Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the sixth meeting of the Headquarters on Creating Dynamism through Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Industries and Local Communities at the Prime Minister's Office.

During the meeting, discussion took place on prefectural intermediary institutions that manage farmland (provisional title).

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

"The consolidation of farmland is one of the most important policies of the Abe Cabinet in aiming to create 'strong agriculture, forestry and fishery industries' and 'beautiful and vibrant rural areas.'
Without the consolidation of farmland, there can be no improvement in productivity.
In order to create farmland consolidation banks as part of the system that will play a major role in the consolidation of farmland, extensive discussions have taken place within the Government, including at the Industrial Competitiveness Council and the Regulatory Reform Council.
Today, we have developed an outline of the prefectural intermediary institutions that manage farmland, which was compiled under the leadership of Minister Hayashi.
Through this system of the prefectural intermediary institutions that manage farmland, I ask that the Headquarters take steps to ensure that motivated and diverse parties make maximum use of farmland through its consolidation, which will lead to decreases in production costs and increases in agricultural incomes.
The upcoming extraordinary Diet session is the 'Growth Strategy Implementation Diet.'
We will submit to the Diet a relevant bill concerning the farmland consolidation system which you have compiled an outline of today.
I ask that relevant Cabinet members make every effort towards the passage of the bill so that we may steadily translate the growth strategy into action."