TOKYO -- Japan's rice farmers and their representative in parliament have suffered a reversal of fortunes under the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Cattle ranchers are swiftly gaining influence with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, while LDP members representing rice farmers are increasingly sidelined when it comes to key policymaking positions.

Late in the afternoon of May 12, an LDP official received a call from Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. Suga told the official that Koya Nishikawa would be appointed chairman of the LDP's Research Commission on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Strategy in two days.

Less than three months earlier, Nishikawa, who largely represents the interest of cattle farmers, was forced to step down as agriculture minister due to allegations he accepted donations from a company in the sugar industry. Such donations would have been in conflict with his role in tariff negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement.

Nishikawa's return as chairman of the committee means he will once again spearhead the effort to form a consensus on TPP-related issues among LDP members.

Losing traction

The deck is increasingly stacked against rice farmers and their representatives. Among the "inner circle" of the LDP's agricultural policy experts, only one now specializes in rice: Mitsuhiro Miyakoshi, senior vice agriculture minister. Other members of the inner circle either do not have farmers among their constituencies, or they back the interests of cattle farmers. This latter group includes Hiroshi Moriyama, Taku Eto and Takamori Yoshikawa. Moriyama is vice chairman of the LDP's committee on the TPP talks.

In years past, smaller part-time rice farmers who belonged to agricultural cooperatives would organize support for LDP members. Once elected, these representatives would work for the farmers' interests, for example by lobbying officials of the agricultural ministry for a greater share of the budget.

Under this arrangement, rice farmers had the ear of many influential lawmakers, including Koichi Kato, who once served as secretary-general of the LDP, and Shin Sakurai, onetime chief of what was then the Environment Agency of Japan.

But those veteran heavyweights have left the political stage, either through retirement or electoral defeat, and as Japan's rice consumption continues to decline, so does the political clout of rice farmers and their supporters.

Moreover, rice farmers' output has fallen to about 1.8 trillion yen ($14.3 billion), below that of cattle ranchers, at roughly 2.7 trillion yen, and vegetable growers, at around 2.3 trillion yen. Japan's gross agricultural output stands at about 8.5 trillion yen.

And then there is the aging of Japan's farming population. During his address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on April 29, Abe said: "Japan's agriculture has gone into decline over these last 20 years. The average age of our farmers has gone up by 10 years and is now more than 66 years old."

The figure is even higher for rice farmers, whose average age is above 70.

This rapid graying is another factor weakening the rice vote and was one reason the government was able to scrap subsidies for rice growers who reduce the size of their paddies. It also paved the way for the long-overdue reform of agricultural cooperatives, which should make it easier to chip away at regulations protecting the industry.

More effective measures

A report by the Tokyo Foundation, an independent, nonprofit think tank, has attracted the attention of agriculture ministry officials and parliament members championing farmers. The report looked at the Uruguay Round of trade liberalization negotiations and the subsequent domestic policy measures Japan introduced.

The report, published in February last year, said 6.01 trillion yen spent to shield farmers from the impact of implementing the 1993 agreement was largely wasted, as most of the actions taken were simply revised versions of measures that had existed before the negotiations even started. At the Uruguay Round, Japan agreed to provide foreign rice exporters with minimum market access. In return, it was permitted to maintain a high tariff on the crop.

Recently, a lawmaker close to farming groups said the government will need to take broader actions than it did in 1993 given that the current free trade negotiation will likely have a greater impact. For one, it is expected that Japan will have to accept such trade-offs as a tariff-free quota for rice imported from the U.S.

(Nikkei)