Category Archives: Food & Agriculture

【News】 Japan and Australia agrees on low-tariff import quota for meat products (April 18, 2014)

  The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries disclosed details of the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement on Thursday, April 17, including setting low-tariff import quota for key meat products to prevent the domestic industry from being damaged by a sharp rise in imports. But many worry that the agreement will result in influx of low-price Australian products, pressuring prices of domestic produce to decline. The ministry, which has already revealed details of the agreement concerning beef and cheese which are items of special interest, disclosed this time specific rules regarding seven sectors – beef offal and prepared products, pork, poultry, chicken eggs, dairy products, honey and livestock. An import quota … Continue reading

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【News】 Raw milk production drops in 2013 (April 16, 2014)

  Domestic raw milk production totaled 7.186344 million tons in fiscal 2013, marking a year-on-year decline of 2 percent, Japan Dairy Council announced on Tuesday, April 15. The council attributed the drop in production to a decreasing number of milk cows, as many farmers squeezed or gave up dairy farming due to rising feed prices. Production of milk for manufacturing items with a longer shelf life such as butter and skimmed milk powder dropped 8.1 percent from a year before to 1.603945 tons. Such milk is used to keep supply-demand balance. As a result, the amount was 206,000 tons short of the production target for milk processed into dairy products. … Continue reading

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【News】 Japan-Australia EPA fuels worries over possible price decline in beef market (April 9, 2014)

  Japan and Australia reached a basic accord on an economic partnership agreement on Monday, April 7, making it Japan’s first agreement with a major exporting nation of agricultural products. While the two nations agreed on the most controversial issue of tariffs on beef, the tariffs will be reduced gradually over a long period of time and Japan will be allowed to take a safeguard measure of raising the tariffs to the original level if imports exceed a certain level. This virtually means low tariffs will be applied only to imports within a certain quota. Such measures reflect the Japanあese government’s intention to minimize the impact of beef imports on … Continue reading

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【News】 Raptor tamer goes to the rescue of crops with wildlife damage risks (April 6, 2014)

  Takuo Fukumoto The use of raptors is recently attracting attention as a new way to tackle crop damage by wild birds such as crows. Misato Ishibashi, a 19-year-old junior college student of Takeo, Saga Prefecture, is a falconer who helps farmers to protect their crops. Ishibashi first had the opportunity to see trained falcons when she was a third-grader in elementary school, and learned by herself how to train raptors. When she was a fifth-grader, she noticed that when she flew raptors over farmlands, they drove away crows which do harm to crops. As she gained more experience in falconry, she began to receive requests to fight off harmful … Continue reading

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【News】 Government’s revision of agriculture plan focuses on population decline (April 5, 2014)

  As the government works to revise its basic plan for food, agriculture and rural areas, the main focus will be how to cope with the aging and population decline of the country and strengthen its food production capability. Due to the downward trend in population and the rapidly aging farm sector, the weakening of the nation’s food security has become more serious than ever. For Japan which depends on foreign countries for 60 percent of its food supply, raising the food self-sufficiency ratio remains the top priority issue, but it is also becoming increasingly important to consider the issue from the business side of farming. “It will be the … Continue reading

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