By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Dec 23 1998 (IPS)

At the start of the rainy season each June, Noriko Maruyama drives her two children down to Ibaragi, the closest rice-growing area to Tokyo, to help plant the first crop of rice.

“It’s a very important time for us,” says the 42-year-old Maruyama, whose family lost contact with its agricultural roots when her grandfather came to Tokyo many decades ago. “I want to teach my children the importance of rice and our culture.”

Maruyama may be part of a minority that still follows the custom of planting rice, but the value she puts on the staple is shared by the vast majority of Japanese.

To them rice symbolises their proud history as a society with agricultural roots. Indeed, most Japanese surnames, written in Chinese characters, reveal agricultural origins. For example, the characters for “Maruyama” mean “round mountain”.

The annual tradition of the Japanese emperor planting rice in late spring in the seclusion of his Imperial Palace has remained unchanged for centuries.

This rice culture explains why for many Japanese, talk of liberalising the rice trade or the government’s decision last week to impose steep tariffs on foreign rice, is not so much a trade issue but a cultural and social one.

“Japan’s rice market is the most difficult and last sector to be liberalised in the Japanese economy,” said professor Keisuke Ohomua, an economist and commentator on the issue. “It is easier to reform the financial system than the rice market.”

But for outsiders, Japan’s decision to adopt in April 1999 a system that slaps up to 1,000 percent in tariffs on imported rice is yet another effort to build trade walls and pamper its rice farmers and powerful agricultural lobby.

Already, critics and foreign rice exporters like the U.S. and Australi see Tokyo’s decision to impose high tariffs as nothing short of the start of a trade war.

But for people like Maruyama, the attachment to Japanese- produced rice has roots in both culture and fear of a lack of food security. This is why she, like many consumers’ groups and activists, have watched Tokyo’s commitment to liberalise the rice market with trepidation.

Under a multilateral trade accord in 1993, Japan committed to increasing its imports of rice under a system of annual import quotas without tariffs. Rice importation is state-controlled.

Under this accord, reached after bitter opposition by the agricultural sector, Japan will hike rice imports from 4 percent of domestic demand to 8 percent by 2000. Major benefactors of the policy was the United States, Australia, and Thailand.

In its Dec 18 decision on rice tariffs, Japan’s Cabinet said it resorted to the tariff scheme because while the country could no longer resist agricultural liberalisation — tariffs would give its farmers time to prepare for the challenge of foreign rice.

Analysts say the new plan would allow rice imports to grow more slowly, some say by as much as half the committed rate, at a time when there is a glut in domestically produced rice.

Despite imports, many Japanese prefer to buy their own rice. “When it comes to rice, price is not what matters. The Japanese prefer domestic rice because it is safe and plays a vital role in our society,” said Yoko Tomiyama of the Japan Consumers’ Union.

This explains why Thai rice, prized elsewhere and sold at less than half the price of Japanese rice, is not popular with the Japanese. Most rice imports go into making rice products such as crackers, or exported as food aid.

Tomiyama adds Japan faces risk with depending on foreign imports for its staple diet: “We only have to look at other important grains in the Japanese diet, such as soyabeans and barley, where imports comprise more than 90 percent of our consumption, to realise that rice must not go that way.”

Some say they prefer local rice because imported rice is more likely to have toxic pesticides, and others point to the fact that local farmers are having a hard time as it is. Some farmers have abandoned their rice paddies given falling prices.

This is despite the fact that the government, in liberalising the rice trade under external pressure, had given assurances such as special subsidies to farmers who grow rice under difficult conditions such as hilly rice paddies, and a direct income guarantee for rice growers facing losses.

The opening up of the rice trade also heralds deep, and difficult, political changes in Japan.

After all, it is the powerful agricultural lobby supporting the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that developed the country’s postwar agricultural policies, and is loathe to see its clout eroded.

Under the traditional set-up, the government bought rice cultivated by Japanese farmers, providing them a lifetime guarantee. In 1997, Japan produced 10 million tonnes of rice, most it bought by the government.

The entry of foreign imports would erode this tradition, as the LDP is forced to bow to foreign pressure and turn its back on the domestic agricultural lobby.

Meantime, Japan is bracing for trade friction over the new rice tariffs.

The American envoy to Japan warned that rice tariffs could “cripple” U.S. rice exports to Japan. Professor Katsuji Kodama says Washington will try its best to squash the planned tariffs.

“Such high tariff rates are not acceptable. Washington could threaten Japan with Article 301 of the US Trade Act which would permit the U.S. government to take retaliatory measures against unfair trade practices,” he explained.

In any case, Tomiyama suggests that farmers break away from traditional dependence on government and rely on the simple but safe guarantee given by the public’s strong support for their produce.

“Japanese rice will remain popular in Japan and the modernisation of this important sector does not mean increasing imports,” Tomiyama observed.

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