Reconsidering agriculture, forestry and fishery in japan: searching for a responsible development pathway

Abstract

The industrial development process is identified with the rapid transfer of the workforce from primary industry, in particular from agriculture, forestry and fishery, to the manufacturing industry and the service sector. This development process was theorized by Clark whose work followed the ideas of Petty’s law. This workforce movement is also accompanied by a lower GDP share in agriculture, forestry and fishery. In fact, these two trends for Japan, i.e. the rapid decrease in workforce in agriculture, forestry and fishery, and the lower GDP share of these sectors, are well-known facts. On the other hand, agriculture, forestry and fishery are closely related to biological activities associated with net primary production (NPP). Those biological activities ultimately constrain long-term land productivity on which the survival of all biological species on Earth depends. Conventional economic analysis does not pay due attention to the crucial role of NPP. If the climate change described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is real, the current economic development path should be reconsidered in view of the crucial importance of NPP—that which is inseparably related to agriculture, forestry and fishery. This chapter is aimed at reconsidering the basic role of Japanese agriculture, forestry and fishery in view of responsible development on behalf of future generations. This chapter first reconsiders the basic characteristics of agriculture and manufacturing. These inherent characteristics are associated with two different modes of economic production and can be reexamined and highlighted in view of a distinction between ecological succession and mechanized agriculture. This chapter then discusses various problems with the current form of Japanese agriculture. The origin of these problems is shown to be traced back to the Japanese government’s policy on rice production. The Japanese government’s heavy subsidy policy is also shown to be responsible for the poor performance of Japanese agriculture and the trend of increasing net import. This chapter discusses the multiple problems of Japanese Agricultural Cooperatives (JA), the most important organization in charge of promoting agriculture. This chapter introduces basic points of the Montréal Process for sustainable forest management. This chapter next discusses the trend of decreasing forest workforce together with elderly people and of self-sufficiency rate of timber supply in Japan. This chapter also reexamines the basic role of various activities associated with silvicultue, activities such as cleaning and weeding and suggests certain special arrangements for Japanese forestry, which is managed mainly on the small scale by family foresters. This chapter introduces the world fishery situation where aquaculture is seen to be radically increasing, in contrast to, catches trends which are not at all increasing. This chapter discusses the vicious cycle of the Japanese fishery where the fish stock is seen to decrease in the long-run. A set of measures to make the fishery sector sustainable is proposed based on scientific research. Lessons from the fishery sector of New Zealand and Norway are examined in promotion of a sustainable Japanese fishery. This chapter concludes with a reexamination of NPP—something which should be maintained as an important target in discussion of sustainability.