Japanese Agriculture and Capital Expansion: The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Global Food Value Chain Strategy

ABSTRACT

This article explores the intersection of two nationwide policy discussions in Japan: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Global Food Value Chain (GFVC) strategy. The former has indicated a radical reform and liberalisation of Japanese agriculture and the latter promotes Japanese agriculture “on the offensive” and its overseas expansion. The TPP generated public concerns about external market forces coming into Japanese society and the GFVC is essentially about Japanese capital and agriculture reaching out to overseas markets. While Japan’s participation in the TPP became a controversial topic in the country, the GFVC strategy has relatively quietly rooted itself in the policy and public spheres. Current national policies describe challenges in Japanese capitalist society as agricultural problems and reframe the risks and costs of the free market on the population as a greater opportunity (or solution) for Japanese agriculture. Such logics have significant risks of accelerating problems inherent in Japan’s existing mode of production especially concerning the subordination of labour power to capital.

KEY WORDS:

• Agriculture
• global food value chain strategy
• international food regime
• Japan
• Trans-Pacific Partnership

Notes

1. The predecessor of the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, was signed by Brunei, Singapore, New Zealand and Chile in 2005. The USA, Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, Canada and Japan joined TPP negotiations from 2008, but the number of member countries decreased to 11 (TPP-11) when the USA withdrew in 2017. The TPP was then reframed as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2018. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership was signed in March 2018 and the Japanese government has completed domestic procedures for legislation amendments.

2. Winders (2009) argues that the second international food regime based on national regulation of agriculture and agricultural protectionism lasted until the 1990s.

3. For example, based on the theoretical perspectives of David Ricardo and Theodore Schultz, Hayami (1988) analyses that the declining comparative advantage in agriculture against industrial productivity within Japan resulted in the country’s decreasing self-sufficiency in food and increasing agricultural protectionism during the country’s high economic growth period from the 1950s to 1970s. On the matter of Japan’s self-sufficiency in food, George Mulgan takes a perspective that “Given that the food self-sufficiency rate is not a policy variable because it is determined by demand and supply … as well as by consumer preferences, it is correctly seen as a political variable, in the sense that it can be used as justification for allocating government funds to the agricultural sector to meet the target rate” (George Mulgan 2001, 60).

4. Kagatsume and Tawa (2012, 160) record that the amount of food re-imported to Japan through Japanese-affiliated food-associated companies overseas is not significant, but they indicate that Japan’s participation in the TPP has the potential to further re-importation of agricultural goods if more Japanese-affiliated food-associated companies expand their businesses overseas to reduce the cost for production and target Japan as the destination for exports. In the case of Japanese-affiliated food-associated companies in China, Kagatsume and Tawa (2012, 128) observe that more than 60% of sales comes from the local sales in China while 36.9% in total is attributable to sales from exports. Japan takes up 70.2% of these exports (Kagatsume and Tawa 2012, 128). Among 96 Japanese food-associated companies listed in the first or second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2011, China is the most popular destination to expand businesses followed by the USA as the second most popular location (Miura, Sakurai, and Trang 2012, 5).

5. These estimates were produced when the USA was still part of the TPP negotiaions.

6. Honma and George Mulgan (2018, 138) observe that “Elements in both the MAFF and amongst the senior members of the farm policy tribe have sided with the Prime Minister’s Office in wanting agricultural policy reform, with key players susceptible to Abe’s policy influence and accepting that JA [Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (Nōkyō)] no longer necessarily represents the interests of the farmers.” With special attention to the ideological conflicts that had existed within the LDP since 1955, Sasada (2015, 30–31) points out that the power dynamics shifted from the decentralised clientelistic party organisation to the politics led by the prime minister during the Koizumi administration (2001–2005). This shift in the party organisation has contributed to the operation of the ongoing agricultural reform under the Abe administration (Sasada 2015, 26).

7. The second Abe administration expressed a strong intention to tailor Japan’s ODA implementation for Japan’s national interests and security (Dobson 2017, 212). Since 1993, Japan’s ODA to Africa has surged under the banner of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). Economic growth driven by large-scale investments from China and South Africa prompted the Japanese private sector to actively participate in TICAD, at its fourth round in 2008 (Hirano 2012, 196). The Abe administration stresses the importance of public–private partnerships in Japan’s ODA. This partnership “makes possible the involvement of specific firms in ODA initiatives, a partnership that was previously prohibited to maintain the principle of impartiality in development assistance” (Hirano 2012, 196).

8. By 2019, the membership of this national strategy reached 420 groups, which are seven Cabinet-level agencies and ministries, 323 private companies in the areas of food manufacturing, agricultural machinery, distribution and chain restaurants, 54 incorporated administrative agencies, industrial associations and Non Profit Organisations, 25 local governments and 11 academics (MAFF 2019a).

9. Other existing categories of A-FIVE investments in 2019 are: business restructuring (1,140.5 million yen for six investment matters); distribution rationalisation of foodstuffs (547.2 million yen for one investment matter); and capital subscription for organisations supporting activities outside A-FIVE investment matters (60 million yen for one investment matter) (A-FIVE website Shusshi Ichiran (List of Capital Subscription)).

10. According to the data in 2011, domestically produced agricultural, forestry and fishery products were used in the food manufacturing industry (59.4% of the total), final consumption (31.3%) and eating-out industry (9.2%). Small- to medium-sized businesses and micro enterprises take up 99% of the food manufacturing industry in Japan (MAFF 2017).

11. Although Yamashita has published a number of articles and books on Japanese agriculture, some care needs to be exercised in reading his arguments. For example, Yamashita (2018) claims that those who do not have a basic knowledge of trade policies and international economic law incited fear among the Japanese population, causing opposition to the influence of the USA by emphasising that investment companies would be able to sue the states.