The Abe administration's proposed measures to reform the farm sector in its updated strategy for economic growth have focused on the organizational problems of agricultural cooperatives. While the administration targeted the Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives (JA-Zenchu) as an obstacle to growth of the nation's farm industry, little headway has been made on the larger issues of reforming farmland use and ensuring that Japanese agriculture can survive the wave of farm trade liberalization.
In line with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's vow to tackle deregulation as a core component for growth, the government's regulatory reform panel singled out labor, medical and farm sectors as three areas where growth has been hampered by regulations. Each sector has an organization that traditionally has wielded powerful political influence — the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), the Japan Medical Association and JA-Zenchu.
In particular, JA-Zenchu formed what was once considered a rock-solid triangle with the farm ministry and the Liberal Democratic Party's farm "tribe" lawmakers backed by farmers' votes in rural constituencies. Although this triangle exerted a strong influence over the nation's agricultural policies, it crumbled when the LDP was forced out of power by the Democratic Party of Japan in 2009, and it is not as strong as it was in the past even after the LDP's return to the government's helm. Still, JA-Zenchu launched a fierce lobbying effort targeting the ranks of the LDP when the regulatory reform panel's working group in May called for the "abolition" of JA-Zenchu.