[Pitarou]

It‘s not as simple as that.

Japan‘s agricultural system was intended to be a temporary prop, to help agriculture recover after the War. The people would experience inflated prices and erratic supplies, but that was thought a price worth paying.

The system has been kept in place for decades longer than its stated purpose required. The forces that keep it in place are powerful, and democratic only in the loosest sense of the word.

[mikekchar]

But nothing in Japan is really ever temporary. Once it's in place, it takes something pretty major to move it out of place.

And for the record, I don't think it was ever intended to be a temporary measure. The whole reason a million people died of hunger after WWII was because there was no local production of food. And not only that, there was no centralised food distribution system, so even when food became available, there was no way to get it to people.

Nobody that I know of complains about about the agricultural system here (granted, I live in a farming community :-) ). The only people I see complaining are people with foreign interests who want to dump their produce in order to destroy production in other places in the world (as a Canadian, I will say that our country has historically been one of the worst in the world for this).

The biggest problem is really that all of the farmers are dying of old age and nobody in their families want to continue, so I suspect that the "pretty major" thing will probably happen sooner rather than later. I feel strangely thankful to Trump for killing TPP so that the solution is less likely to be selling out to foreign interests.

[Pitarou]

> Nobody that I know of complains about about the agricultural system here (granted, I live in a farming community :-) ).

I did (granted, I have a background in Economics).

Tell a Japanese how much a tin of tomatoes costs in Japan compared to the US or the EU, or a mango, or even a packet of generic acetaminophen (paracetamol) for that matter.

Now ask them why. Nine times out of ten, they’ll say something about the Japanese culture of quality and attention to detail. To be fair, Japan often does demand higher standards, but that’s not nearly enough to explain the full price discrepancy.

They don‘t complain because they don‘t know what’s going on.

[mikekchar]

The answer to the question why is quite obvious from where I stand: Farmers get paid more because of the protectionist policy of the government. The distribution system also prioritises local food over imported food. They also spend money on things like being able to trace exactly where the food comes from. When my neighbour takes his rice to the JA, I can buy it at the local supermarket the next day. His name is on the bag.

The government also disallows the sale of farming land. This ensures that you don't have a few mega operations taking over all of the farm land. If you want to start farming in Japan, you will have no problem because land is available. If you want to start farming in the UK? Good luck unless you have millions of pounds to get started. Even then you probably won't be able to get any land.

In order to ensure that the land is in productive use, land owners get government subsidies when it is. Again, this ensures that land is available for farming.

Compare the amount of money that Japanese farmers get for their produce to US or European farmers. Compare the markup that US and European distributors charge to that of the JA. If you think Japanese farmers don't know what's going on, I think you are very much mistaken.

[Pitarou]

I was talking about ignorance among the consumers, not the producers. The farmers certainly know which side their bread is buttered on!

[lithos]

Are you suggesting people to vote against their interest? That doesn't sound very democratic.

[Pitarou]

I‘m not sure what you mean by that.

In Japan, a farmer’s vote has roughly twice the weight of an urbanite’s.