Ministers from five major farm-trading regions toured rice paddies Friday in Asuka, Nara Prefecture, before engaging in a two-day conference focusing on agricultural issues.
During the tour, farm minister Tsutomu Takebe tried to convince his counterparts from the United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union that paddies are indispensable features of the Japanese landscape and agricultural sector.
The "quint" ministers then assembled in the city of Nara to discuss various agriculture issues that Japan wants the World Trade Organization to address in the WTO's efforts to liberalize farm trade.
Takebe, minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, showed the other ministers a 22-hectare stretch of green terraced paddies, known as "tanada," in the Inabuchi district.
"These rice fields are at the same time water reservoirs," he said.
The paddies serve as temporary reservoirs at times of seasonal heavy rainfall and prevent landslides from affecting people living downstream, explained Ikuo Kuroki, head of the farm ministry's Kinki Bureau.
Japan has lobbied the WTO against lifting farm trade restrictions, particularly in the rice sector, saying the farmland used to grow rice has multiple functions, including environmental preservation and flood control.
"I don't think there is a dispute about the fact that agriculture has many purposes," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman told reporters. "It is a difference in how governments should be involved in the multipurpose aspects of agriculture."
Referring to the scenery, she added, "I think that there are various ways that it can be preserved and certainly it is something that's been preserved in a very nice way so far."
The other participants at the meeting, the fifth of its kind, are Australia's minister of agriculture, fisheries and forestry, Warren Truss; Canadian Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief; and Franz Fischler, EU commissioner for agriculture, rural development and fisheries.