Rice farmer
© REUTERS/Daniel LeussinkRice farmer Kazuyuki Oshino chats with his son-in-law at a rice field, in Tendo, Yamagata prefecture, northern Japan.



Comment: Note this article is from a few weeks ago, but it's notable in light of what's happening with farmers across much of the West, particularly the farmer's protests in the Netherlands.


In response to Reuters questions, a spokesperson for the LDP did not directly address the issue of the party's support among farmers. The spokesperson said the LDP was striving to ensure all citizens understand its policies, not only those involved in agriculture, and referred Reuters to its election manifesto, which includes a pledge to ease the impact of higher fuel, feed and fertiliser prices, without providing further details.

"The surge in energy and commodity prices are a worry," Toshiaki Endo, the chair of the LDP's election strategy committee and a lower-house representative from Yamagata, told party supporters in April. "We're in for an extremely tough fight."

Public support for Kishida recently fell to a four-month low of 48.7 per cent and more than 54 per cent disapprove of his handling of inflation, a Jiji Press poll showed this month.

'GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY'

Abe's embrace of a landmark trans-Pacific trade deal in 2013, which Japan formally signed five years later, damaged the LDP's support in the rice-growing north, farmers and analysts said. Yamagata is one of a handful of prefectures that does not have LDP lawmakers in the upper house, although all three of its representatives in the lower house are from the party.

"Farmers and agriculture groups were traditionally strong supporters of the ruling party. But over the last 10 years, there are more people who think it's not good to rely only on the LDP," said Toshihiro Ooyama, a 12th generation farmer who heads the agricultural cooperative in Yamagata city.

The cooperatives lobby on behalf of their members and invest farmers' savings through the Norinchukin Bank, which has US$756 billion in assets and is a major player in global financial markets.

JA Group declined to comment on farmers' support for the LDP. It said that rising costs of fuel, raw materials and animal feed were causing "widening concern" among agricultural producers. It referred Reuters to a seven-page policy proposal issued last month, which called for measures to ease the strain on farmers, including government support to expand domestic production of crops used for feed.

Japan has reduced support for agriculture in recent decades, but even so, 41 per cent of farmers' revenue still comes from government subsidies, more than double the average of the OECD group of wealthy nations. Japanese farmers charged 60 per cent more than international market levels for their produce in 2018 to 2020, according to the OECD.

Some economists say ageing Japan can no longer afford to give big support to farmers. Yet without that support, the LDP may lose its grip on a key group of voters.

"The LDP will just hit a wall," in Yamagata if it does not extend more help to farmers, said 57-year-old Kazuharu Igarashi.

At his hog shed in Tsuruoka, near the Sea of Japan, he too adds rice to animal feed and is concerned his pork will be drier. So far, he said customers have not noticed.


Comment: And this is the adulteration that producers are willing to admit too.


About 80 per cent of his monthly revenue of 10 million yen (US$75,000) now goes on animal feed, above his break-even of around 60 per cent. He said he took a loan from a prefectural emergency fund, but is concerned that other farmers will not survive financially.

Like Hirao, he said he is leaning in the coming election toward the incumbent candidate, Yasue Funayama of the centrist Democratic Party for the People. A former farm ministry bureaucrat, she favours European-style guaranteed minimum incomes for rice farmers.

"The government says rice is at the heart of our culture and the people's staple food, but production has been liberalised," Funayama told Reuters in an interview at her office in Tokyo. "The government has abandoned its greatest responsibility."

Given Funayama's popularity, the LDP considered not fielding a candidate against her, a person familiar with the party's thinking told Reuters. It only named one with some six weeks left before the Jul 10 vote. The LDP declined to comment on whether it had considered not running a candidate in Yamagata in the upcoming election.

To be sure, there can be many issues impacting how farmers vote, especially as 70 per cent of them are aged 65 or older.

"There is such a wide variation among the farming population," said Kay Shimizu, a research assistant professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh who co-authored a book about Japanese farming and the JA cooperatives.

"On the one hand, they have an interest in their well-being, in their livelihood, which is farming, but they also have other interests. Many of them are a lot older, they have social welfare concerns."

Kazuyuki Oshino, a rice farmer in central Yamagata, said he was asked by three different farmers to take over managing their paddies because of rising costs.

"If conditions continue as they are, things will be hard," he said. "So they quit."