Food self-sufficiency rate in Japan marked 39 percent measured by calorific intake in fiscal 2013 for the fourth consecutive year, failing to increase due to decline in wheat and soybean production, according to farm ministry data released Tuesday, August 5.
When measured by production value, domestic supply covered a record low of 65 percent of consumption, down 2 percentage points from fiscal 2012, affected by shrinking output of milk and other dairy products.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries hopes to raise food self-sufficiency to 50 percent of calorific intake and 70 percent in terms of value by fiscal 2020. The goal, widely deemed unachievable, indicates an urgent need for the government to come up with measures to beef up farming in the new basic plan for food, agriculture and rural villages to be compiled in March.
“The food self-sufficiency rate remains roughly unchanged in the recent years, but it is likely to show a downward trend in the long term,” agriculture minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference.
Hayashi said the government will make further efforts to raise food self-sufficiency based on its action plan to revitalize agriculture and rural regions. The plan includes measures to strengthen farming through farmland consolidation using intermediary consolidation banks, income stabilization and adding value to farm produce by processing and marketing.
When including figures after the decimal point, the self-sufficiency rate measured by calorific intake was 38.75 percent, a slight increase from 38.73 percent marked a year before.
The 0.2 percentage point increase is attributable to a growth in rice demand ahead of the April 1 hike in the consumption tax. The ministry confirmed through surveys on distributors that there was last-minute demand worth 60,000 tons.
Meanwhile, production of wheat and soybeans showed drops, offsetting the gain in rice demand. Production of wheat totaled 812,000 tons in fiscal 2013, down 5.4 percent from a year before when yield was high.
Bad weather nationwide led to poor growth of soybeans during the period of maturity, resulting in a 15.3 percent year-on-year drop in soybean production to total 200,000 tons.
Domestic supply covered 65.19 percent of consumption in terms of production value, down below the previous record low level of 65.42 percent in fiscal 2008, mainly because the weak yen lifted the value of imported produce.
The drop in self-sufficiency rate is also brought about by a drop in production of dairy products, which amounted to 7.448 million tons, down 2.1 percent from the previous year. The number of dairy cattle decreased as more people gave up dairy farming, and milk volume of cows declined due to heat waves, pushing down self-sufficiency rate by 0.3 percentage points when measured by production value.
(Aug. 6, 2014)