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Paper short abstract

The paper tries to examine the changes in Japan’s agricultural policy by exploring the definitions of some key policy terms such as “the food self-sufficiency rate” and “bearers of agriculture.” It argues that as their meanings changed overtime, a major shift occurred in Japan’s agricultural policy.

Paper long abstract

Japan’s agricultural policy has been aimed “to improve the food self-sufficiency rate” and “to foster bearers [ninaite] of farming.” Even though these goals remained unchanged for several decades, the actual policy measures to achieve them have altered from time to time. The conventional explanation that focuses on interests of political actors [farmers, the governing party, and the Agricultural Ministry] have difficulties in explaining the incremental policy change, because their interests have remained largely the same. This study proposes a new explanation focusing on the definitions of such key policy terms as “the food self-sufficiency rate” and “bearers of agriculture.” The author hypothesizes that changes in the definition of those terms that defined some policy goals brought about a major shift in Japan’s agricultural policy. To test the hypothesis, the author conducts a historical analysis of Japan’s agricultural policy between the 1970s and the 2010s. In the analysis, the author explores policy discourse concerning agricultural policy among policymakers, the media, and intellectuals by conducting text analyses of such materials as the Japanese Agricultural Ministry’s policy documents, the minutes from the Japanese Diet, and the articles of Japanese newspapers. Also, the author conducts a set of interview survey of Japanese policymakers such as Diet members and retired bureaucrats. Through the analyses, the author tries to present the evidence for the causal link between the definition of key policy terms and a shift in Japan’s agricultural policy. The author expects to detect the changes in the meanings of those key terms, the ways in which those changes were translated into actual policies, and the reasons why the meanings and policies changed during the time period.