cheaper rice be imported from overseas. JA's business is dependent on high import tariffs on foreign rice controlled by the government. The current import tariff on foreign rice is 778%. The third vulnerability is the decline in Japan's farming population. Agricultural production declined from 11.7 trillion yen in 1984 to 8.2 trillion in 2011, and the number of farming households plummeted from over 6 million representing 14.5 million people in 1960 to 2.5 million households in 2010 representing a working force nearly one sixth the size 50 years ago. To maintain the founding act and the trade barriers intact, JA makes full use of its political leverage over Diet members, especially members of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) who are from electorates with a large farming population. JA has a government affairs arm (JA Zenchu) as well as a political committee (Noseiren), and the latter especially has historically contributed to organizing farmer votes in support of LDP candidates. As a political party that has kept its majority in the Lower House for almost entirely since its formation in 1955, LDP has long protected JA by keeping MAFF and other government agencies in check. The fact that Japan's farming population is in decline poses the greatest threat to JA's continued dominance in the agricultural market and the group's very existence. With less demand for agricultural inputs, JA's wholesale business incurs more operating cost relative to sales. In fact, JA's wholesale business has shown negative net profit in recent years. The loss is covered by surplus from JA's financial services and asset management, supported by increased funding from its newly created "associate" membership that allows non-farmers to receive its credit and insurance services. JA has paid effort in nurturing new generations in the farming industry to raise productivity, but has proved unsuccessful. This is because the organization has simultaneously supported unproductive farmers who only work part-time in small-sized farmlands, rather than promoting corporate farming and merger of farmland to reduce cost and raise productivity. Today (as of 2005), 62% of Japanese "farmers" work part-time and rely primarily on non-farming jobs. 16% rely primarily on farming but are still part-time, and only 23% are full-time farmers. The overwhelming majority of those full-time farmers are people who retired from their second job and returned to their farmlands. In aggregate, only 9.5% of the total farming population is full-time male farmers less than 65 years