Are Japanese bureaucrats politically stronger than farmers?: The political economy of Japan's rice set-aside program

them to resist the natural tendency of the market mechanism. A factor which reflects the
tendency of the market mechanism to some extent is expected to be relatively easily
accepted by farmers and regions because that factor represents farmers’ rational
economic behaviors to some extent. On the other hand, a factor that has little
relationship to or is contradictory to the market mechanism is unpalatable to farmers
and regions.

Although this allocation system, as a whole, appears to be an anti-market-
mechanism, each factor used in the calculation formula does not necessarily have an
anti-market disposition. On the contrary, most factors can be considered to represent
parts of an economic tendency revealed in a supply and demand schedule. For example,
the rate of Jishu-ryutsu-mai (high quality rice) is regarded to represent a factor of the
demand under recent consumers’ preference towards high quality rice. On the other
hand, “the crops production targets in each prefecture” is a future vision of crop
production in each prefecture made by bureaucrats. Since these targets were calculated
taking into consideration several sub-factors, such as the condition of drainage and
yields, these are regarded as factors affecting a supply curve.

The “Share of full-time professional farmers” factor listed in Table 1 is a key factor
to examine political meanings of this seemingly bureaucratic discretionary allocation,
from the viewpoint of bureaucrats’ national program objectives and from that of the
relationship to the market mechanism. This factor was introduced for the purpose of
focusing farm policy on full-time professional farmers.⁵ The bureaucrats’ intention itself
sounded valid concern as their promotional campaign was enthusiastic.

However, the political feasibility of achieving this policy change seems to be low.

⁵ In that time, part-time farmers in suburban areas were not only rich as a meaning of
income flow from off-farm earning but also becoming rich as a meaning of asset
because the price of land that they possess skyrocketed. Nonetheless, the farm policy
had indiscriminately supported par-time farmers as well as full-time professional
farmers. Consequently, this policy stance was scathingly criticized by newspapers and
popular media-commentators. Therefore, a policy change from indiscriminate protection
to targeted protection was urgently required.

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