The government has announced plans to end its policy of limiting rice production and to phase out related subsidies by 2018 in a major shift from the decades-long program aimed at keeping up rice prices but which has been criticized for overprotecting farmers from competition.
But it will take much more than just ending the output control policy coupled with subsidies to turn Japan's agriculture into a growth sector as envisioned by the Abe administration.
The decision comes just as Japan feels pressure to liberalize farm imports under the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks, including heavily protected rice.