Long-term plans for sustainable agricultural development in Japan

Siberian Journal of Life Sciences and Agriculture. 2025. Vol. 17. No. 5. P. 562–580.

Emelyanova O., Shcherbakov D.

The paper is focused on the agricultural problems in Japan, precisely on the issue of sustainable agriculture. The sector contributes less than 1% to Japan’s GDP (27% comes from the industry and 73% from the service sector), which is a small share like in other developed countries, however the role of agriculture in Japan is very high in terms of the national security aspects. The analyzed data is collected from the Japanese databases and original documents produced by the Japanese government. The research comes to the conclusion that the ideas of sustainable agriculture had started to germinate in Japan earlier than the SDGs appeared. The goals targeted in the official documents are ambitious, but the achievements are not as good. The programs are mainly focused on food supply security aspects, but the environmental problems are left aside. Finally, pesticides and chemical fertilizers are still highly used in the country.

Keywords: сельское хозяйство, Япония, Japan, agriculture, устойчивое развитие, sustainable development, SDGs, цели устойчивого развития, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ЦУР, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Министерство сельского хозяйства, лесных угодий и рыбного промысла Японии