ABSTRACT
The development of agricultural policy in postwar Japan can be divided into four phases. The first, in the 1940s and 1950s, was the establishment of democratic agricultural systems as a pillar of the Japanese democratization taking place at that time. The second, in the 1950s and 1960s, was the internationalization of agriculture, which went hand in hand with the rapid economic growth of the period. The third was the shift to a policy of food security prompted by the world food crisis from the early 1970s to the early 1980s. The fourth was the return, amid various political hindrances, to internationalization in the late 1980s.
