Simulation Analysis on the Economic Evaluation of Japanese Rice Policy under the WTO Regime

本研究旨在探讨WTO体制下日本稻米政策的替代方案。2001年，该小组的研究人员对日本、外国和国际大米市场进行了各种研究。本文阐述了对未来日本大米市场的预测结果和预留的政策。在大米需求下降速度趋缓的情况下，预计人均大米消费总量将从1999年的71.9公斤继续下降到2015年的60-65公斤，国内大米消费量将从1999年的990.5万吨下降到8.271-902.2万吨。另一方面，预计2015年正常作物产量将增长4%至-540公斤。根据这一产量预测，2015年满足未来水稻需求的稻田面积将减少到139万至153万公顷，比2000年的种植面积(176万公顷)减少13%至22%。预计2015年稻田总面积将减少到220万公顷。这意味着稻田总面积与水稻需求的充足面积之间的差距仍然很大(0.68-0.82ha或35%)。这些结果表明，使用大米以外的替代作物对大米政策至关重要。目前对替代作物的大量补贴符合这一政策含义，但存在分配问题。由耕种者和土地所有者分割的补贴大部分归于土地所有者。这使得实际的地租过高。

The objective of this study is to investigate the alternatives of the rice policy in Japan under the WTO regime. In 2001, various studies have been conducted by the researchers of this group concerning Japanese, foreign and iriternational rice markets. In this summary, the results on the projection of the future Japanese rice market and the set-aside pttlicy are illustrated.Even though the rate of decreasing demand for rice is getting moderate, the gross rice consumption per capita is projected to continue to decrease frorm 71.9 kg in 1999 to 60-65 kg in 2015.With this trend, the domestic rice consumption is going to debrease from 9.905 million ton in 1999 to 8.271-9.022 million ton. On this other hand, the yield of the-normal crop in 2015 is estimated to grow by four percent to 535-540 kg in 2015.With this projection of yield, the sufficient paddy field area for the futufe rice demand is to decrease to 1.39-1.53 million ha in 2015, which is 13-22 percent decrease comparing to the planted area in 2000 (1.76 million ha) The total paddy field area is estimated to decline to 2.20 million ha in 2015, which means the gap between the total paddy field area and the sufficient area for rice demand is continue to be large (0.68-0.82 ha or 35 percent). These results imply that the use of alternative crops other than rice is crucial for the rice policy. The current substantial subsidies for the alternative crops are consistent with this policy implication while there lies a distributional problem. Most of the subsidies which are divided by the cultivators and the land owners is imputed to the land owners. This makes the real land rent excessively high.