Breaking News, World News and Taiwan News.

Updated Monday, November 28, 2011 0:00 am TWN, By Shingo Ito ,AFP

This photo taken on Nov. 5 shows Japanese farmers protesting against Japan's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks in Tokyo. Most farmers here fear that a ...

Enlarge Photo

Sponsors
▪	Find great real time deals on China Flights. Book flights to China or China domestic flights 24/7.
▪	Buy china wholesale products from reliable chinese wholesalers on DHgate.com!
▪	Save 75% for all hotels in Shanghai, Beijing and whole China. Lowest rates for Flights in China.
▪	Get the best deals for Guangzhou Hotels or choose from more than 10,000 hotels in 499 Chinese cities.

Japan's rice farmers mull impact of TPP

TOKYO -- Osamu Tamaki is one of the few rice farmers in Japan who see an Asia-Pacific free trade deal as a window of opportunity rather than the death knell for a highly cosseted industry.

“The TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) will give us a great opportunity to go out into the world,” said the 32-year-old, who has already exported rice to Taiwan and is now looking to markets in Hong Kong and the United States.

“The TPP may damage domestic farmers, including me,” said Tamaki, who harvests rice in Niigata, one of the nation's biggest rice-producing prefectures, north of Tokyo.

But it could also be the much needed cue to reforming a sector that benefits from generous subsidies and jaw-dropping protectionism, he said.

“Our inward-focused farm policies have only led to a decline in competitiveness and accelerated the graying of the industry,” he told AFP.

Tamaki is very much in the minority among rice farmers, who have been among the most vocal of opponents to plans announced earlier this month by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to join talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Most farmers fear that a free trade pact will be bad news for them. And buffered from global trade by a nearly 800 percent tariff on imported rice, it is not difficult to see why.

“I understand globalization is something we must face, but I'm not confident,” said Koichi Daikoku, a 62-year-old rice grower in Akita, northern Japan.

“I can't tell my son to take over my rice fields as I don't see the future of farming,” Daikoku said. “I can't help but think that in the future I will have to give up the fields I have inherited from my ancestors.”

For the Japanese, rice — eaten three times a day in many homes — is a grain that has a special place in the national heart. In earlier times it was used as a currency, and it is still offered in tribute on religious occasions.

Domestically produced rice is held to be far superior to foreign-grown grain. A poll this month by the Yomiuri Shimbun showed 89 percent of respondents claimed they would continue to buy Japanese rice, even if vastly cheaper imports were available.

1|2|Next Page>>