TOKYO, Sep. 29 – The use of meat from hunted wild birds and animals in fiscal 2019 in Japan was 2,008 tons, up 6.4% from the previous year, but it was still below the target of 2,600 tons, according to the latest survey by the farm ministry of Japan. The ministry said the sales grew slower than expected due to two pandemics: swine flu and the COVID-19. The former forced hunters in virus-affected regions to stop selling boar meat, and the latter pushed down the demand for game meat. So, the Japanese government has set a new goal of increasing the use of hunted meat to 4,000 tons by fiscal 2025 to prevent wildlife’s damage to forests and agriculture and improve farmers’ income. In the budget estimate for fiscal 2021, the government included increased spending on schemes to meet that goal.
In fiscal 2019, restaurants in Japan used 1,392 tons of game meat for gibier dishes. That accounted for almost 70% of all gibier consumption in the country and included 973 tons of dear, up 1.7% from the previous year, and 406 tons of boar, down 4.7%.
The use of boar meat dropped as the ministry requested local governments to stop distributing wild boars hunted within 10 kilometers of the sites where infected wild boars were found to prevent the spread of the swine fever virus.
Another big blow came from the closure of restaurants and the stay-at-home movement among consumers due to the COVID-19 outbreak. An official from the ministry’s wildlife management and rural environment division said, “Such difficulties are expected to continue into fiscal 2020.”
Meanwhile, the gibier use, mostly dear meat, for pet food grew 37.2% to 513 tons. The ministry began all-out efforts to promote the game meat consumption in fiscal 2019, for example, by hosting a symposium, which successfully opened up a new market for gibier as food for animals in zoos.
About 116,000 boars and deer were hunted and used as gibier meat, while 1,243,000 animals were hunted, both in preliminary figures. It means, only a small percentile of them (less than 10%) was used as edible meat, though the gibier meat consumption is growing. So, the ministry raised the goal for the gibier use by fiscal 2025 to 220,000 animals or 4,000 tons.
The budget request for fiscal 2021 includes 16.2 billion yen for measures to control wildlife damage and promote the game utilization. The government is requesting an addition of 6 billion yen compared to the initial budget for fiscal 2020 to build more meat processing facilities.
The wildlife damage to agricultural products is declining, but it remains at a high level of around 15.8 billion yen in fiscal 2018. The ministry official said, “We listen carefully to the local opinions to identify problems and increase the use of gibier while controlling the damage.”