Why the Average Japanese Farmer is 70 Years Old

Why the Average Japanese Farmer is 70 Years Old

The average Japanese farmer is 70 years old. Average. Meaning half are rapidly approaching their 80th birthday. Just 
one in five are under 60. Many farmers don’t have children; 
Japanese families are among the smallest in the world. What few children 
they do have left long ago for higher-paid jobs in the city. Not to mention: 
they too are nearing retirement. In other words, there’s no one to replace them. In 2000, there were nearly two and a half 
million farmers. Today, there are fewer than half as many. And by 2039, those who remain 
will be 84 — the country’s average lifespan. Which means, at current trends, Japan will 
all but run out of farmers in about 15 years. And that’s assuming these seniors 
keep working until their very last day. Now, you might be thinking: so what? 
The average American farmer is 58; the average Australian one, 63. The story of agriculture over the 
past two hundred years is one of increasing efficiency and decreasing 
employment. That’s just progress. In 1880, half of the U.S. population were farmers. Today, just one percent. Even the “corn 
state,” Iowa, is down to less than five. And yet, thanks to new technology like 
tractors, fertilizers, and improved irrigation, our total agricultural output 
exploded over that same period. In short: we make more for less. And as countries industrialize, not 
only do they need fewer farmers but they — and the rest of the country 
along with them — also get older. With our basic needs met, labor is freed up to 
specialize. So, people flee the farm for the city. There, having children is both more expensive 
and less of a priority, so they have fewer. This process — repeated over centuries 
— is why nearly the entire developed world — from Europe to the Americas to Asia 
— have all converged at the same point: Canadians, French, Koreans, and Australians 
are all wealthy, they live in cities, they have small families, and their 
populations are aging and shrinking. If Japan differs at all, it’s only because it’s slightly ahead of the curve. It left 
the farm sooner, it developed quicker, its population began shrinking earlier, 
and its farmers are now aging faster. And since Japan is famous for efficiency, you 
might assume that if its farmers are older, it must have figured out how 
to do even more with even less. Robots have replaced Japanese waiters, baristas, and police officers, so surely 
they’ve also replaced its farmers. But that’s where you’d be wrong. Japanese farming is wildly — wildly — 
in-efficient. And, as a result, the world’s fourth-largest economy won’t just run out of 
farmers in 15 years, it may run out of food. True, Japan developed earlier and its farmers are 
now older. But the reason is completely different. The 58-year-old American farmer is a testament to American agricultural efficiency — that’s 
how mechanized modern farming has become. The 70-year-old Japanese farmer is 
a symptom of its failure — there, farming is little more than a hobby. For Japan, “efficiency” didn’t mean getting 
really good at producing corn, soybeans, or potatoes — no, it skipped that step 
entirely. Instead, it got really good at producing cars and cameras and video 
games, which it then trades for the former. Imports feed Japan, not tractors, 
or fertilizer, or robots. Now, all developed countries, of course, did 
some version of this — specializing in their “comparative advantage,” after all, is 
how they developed in the first place. But even as they climbed the value chain, even 
when they began producing million-dollar airplanes and satellites and MRI machines, they kept making 
50-cent potatoes — if nothing else, for the sake of national security. Every rich country on 
earth has decided it’s worth a few bucks to make sure they won’t starve to death in the event of a 
faraway war or earthquake or drought or pandemic. …Every rich country, that is, except one. None has so completely given 
up on domestic food production as Japan. Take the size of its farms, for example. One of the first things professional 
farmers realized centuries ago was that many of their costs are fixed: once 
you’ve already bought a tractor, you might as well buy the field next door, and the 
one next to that, and divide the cost. Farming is all about economies of 
scale. There’s a reason America’s factory farms with over a thousand acres 
have slowly cannibalized all the rest. Meanwhile, 10% of Japan’s entire farmland 
would fit in Texas’ King Ranch alone. The average size of a Japanese farm? Seven acres. In America, that number is sixty-two. 
No, sorry, four hundred and sixty-two. Partly, this is just a quirk of history. 
After World War 2, absentee landlords were forced to sell their farms, which were then 
redistributed, in small plots, to peasants. And partly, it’s about geography. The country is smaller than California and most land is 
either mountainous or already developed. It has about 10 million acres of arable 
land. The U.S. has nearly a billion. Now, in theory, Japanese farmers could make up for this lack of scale with 
their signature efficiency. As anyone who’s tried their hand at 
“urban gardening” has quickly discovered, growing things is a lot more 
work than it sounds! Farming, if you plan on making money, that is, 
is skilled labor. When you may only get 40 or 50 harvests in your entire life, 
there isn’t much room for trial and error. And yet most Japanese farmers are 
part-time — they do it on the side, perhaps to make some extra cash in retirement. 
Even though the country’s climate supports double-cropping, for instance, many 
only manage one crop a year, if that. Picture the most meticulously maintained community 
garden, not a sprawling quonset hut crammed with 10,000 chickens. Japanese-style farming is 
fulfilling work, surely, and there’s no doubt this labor of love yields some truly artisanal, 
mouth-watering food, but boy is it inefficient! A few discerning shoppers will splurge on these 
ultra-organic, ultra-handcrafted delicacies — it’s not uncommon to find a single Japanese strawberry 
or melon on sale for 50 or even a hundred U.S. Dollars in Korean or Hong Kong grocery stores — 
but, needless to say, the market is pretty small. Which means most of its food has to be imported. Per capita, Americans consume more 
calories than anyone else on earth. And we’re the third most populous country. 
And yet we still produce more food than we need — which is lucky for Tokyo, because 
that’s where much of the rest ends up. Japan, meanwhile, already eats fewer 
calories than any other developed country, by far. In fact, I kid you not, its caloric intake 
is closer to North Korea than the United States. But it’s still only 37% self-sufficient — 
and that number has only fallen over time. The one thing it does produce enough 
of — rice — it’s eating less and less of. The Japanese diet is shifting 
toward “Western” staples like bread, yogurt, and cheese. The average person eats 
half as much rice as they did in the 60s. As a result, rice is one of the few 
Japanese foods you might find at your local supermarket— although you’ll 
also find that it’s two or three times more expensive than other rice — a 
consequence of its ludicrous inefficiency. And it’s not just food. Somehow, Japan is an even slower adopter 
of EVs than the United States. Less than 2% of new cars sold are electric. 
Yet it produces virtually zero oil. Therefore, Japan is one of the world’s largest 
energy importers. Despite having just 8% as many people as India, it buys two-thirds as 
much oil — almost all from the Middle East. Even what Japan does manufacture — cars, consumer 
electronics, and pharmaceuticals — it’s famous for doing so in the most import-reliant, 
least self-sufficient way possible. Toyota, for example, pioneered 
“just-in-time” production, which minimizes inventory by ordering only what 
parts are needed, only when they’re needed. Mitsubishi now relies on forty-three 
thousand direct suppliers around the world. Again, Japan is not alone. The 
whole world relies on trade. The difference is what’s at stake. For most countries, globalization has 
been about “macroeconomic growth.” The benefits of this growth — “GDP,” “market 
integration,” “capital flow” — are very real, yes, but also very vague and very abstract. For Japan, globalization is about survival. It has to import oil or the lights won’t stay 
on. It has to import food or it will starve. Its one million 70-year-old part-time farmers simply aren’t going to feed one 
hundred and twenty million mouths. So, for all these reasons: Japan 
would be vulnerable even under the most favorable circumstances. But let’s just 
say: circumstances are… less than favorable. Japan is a small, island nation. It’s surrounded 
by three nuclear-armed foes — China to the South, North Korea to the West, and Russia to the North. 
It’s unusually exposed to natural disasters. It’s only a hundred miles away from one of the world’s 
most dangerous geopolitical flashpoints — Taiwan. And its ability to defend itself from 
these threats is seriously limited. The Japanese constitution was written 
in 1946 and, as you can imagine, is very much a product of its time. 
Understandably, the overriding priority in the aftermath of World War II was preventing 
a similar tragedy from ever happening again. Thus, it includes the following 
declaration: “…the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right 
of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. …land, 
sea, and air forces… will never be maintained.” 80 years later, however, the world 
is a very different place. For one, neither the People’s Republic of China, nor the 
North Korean regime, nor the Russian Federation existed when Tokyo made this commitment. 
Nuclear weapons were about 6 months old. The one thing that hasn’t changed 
is the Japanese constitution. It’s the oldest unamended constitution in the world. The legacy of World War II and the Japanese 
people’s admirable commitment to peace created a taboo against anything resembling 
war — one that still lingers today. Now, the government can and has 
“re-interpreted” the constitution. It argues, for example, that 
the country does have a right to self-defense. It now maintains fighter 
jets, helicopters, tanks, and missiles. Its soldiers have even been sent abroad as 
part of official UN peacekeeping missions. And it recently announced plans 
to increase defense spending. When taken together, all these developments may 
give the impression that its 1946 renunciation of war has been all but overruled. “You 
can call your ‘military’ a ‘Self-Defense Force,’ all you want,” you might say, “but 
no country with F-35s is truly a Pacifist.” But we should put these changes 
in perspective. This is the recent increase in its defense spending. This is South 
Korea’s, this is India’s, and this is America’s. Japan has no conscription. Just 13% of its 
population say they’re willing to “fight” for their country, compared to 89% in China. 
Even the country’s most popular modern leader, Shinzo Abe, failed to amend the constitution. And those UN peacekeepers are so severely 
restricted in what they can do and where they can go that some countries consider 
their “help” more of a burden than an asset. Even where Japan would be allowed 
to defend itself, every decision would be mired in bureaucracy, which, 
at a minimum, would slow it down and introduce uncertainty — obstacles its 
adversaries would no doubt exploit. Consider its most acute security threat, 
for example: a Chinese attack on Taiwan. The most likely scenario — a China naval blockade 
of the island with no shots fired — would leave Tokyo with the least legal justification 
to respond. Remember, Japan has “forever renounced… the threat or use of force as 
means of settling international disputes.” Sure, in 2015, the government passed a law 
enabling it to respond to “an armed attack against a foreign country that’s in a 
close relationship with Japan” if that attack “threatens Japan’s survival,” and 
only then with the “minimum” use of force. But even setting all those restrictions aside, 
this opens up a new bureaucratic wrinkle: Japan doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a “foreign 
country.” So, would a Chinese attack qualify? The answer is: we don’t know. What we do know is that a Chinese attack on Taiwan 
would present an existential threat to Japan. With control of the shipping lanes from which 
it sources nearly all its food and energy, Beijing would then be well positioned to 
strangle Tokyo just as it strangled Taipei. Which means, until or unless Japan is 
unequivocally permitted to defend itself, it has only one other option: the United States. Befriending the world’s most powerful military 
has served Tokyo well for the last 75 years. Japan hosts more U.S. troops than any other 
country and the U.S. has pledged to defend it. This security guarantee freed up its economy to 
specialize, as we saw, without wasting valuable resources on inefficient domestic food or 
energy production like other countries. Certain of its survival, it could take full 
advantage of global trade like no one else, without so much as even a backup. But that guarantee, and thus, its 
survival, is no longer as certain as it once was. It doesn’t take a degree 
in international relations to see that America’s interest in serving as the world’s 
police force has… wavered over the past decade. So, it’s no coincidence that Shinzo Abe was the 
very first world leader to visit Trump in 2016, or that he came bearing a golden golf club, or 
that Japan’s current Prime Minister was only the second leader to meet Trump in 2025, or 
that he came bearing a golden samurai helmet, or that both eagerly volunteered to 
foot more of the bill, or that even it’s offered to station its soldiers on 
Guam, if the White House so desires. Japan has only one card to play. It 
has no choice but to cling to America.

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