| Any country in the process of modernization has to face the problem of unbalanced industrial development, that is, how to raise the status of agriculture and peasants in the modern industrial system. As a reference for China’s rural modernization, Japan’s rural areas were also once in poverty after WWII. However, after two decades, the income of Japanese peasants was generally consistent with that of urban residents. As for the reasons, Japan’s Basic Law for Agriculture (1961) established a system of “Comprehensive Agricultural Policy”, and formulated a full range of policies on rural development, agricultural protection, and income support around the core objective of ensuring the bottom line of peasants’ income, which means protecting agriculture with the power of the state. However, the strong protection of agriculture and peasants’ income has also led to the problem of decreased rural vitality. In recent years, the global competition for agriculture and food has intensified, forcing the Japanese rural areas and peasants to be more active in coping with the new trends, such as the marketization and commercialization of agricultural products. Under such circumstances, the “Specialized Agricultural Policy” system, based on the Basic Law for Food, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs (1999), reduced agricultural subsidies and emphasized the aim of specialization, marketization, and refinement of agricultural products. Such a paradigm shift in Japan’s agricultural policy has brought valuable experience to the transformation of agricultural policy in East Asia. The Comprehensive Agricultural Policy System built up the foundations for peasants to increase their incomes, as well as the social value of being “hard-up” rather than “poverty-stricken”. In contrast, in the context of rising neo-liberalism and the globalization of the food and agriculture sectors, the specialized agricultural policy system proved to be more effective in supporting the competitiveness of agricultural products. |
