Japan is the biggest food importer among the G8 nations as its self-sufficiency rate is only 41%, which means almost 60% of all food consumed by Japanese people is imported to Japan. This is not only due to an increase in interest in Western lifestyle goods and cuisine but also a shift from Japanese primary industries - agriculture, forestry, and fishing - to secondary or tertiary industries.

In 1960 this primary sector still employed 32.6% of the Japanese working population, but this figure has continued to decrease as the Japanese economic and industrial structure has shifted into more advanced sectors. In 2000 its share of work force was down to 4.8%.

Already in 2000 the government tried to change that rate and established the Basic Plan on Food, Agriculture, and Rural Areas that set a target of 45% for the total food self-sufficiency ratio (supplied calorie basis) by 2010. But as we know today this goal is not reached even halfway.

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). It is also the third-largest market for U.S. agriculture, accounting for about $13 billion in U.S. exports in 2008. Imports from the United States represent over one-fourth of Japan's total agricultural imports, a share that rose in 2007 and 2008 after declining since the mid-1990s.

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. But 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.

To solve that problem the newly elected government (lead by the Democratic Party Japan) is now promising to pay farmers if prices should drop below production costs and aims to achieve self-sufficiency in important grains. "A DPJ-led government will try to revive agriculture in Japan by supporting every farm with cash payments," said Nobuyuki Chino, the president of Tokyo-based Unipac Grain Ltd. "The policy will help boost domestic production, although the self-sufficiency target is hard to achieve immediately."

The above file, "Japan's International Trade in Goods" (2008), provides empirical data about the Imports and Exports of Japanese Goods including the mentioned Food Import Rates. (METI)