s 700 local farm co-operatives, which will be prodded towards greater independence. A local JA co-operative in Echizen, in Fukui prefecture, has already broken business ties with its parent organisation. The government sees it as a model for the rest.

The government also says it would like to overhaul JA’s monopolistic marketing division, JA Zen-Noh—which charges farmers above-market prices for fertiliser and other products—into an ordinary public company. The organisation is currently exempt from an anti-monopoly act. But the government appears to have backed down from removing the exemption. The current plan merely urges local co-operatives not to force farmers to buy from JA.

JA-Zenchu’s chairman, Akira Banzai, plays down the impact of the government’s assault on it. And indeed the government’s reforms stop short of reining in the group’s financial services or fully freeing regional co-operatives from its grip. Initial and more radical proposals, via a reform committee, had included abolishing JA-Zenchu outright. In the end, concessions were made to JA’s many friends in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Even so, Mr Abe deserves credit. JA-Zenchu was once thought untouchable because of its ties to the LDP. A precipitous decline in productive farming (the average age of a Japanese farmer is 66) has underlined the chronic failure of its policies, which have kept most Japanese farms tiny and inefficient. Behind the scenes, the government’s reformers won over local agricultural co-operatives, as well as Diet members who might otherwise have sought to block any change. JA-Zenchu found itself rather isolated.

Takeshi Niinami, an expert on agricultural reform who sits on a key economic-policy council, argues that Mr Abe’s methods compare favourably to those of Junichiro Koizumi, Japan’s prime minister from 2001 to 2006. Mr Koizumi pushed through the bold reform of privatising the postal system, a vast collector of household savings. Yet postal reform was largely undone after Mr Koizumi left office. By seeking broader support, including from the local co-ops, Mr Niinami says, Mr Abe can expect his changes not to suffer the same fate.

Another key test of resolve may come soon with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-country free-trade agreement. Negotiations are coming to a head. In Japan, JA-Zenchu has stubbornly opposed lowering Japan’s high tariffs on rice, beef and other foods. It has whipped up other industries in Japan, including the medical business, to oppose the agreement. Weakening the organisation is one way for Mr Abe to speed up TPP negotiations. If a deal is struck, deeper agricultural reform must follow if Japanese farmers are to compete. The most significant would be allowing companies to own farmland, a move currently blocked by JA as well as by farmers. A diminished JA-Zenchu would help.