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Japan's agricultural imports (over
$50 billion in 2008) 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 third-largest market for U.S. agriculture,
accounting for about $13
billion in U.S. exports in 2008. The United States
is the leading agricultural supplier to Japan. Imports
from the United States (over $17 billion, including
shipping costs) represent over one-fourth of Japan's
total agricultural imports, a share that rose in
2007 and 2008 after declining since the mid-1990s. ASEAN,
China and the EU-25 are the next-largest suppliers.
Exports to Japan from these three regions gained market
share in the 1990s. Together, they supplied 31 percent
of imports in 1994 and 35 percent in 2008, after peaking
at 41 percent in 2006. Japan's agricultural exports
in recent years are over $2 billion per year, of which
the United States accounts for over $400
million.
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).
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Trade 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
powder production, Japan's imports of processed foods and beverages
have grown steadily.
For more information on trade topics, see the References
section.
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