The Japanese government tries an experiment in mountainous rural Japan to re-populate a farming town, says the Washington Post. The population of Yabu has dropped by half in 50 years, young people move to the city for jobs, the average age of farmers is nearly 71, and “12 percent of the farmland has been abandoned as residents become too old to tend it.” The plans include a streamlining of land sales and power for local authorities to take control of abandoned land and consolidate it, says the Post, so that private companies and new farmers can use the land.
There are international ramifications to the project and to Japan’s highly protected agricultural markets. A major hurdle for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact is Japanese refusal to open its markets for the “sacred five” foods; dairy, rice, sugar, wheat and barley, and beef and pork.