Revitalization of Less Favored Area & Environmental Resource Conservation under the Import Liberalization

在关贸总协定乌拉圭回合的最终协议中，日本接受了大米的最低进口准入，而不是关税。研究表明，贸易自由化在优化资源配置方面是合理的，但在资源环境问题上并不总是最好的政策。最近，荷兰和日本等食品进口国一直在争论通过食品贸易积累氮和磷的问题。此外，进口食品的安全也一直是有争议的问题。在这一点上，必须从多维的角度来评估食品贸易自由化的影响。贸易自由化的负面影响往往集中在某些领域。作为减轻这些影响的政策，农业收入支持在国际上已经变得越来越不被接受。在欧盟，已经采取了脱钩政策。对于农业增收支持措施，日本最好采取这些调整后的脱钩政策，以适应日本的情况。由于振兴政策在不太优惠的地区，仅靠促进农业是不够的。更重要的是通过促进当地资源加工企业等二三产业创造就业机会，特别是农业企业和教育产业等，以及通过补贴促进农业外部效益的区域促进将在不久的将来变得越来越重要。

Japan has accepted the minimum access import of rice at the final agreement of GATT Uruguay Round instead of tariffication. It is shown that trade liberalization is considered to be reasonable in terms of optimal resource allocation but not always best policy in terms of resource environmental issues.Recently the accumulation of nitrogen and phosphorus through food trade has been argued in the food importing countries such as Netherlands and Japan. Also the safety of imported food has been controversial matters. In these points, the effects of food trade Iiberalization has to be evaluated from the multidimensional point of view.The negative effects of trade liberalization has tended to be concentrated in certain areas. As the policy to mitigate these effects, farm income support has become less and less acceptable internationally. In the EU,the de-coupling policy has been adopted. Japan had better to adopt these revised de-coupling policies adjusted to Japanese situation for the farm income support measures.As the revitalization policy in less favored aresas, it is not sufficient to promote the agriculture alone. It is more important to create job opportunity by promoting the secondary and tertially industry such as local resources processing firms, especially agribusiness industry and education industries etc.Moreover, the regional promotion through subsidies to external beneficial effects of agriculture will be more and more important in near future.