ABSTRACT
The further development of Japan’s agriculture toward the year 2000 depends on three major factors: general economic development, trends in world agriculture and trade, and changes in agricultural policies. The first two factors are largely exogenous to agriculture, since Japan’s agriculture has little effect on general economic growth, and although Japan is a major importer of agriculture products in the world, the volume of its agriculture production is only a small part of world production. But it depends to an important extent on government trade and agricultural policies how both factors bear upon Japan’s agriculture. These policies are the outcome of an interactive process in which mainly domestic, but increasingly international forces also come together.
