WTO: No easy task

"The gap is as wide as the Grand Canyon," warned Japan's Agriculture Minister Shoichi Nakagawa, according to BBC: Trade talks in 'crisis situation'.

Japan's farmers are busy right now in the hot weather and the rain. I don't envy them, and I always try to buy locally produced foods as much as possible. As the WTO negotiations seem to be failing in Geneva, the politics of food could become a national affair again, after many years of "globalization". However, it will be no easy task as Japan's self-sufficiency rates are low, and farmers are getting older:

Read The Japan Times editorial: Revitalizing Japanese agriculture:

The fiscal 2005 white paper on agriculture, made public last month, covers the first year of the implementation of the nation's basic plan for food, agriculture and agricultural communities that was adopted in March 2005. The plan is based on the 1999 basic law, which spells out four fundamental goals: securing a stable supply of food, bringing into full play the various functions of land used for agriculture, ensuring the sustainable growth of agriculture, and promoting the advancement of agricultural communities. To revitalize itself, the nation's agricultural sector first must step up efforts to gain public trust and support by promoting a stable food supply, food safety, and the ability to meet diversified consumer demand.

There is a lot of debate in Japan about the World Trade Organization, and Kyodo's rather brief summary about the failed WTO talks Japan's farm minister disappointed by failed WTO talks is ambivalent, as everyone is unsure what will happen if WTO does indeed collapse:

Without the outline for an accord, it will be impossible to achieve the WTO's goal of bringing the ongoing Doha Round of multilateral market-opening negotiations to a successful conclusion by the year-end, as agreed earlier. The negotiations are deadlocked due to a standoff between the United States, the European Union and the emerging economies of Brazil and India over whether to make a compromise in three major areas -- cuts in domestic farm subsidies as well as reductions in tariffs for agricultural and industrial items. The European Union and Japan oppose sharp tariff cuts on agricultural items, while Brazil and India are reluctant to accept drastic reductions in tariffs for industrial goods.

(Photo from Reuters, showing Japanese farmers demonstrating during the WTO Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong December 2005)