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Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan
Can't say for sure, but it would logically have to do with the farm lobby working to try selling homegrown products. However even then, producing homegrown products looks to be expensive in Japan too and that's what usually happens when a cartel is running business, whether it is about food, drugs, gas, etc. That's why I think the government will need to axe the farm lobby and thus reduce tariffs on food imports.
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I'd say this is probably right. From what I've heard, 99% of the rice eaten in japan is grown domestically. That sounds like a protectionist result to me.
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If Japan was mostly of Catholic/Christian faith, I guess fertility rate wouldn't be an issue...
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Well, Ireland still hasn't legalized Abortion...
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As I wrote before, the same phenomenon of deserting the countryside is seen everywhere else in other G8 countries. It's a matter or reorganizing agriculture and breeding methods in order to keep the "business" alive if that's what they mean.
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I don't know, I've been to rural communities in Britain and Ireland, and I've never found any to be quite as "dead" the way rural communities in Japan are often described.
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Please explain the last paragraph. I'm at loss here. 
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The two most powerful political groups (far as I can see) in Japan are Nationalists and Social conservatives. Nationalists should favor pro-children policies as it means more people to enlist in armies and into industrial workforces to compete with foreign countries. Social conservatives are generally pro-family. So given Japan's conservative leanings, it should not be difficult to pass laws to encourage further child bearing. That Japan has not I find odd.
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Originally Posted by LeoXiao
Japan is overpopulated. They should just tough it out until their population is about 100 million or less and then busy themselves with increasing birthrates. Sure their economy will get worse but hey that's better than there not being a livable Japan in a couple hundred years right?
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Japan is not necessarily so densely packed as people make it out to be. There are plenty of parts in Japan (particularly far away from Tokyo) that are sparsely populated.