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Japan's agricultural imports (about
$50 billion in 2010) make it the world's third-largest
importer, after the United States and the European
Union (EU). Based on total calories consumed, Japan
imports about 60 percent of its food each year. Japan
is the fourth-largest market for U.S. agriculture,
accounting for about $11.8 billion in U.S. exports in 2010. The United States
is the leading agricultural supplier to Japan. Imports
from the United States (almost $14 billion, including
shipping costs) represent over one-fourth of Japan's
total agricultural imports.
ASEAN, China and the EU-27 are the next-largest suppliers.
Together, they supplied 31 percent
of imports in 1994 and 39 percent in 2010, after peaking
at 41 percent in 2006. Japan's agricultural exports
in 2010 exceeded $3 billion. U.S. agricultural imports from Japan exceeded $550
million in 2010.
Meats are the largest component of Japan's agricultural
imports—about
20 percent in recent years. Japan imports large quantities of pork,
beef, and poultry meat. Based on the value of imports, Japan is
the largest meat-importing country in the world. Because
Japan allows frozen and chilled beef and pork to enter only from
countries free of foot-and-mouth disease, the number of countries
exporting such meat to Japan is small. In 2004 and 2005, Japan's
ban on beef imports from the United States and Canada (because
of fears of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE) essentially
restricted beef trade to Australia and New Zealand (see Beef
Imports in the Issues and Analysis chapter).
Import barriers benefit Japanese farmers, especially those producing
rice, milk for manufacturing, sugar beets and sugarcane, and
wheat. Japan
maintains tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for some commodities, including:
- Rice and rice flour,
- Wheat and wheat flour, and
- Butter and milk powder.
Imports outside the TRQs face high tariffs. Within some of the
quotas, government-owned corporations have the sole right to import,
and the imported commodities are resold into Japan's market with
a high markup in price.
Japan's border policies also protect certain food processing
industries. Strict government control over wheat, rice, dairy,
and sugar products encourages processing of foods made from those
commodities in Japan. Tariffs on vegetable oils make crushing
margins high enough to sustain Japan's soybean and canola crushing
industry. Despite the protection of flour milling, sugar refining,
and butter and milk powder production, Japan's imports of processed
foods and beverages are over $5 billion.
For more information on trade topics, see the References
section.
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