Japan’s agricultural imports (over $30 billion in recent years) 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 second-largest market for U.S. agriculture, accounting for over $8 billion in U.S. exports annually. The United States is the leading agricultural supplier to Japan. Imports from the United States (over $10 billion, including shipping costs) represent nearly one-third of Japan’s total agricultural imports, though this share has declined slightly since the mid-1990s. China and the EU-15 are the next-largest suppliers, each with over 12 percent of Japan’s agricultural imports. Both Chinese and EU-15 exports to Japan gained market share in the 1990s. Together, they supplied 20 percent of imports in 1994 and 26 percent in 2002. Japan’s agricultural exports in recent years are about $1.5 billion per year, of which the United States accounts for over $350 million.

Meats are the largest component of Japan’s agricultural imports—about 25 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 meat to Japan is small. Meat imports replace domestic production. Declining domestic production has meant that imports of feedstuffs have also declined.

Trade barriers benefit Japanese farmers, especially those producing rice, manufacturing milk, sugarbeets 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.

for more information, contact: John Dyck
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page updated: September 1, 2004