Photo/Illutration Potato farmers in Hokkaido prepare a field for planting. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Land sales to non-Japanese citizens will be monitored more closely from September, when the buyers of farmland will be asked to state their nationality before purchasing it.

Foreign ownership is a political flashpoint because transactions in the sector receive little scrutiny, although it is thought that investment-minded foreigners are buying more forested areas than farmland because the latter must be cultivated.

Currently, individuals or companies seeking to buy farmland must apply for permission from municipal agricultural committees.

That system will continue, but from Sept. 1 the agriculture ministry will ask individuals to declare their nationality in the application.

A company seeking to buy farmland will have to state the nation where it was established as well as the nationalities of major shareholders.

The change is intended to allow greater oversight of ownership trends, not to prevent sales to certain nationalities. A farm ministry official in charge of the program said nationality would not become a direct factor in deciding if the sale should be approved.

Retrospective tallies will also be conducted. The ministry plans to sift through residential registers to identify the nationalities of current owners of farmland.

The agriculture ministry has been looking into sales of farmland to foreign companies and non-Japanese living abroad since 2017. The ministry has found that six companies own a total of 67.6 hectares of farmland.

It also looked at how much farmland is owned by foreigners living in Japan. In 2022, 114 individuals and companies owned a total of 154 hectares, the ministry found.

Those figures are minuscule compared with the amount of forested land held by foreigners, which the ministry began monitoring in 2006. It reports that a total of 9,500 hectares of forest are owned by foreigners, such as parts of Hokkaido.

Forestry is a lower-maintenance option for people who are not looking to work the land. A requirement of farmland is that purchasers must cultivate it, which accounts for the small acreage owned by foreigners in comparison to forest.

Meanwhile, it will be easier from this autumn for companies to buy farmland if municipal governments submit an application on their behalf.

But some lawmakers are opposed to having foreign companies acquire farmland, as they are more likely to buy it as an investment or to use the land for nonfarming purposes.