Japan’s food self-sufficiency at 38 per cent, close to the all-time low

The government plans to boost the rate to 45 per cent by 2030, but faces several challenges, starting with a decline in the size of the labour force and farmland. Today, Japan imports most of the food it consumes due to changes in the eating habits of the Japanese.

Tokyo (AsiaNews) – Japan's food self-sufficiency rate on a caloric intake basis stood at 38 per cent in fiscal 2022, unchanged from the previous year but still near a record low of 37 per cent in 2020, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said yesterday.

The percentage indicates the country’s capacity to produce food for its population in terms of caloric intake. When measured by production value, the rate was 58 per cent, down 5 percentage points over fiscal 2021.

Among developed economies, Japan has one of the lowest levels of food self-sufficiency. For this reason, the government wants to reach 45 per cent in caloric intake and 75 per cent in production value by 2030.

To this end, the government plans to revise the 1999 food security law, adopted at a time when Japanese leaders assumed that the country could import as much food as it needed.

Owing to changes in eating habits, almost 60 per cent of the food consumed by the Japanese is imported today. The latter now eat much less rice and much more meat and oils; in 1965 more than 40 per cent of daily calories came from rice, almost twice as much as in 2020, government figures show.

In 1960, Japan's food self-sufficiency rate was 102 per cent for rice, 100 per cent for fruits and vegetables, and 91 per cent for meat, while in 2021 the country produced 98 per cent of the rice consumed, 30 per cent of its fruit, 76 per cent of its vegetables, and 16 per cent of its livestock products.

In 2022, the number of shellfish and fish caught and the amount of wheat harvested decreased, but imports of oils and fats also fell.

Although imports did not change in absolute terms, rising wheat prices and the depreciation of the yen made imports more expensive. Its corn imports from China have jumped 10-fold since 2016.

As some critics point out, Japan has reduced its agriculture budget in favour of defence spending during the pandemic. At the same time, Japan is also dependent on foreign fertilisers, which are critical to agricultural production, especially from China.

The government plan would boost local production of wheat by 40 per cent, soya beans by 60 per cent, vegetables by 15 per cent, and animal feed by 48 per cent, partly through the introduction of new crops more resistant to diseases.

Experts warn though that these goals may be too ambitious, as they would require a major overhaul of the agricultural sector, which is losing 50,000 farmers and lots of land every year, two factors the government has not considered.

Based on current estimates, the number of people whose primary job is farming is expected to drop from about 1.2 million in 2022 to about 300,000 in 20 years.

• japan
• agriculture
• farming
• food self-sufficiency
• eating habits
• caloric intake