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AOTS Training (23 - 27 Feb 2009, Yokohama Kenshu Center)

Some facts about food in Japan:

• Japan self food sufficiency level is only 39%.
• In order to secure the import food supply, Japan supports any Japanese
company to establish food industry outside Japan for making mutual
relationship.
• Food self sufficiency in Japan is 80
decreasing every year. 60
• 1960 : 79%
40
• 1970 : 60% Food Self Sufficiency
• 1980 : 53% 20
1960 1970
• 1990 : 48% 1980 1990 0
2000 2006
• 2000 : 40%
• 2006 : 39%
• Japan food export in year 2006 : % Self suffiency
JPY328.6 billion (6% from total export/import)
Export Import
• Japan food import in year 2006 : JPY 4903.8
billion (94% from total export/import calorie value)
• Japan government maintains to keep the price of rice
at high level by prohibiting the farmers to plant more
6%
rice. If lots of farmers starting to plant more rice, then
the price will go down and it will make no local farmers
will be interested to plant rice anymore. Food Export / Import
• Animal meat consumption is prohibited in Japan from
7th - late 19th century, except for bird, chicken and 94%
wild-pig.
• Reason: the other 4-legs stocks (farm animal) are
related with war device, e.g. horses. If common people domesticate these 4
leg animals, they may have chance to establish rebellion power.
• Since 1960, Japan already lost about 1.5 million Ha of plantation land due to
economic development (including 330,000 Ha of non-utilized plantation land,
about 1.8 times of Tokyo area). Actually Japan still has capacity to increase the
rice production up to 50% by utilizing the non-utilized
farming land).
• Farming land in Japan is 4.5 million Ha
• Farming land outside Japan for Japan market is 12 25%
million Ha (2.5 times of farming land in Japan)
• Total food import amount to Japan in year 2006 : Farming Land Area
JPY 4.9 trillion 75%
• Total processed food import to Japan in year 2006:
JPY 2.4 trillion
• From North America : 24%
• From China : 18%
• From Europe : 15% In Japan Out Japan
• From ASEAN : 13%
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• Market size of the food industry in Japan

• Year 2002 : JPY 80 trillion
• Year 1985 : JPY 60 trillion
• Actually since 1985-2000, Japan population does not change much, but there is
changes tendency of preparing the food from raw material to buy the processed
food.
• Japanese food popularity is becoming more and more in the world.
• Reason: Japanese economic development, overseas Japanese residents,
image of healthy Japanese food
• Japan has an effort to achieve 50% food self sufficiency rate based on food
calorie (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries).
• Future import of processed food import to Japan may decline due following
issues:
• Japan population is declining
• Total demand of food will decrease
• Recent safety incident of import processed food in Japan. Japan family will
have more tendency to cook at home
• However, increasing of the un-married, late-married people and working
woman will increase the processed food demand.
• Violation rate of the food safety in Japan market (inspection in Tokyo):

Product Rejection rate of Rejection rate of import

DOMESTIC products products

Fishery Product 0.25% 0.14%

Meat, eggs, processed 0.12% 0.00%

food

Agricultural 0.21% 0.30%

Itʼs not always that Japanʼs own food product is safer from the import food
products.

Safety Foods - Laws and Regulations

All relevant laws and regulations can be accessed on the following Japan website:
www.maff.go.jp - Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery
www.mhlw.go.jp - Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare
or in other related website:
www.jetro.go.jp - Japan External Trade Organization

Food import to Japan

Any type of food can be imported to Japan as long as it is safety-guaranteed for
human health.

Prohibited foods for import to Japan:

• Foods containing toxic or harmful substances
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• Rotten and spoiled foods

• Foods not complying with spec and standard of manufacturing method and
material
• Foods with impermissible food additives
• Foods not accompanied with required documentations

In Japan, it is very common to ask a forwarder service to fill-in all the import
notification-form by providing all necessary information and submit all required
documentations.

Related laws and regulations for import of foods and agricultural products:
• Food Sanitation Law
• Plant Protection Law
• Domestic Animal Infectious Disease Control Law
• Washington Convention
• Agricultural Chemicals Regulation Law
• Quarantine Law
• Staple Foods Law
• Liquor Tax Law
• Pharmaceutical Affairs Law
• The Law Concerning Standardization and Proper Labeling of Agricultural
and Forestry Products (Law for JAS = Japan Agriculture Standard)
• Poisonous and Deleterious Substance Control Law
• Food Safety Basic Law

Laws and regulations on foods safety and sanitation:

Plant
Quarantine
Protection
Law
Law

Agricultural Domestic
Food Animal Infection
Chemicals
Regulation Law
Sanitation Disease control
Law Law

Food
Safety Basic
Law JAS Law

HACCP

Organic Label GMO

Products Indication Products
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Safety Guaranteed Foods - Organic Foods

Recently there is a tendency to consume foods considered as more safety such as
organic foods:

Japanese consumers acceptance of price increase for safety-guaranteed food like

organic foods:
Price Criteria Acceptance
population

More than 50% price increase 2.00%

30 - 50% price increase 17.40%

10 - 20% price increase 68.50%

Same price as conventional foods 10.70%

Based on above facts, there are some food manufactures which do their production
which comply with safer products, e.g.:
• Non-additive cooking
• Careful selection of material
• Quality assurance number

Those manufactures also gather information and publish in detail on their website
about their product guarantee. Each consumers can check all detail such as
material source, test result on agricultural chemical residues etc. from the website
(by PC or mobile phone):
For example, we can check Ishii Food Corporation products in following website:
http://www.ishiifood.co.jp - from internet PC
http://ishiifood.com/ - from mobile phone internet

To accomodate this detail, manufactures need special traceability systems which

consist of more data, e.g. 2D data code (Barcode 2D).

2D Data Code

2D Data Code keeps more data compared to

the common barcode.
It has data capacity equivalent to approx. 2,000
characters.
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WORLD Food Supply and Demand

2007/2008 Fiscal Year

Grain Quantity (million ton) Corn Wheat Rice
Soybean Others
Corn 791.0

Wheat 682.9
19%
Rice 439.1 30%
9%
Soybean 233.2

Others 494.5
17%
26%
TOTAL 2640.7

Production and Export

Corn
Unit: million ton
Country Productivity Export

USA 307.40 44.50

China 165.50 0.50

European Union - 27 61.20

Brazil 51.50

Mexico 25.00 0.00

Argentina 16.50 9.50

Former Soviet Union -12 3.80

South Africa 2.50

Others 164.00 7.10

TOTAL 791.00 76.90

Wheat
Unit: million ton
Country Productivity Export

European Union - 27 150.50 19.00

Former Soviet Union - 12 114.70 29.60

China 113.00
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Country Productivity Export

India 78.40

USA 68.30 27.20

Canada 28.60 19.00

Australia 13.00

Argentina 4.30

Others 129.30 11.70

TOTAL 682.90 123.90

Rice
Unit: million ton
Country Productivity Export

China 130.20 1.00

India 96.40 4.10

Indonesia 35.80

Bangladesh 28.80

Vietnam 24.40 4.80

Thailand 19.30 10.00

USA 3.50

Pakistan 3.00

Others 96.70 4.00

TOTAL 431.10 30.40

Soybean
Unit: million ton
Country Productivity Export

USA 80.50 29.90

Brazil 59.00 25.30

Argentina 49.50 14.40

China 16.80 0.50

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Country Productivity Export

Others 27.40 37.10

TOTAL 233.20 77.20

Japan grain imports

Unit: million ton
Grain Quantity Remark

Corn 16.50 21% - No. 1 in the world

Mainly for animal feed

Soybean 4.00 5% - No. 3 in the world

China no. 1 - 47%

Wheat 5.60 4.5% - No. 4 in the world

Top 10 World Population (2007):

1. China - 1.33 billion people - 20%
2. India - 1.17 billion people - 18%
3. USA - 310 million
4. Indonesia - 230 million
5. Brazil
6. Pakistan
7. Bangladesh
8. Russia
9. Nigeria
10. Japan

Population Increase

Developing Nations
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Farmland and Yield

1961 - 1963 average 2002-2004 average

Planted area 650 million Ha 670 million Ha

Yield 1.4 ton / Ha 3.2 ton / Ha

Population 3.1 billion people (1962) 6.3 billion people (2003)

Grain harvest acreage 20.8a / person (1962) 10.7a / person (2003)

per capita

Summary of the world food supply and demand:

1. Asian nations are turning out to be importers
2. Future trend and movement of Asian regions where the population and
economy have been increasingly growing will largely affect and control the
global food demand and supply
3. Alternative energy capable of replacing fuel-oil is anticipated
4. Realization of both economic development and environmental protection
including CO2 emission reduction
5. Development of Japanese food self-sufficiency rate continues stable at a
lower level
6. Paying attention to Free Trade Agreement and enterprises joining the
agricultural market segment

-oOo-