Japanese rice growers are facing serious difficulties. In accordance with the GATT Agreement of 1993, Japan imported about four-hundreds thousand tons of rice in 1995. Rice imports and will increase to about eight-hundreds thousand tons in 2000. With the deregulation of the rice distribution system, this imported rice is forcing the market price of the domestic rice downwards. Deregulation and imports have also aggravated structural problems already faced by rice farmers in Japan, including scattered lands holdings, inefficiencies of scale, an aging farming population, and difficulties in securing successors.

        Aomori Prefecture is a leading producer of agricultural products in Japan. Rice and apples are its main cash crops. Over the past twenty years, however, the prefecture's agricultural economy has undergone significant changes. Rice has dropped from around 50% to less than 40% of total prefectural agricultural production, and vegetable production has increased relative to fruit (still dominated by apple production).

        These changes have been brought on by the continued lowering of the official rice price, as well as stagnating apple prices, trends which began in the latter half of the 1980s. Recent trade liberalization measures, which are bringing more imported agricultural products, including rice, into the Japanese marketplace, have also had an impact. These trends have adversely affected predominantly rice growing areas, particularly Aomori Prefecture, which is highly dependent on government-purchased rice. These have been great shocks for individual farming families as well as for the regional economy as a whole.

        A look at production trends over the past 20 years in various parts of the prefecture reveals districts, like the Chunan District (which includes the cities of Hirosaki and Kuroishi), where production has dropped. On the other hand, there are areas, like in Kamikitagun, where production has consistently risen.

        Among the reasons for the decreases seen in some districts are the conversion of farmland to suburban housing developments. The Chunan District is a good example of this. As for structural causes, in addition to the price problem and competition from abroad, the over dependence on rice and apple production, inefficiencies of scale, an aging farming population, and difficulties in securing successors to farm operations are often mentioned.

        Among the reasons cited for the increases in areas such as Kamikita are successful crop diversification efforts and improvements in highway transportation and storage technology, the latter having given prefectural farmers better access to and more flexibility in marketing their products in distant metropolitan markets.

        Moreover, farmers in Kamikita, cooperating at both the local and district level, have worked hard to increase vegetable production as an alternative or supplement to rice, as rice is particularly vulnerable to the cold weather damage which frequently hits the eastern half of the prefecture.

        The Nokyo( Japanese agricultural Cooperative) marketing system, which markets and distributes an array of vegetable and flower crops, now plays and will continue to play a very important role. By providing agricultural management consultation services and technological guidance, Nokyo can help farmers form the unified production and marketing institutions they need to help them compete in the agricultural markets of the future.

        Many Nokyo in the Kamikita area, in which vegetable production has greatly expanded in recent years, have in fact been doing just that. They have been conducting marketing surveys as well as organizing discussion sessions involving growers and consumers. They are also working hard to promote the notion that the job of the farmer and his nokyo is much more than simply increasing food production, and that Nokyo must help find new crop combinations, develop distribution networks, and promote sales.

        Many urgent problems must be solved in order promote the development of new vegetable growing areas. Among these is the need to develop a rational and fair system which will put land which is falling out of production into the hands of local farmers who wish to expand into vegetable or other supplementary crops. Other problems to be dealt with include the advancing age of current farm operators and the impending shortage of new farm operators. Others, like insufficient facilities and the lack of manure caused by the drop in livestock production, also affect the area's potential for vegetable production. The periodic shortages and generally high price of vegetables in the nation's supermarkets can be partially blamed on the fragile structure of Japanese domestic agriculture. The creation of an efficient and rational base for vegetable production could help alleviate this. If, for example, Noheji Nokyo in Kamikita puts more energy into collection, sales, and farm and land management guidance, the creation of a "rice & vegetable" nexus should be possible.