Crop Diversification in the Asia-Pacific region - United Nations in ...

leading to stable agricultural production. Rice, highly stable in production and rich innutrition, has supported the large population living in a limited land area, and helpedto build the world's most densely populated society in the early 18 th century.• The small size of farming operations and difficulties in controlling water use at theindividual farm level required collective control and use of water, facilitating theformation of farming communities. Community rules established to ensure smoothoperations had a considerable influence in fostering the spirit of mutual aid andcreating and passing on traditional rural cultures.Agriculture in Japan has developed its own unique characteristics under theconsiderable influence of natural and socioeconomic conditions. To achieve sustainabledevelopment of agriculture and implement a crop diversification strategy, it is necessary tostudy appropriate measures taking into consideration of the above characteristics.2. CROP PRODUCTION AND ECONOMICS SCENARIOThe food self-sufficiency ratio in Japan showed sharp decreases during the periodfrom 1965 to 1998, down from 73 to 40 percent on a calorie supply basis and 62 to 27percent on a grain basis (Figure 1). From a long-term standpoint, one of the major factorsbehind this declining trend is a fundamental change in Japanese dietary patterns, as reflectedin the increasing consumption of animal products and fats and oils, which are largelydependent on imported feed grains and oilseeds, due to the restraints on national land areaand ever decreasing rice consumption (Figure 2).In recent years, both trends as mentioned above have shown a slowdown, while thedomestic production of wheat and soybeans has continued to decline. This is a key factorbehind the declining self-sufficiency ratio in the short term.As the world food supply/demand situation could be tight in the mid- and long-term,the Japanese people are now showing great concern over the future food supply in Japan,characterized by very low food self-sufficiency (Figure 1). France, UK and Germany haveimproved their self-sufficiency ratios over the last 30 years while the Japanese ratio declined.The national government assumes great responsibility in assuring the availability of the foodsupply to its people. Since there are certain limitations on stockpiling and importing, it isimportant to increase domestic agricultural production as much as possible in order to securea stable food supply.The food self-sufficiency ratio is an effective and easy to see indicator for verifyingthe extent to which domestic agricultural production could satisfy national dietaryrequirements. Thus, the aims of the Basic Plan for Food, Agriculture and Rural areas is toidentify the issues to be dealt with (by farm operators, consumers and food industries), andthen to set up specific targets of food self-sufficiency ratio under the new Basic Law (seelater).In the Basic Plan developed in March 2000, major target food self-sufficiency ratios(2010 as target year) were set up, namely: 45 percent on a calorie supply basis, 30 percent ona grain basis, and 62 percent on a grain for staple foods basis. Although it is essential thatmore than 50 percent of all calories supplied by food should be covered by domestic52