Japan Imports More Food

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30900, 5 November 1965, Page 11

Japan Imports More Food

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter) TOKYO. The Japanese people are consuming increasing amounts of imported foodstuffs from many parts of the world. Their traditional policy of maintaining self-sufficiency wherever possible has been endangered by a steady exodus of manpower out of farming villages, where the progress of modernisation has been much slower than in industrial cities.

Food imports are likely to rise further as the standard of living improves and Japan opens more and more of her markets through foreign trade liberalisations.

The bean-paste soup with bean curd, a traditional Japanese dish, nowadays is made from a soya bean imported from China or the United States. So is soy sauce, an important seasoning for the Japanese, as the domestic production of soya beans has been declining. Japan also imports large amounts of oil seeds, such as ground-nuts, safflower and kapoc, as well as seed oils, whose consumption has been steadily mounting.

Imports of rice, staple food for most Japanese, declined to almost negligible amounts at the beginning of the 1960’5, when there was even talk of possible exports of Japanese rice. Since then, however, rice imports have increased again, reaching 700,000 tons in 1965.

Local importers believe rice imports during 1966 will exceed a million tons, and the suppliers will probably include Formosa, the United States, China. Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, South Vietnam, South Korea, Egypt and Spain.

Imports of wheat for the production of bread, which is increasingly preferred by those Japanese who like a western style diet, as well as noodles, another Japanese staple food, also expanded from 2,700,000 tons in 1961 to 3,300.000 tons in 1964. The main suppliers were the United States, Canada, and Australia.

The Japanese Government is restricting the imports of butter, cheese and other dairy products from Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and other countries to protect the still nascent domestic dairy farming industry. Under the pressure of growing domesticdemand, however, these imports rose from £11,250,000 in 1962 to £15,000,000 in 1964.

Imports of meat, including beef and pork, nearly trebled from 36,027 tons in 1962 to 92,250 tons in 1964. Those of mutton, mainly from New Zealand, more than doubled during the period to 58,151 tons in 1964, while those of horsemeat, chiefly from the Argentine, increased by about five times to 26,396 tons.

Mutton and horsemeat are principally used for the production of processed meat—ham, sausage and bacon — which have become very popular among Japanese housewives for their laboursaving quality as well as their nutritive value.

Prices of meat, especially beef, here rose sharply during 1965, as more and more Japanese farmers were abandoning draught cattle in favour of agricultural machinery. The development was compelling the Japanese Government to open larger quotas for meat imports from Australia and elsewhere.

Fish, in which Japan used to be almost totally self-suffi-cient, has also to be imported in large quantities nowadays. Nearly 80 per cent, of shrimps and lobsters eaten by the Japanese are now imported from Spain, Hong Kong and Mexico. Other types of marine products being imported include Chinese jellyfish, Spanish seabream, Russian codfish, Korean yellowtail and perch, and West German agaragar.