Agriculture, forestry, and fishing in Japan
Agriculture, farming, and fishing form the primary sector of industry of the Japanese economy together with the Japanese mining industry, but together they account for only 1.3% of gross national product. Only 20% of Japan's land is suitable for cultivation, and the agricultural economy is highly subsidized.
Afforestation in Japan
One study examining the soil of various Japanese conifer plantations found that the plantations had a higher concentration of soil organic carbon than wild, natural forests in Japan. Soil carbon is associated with the amount of nutrients that a soil sample can hold. When areas undergo deforestation a lot of the soil organic carbon is exposed and vulnerable to degradation. This results in a loss of nutrients in deforested areas. It would be expected that plantations would have a much smaller amount of organic carbon in the soil because the soil was exposed and experienced a nutrient loss; however, it was found that conifer plantations in Japan actually had more soil carbon than wild forests in the area. It was determined that the heavy litter from newer conifer plantations resulted in an abundance of soil carbon. It was also noted that there was less soil carbon found in plantations that had undergone soil scarification prior to being planted. This was determined to be because soil scarification brought up and exposed more soil organic carbon and more was lost to degradation; however there was still a high concentration of soil carbon in those plantations as well.