Special Focus: Agroindustry

Topics:

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries oversees Japan’s agricultural sector. Land reform after the Second World War took land from powerful landowners and distributed it among ordinary farmers. Although this made Japan a more equitable society, it also made agriculture less efficient and it is still struggling today. To read more, please click on the link below: 

About Agroindustry

Overall Japan has a shrinking agricultural sector, demonstrated by government data showing the number of full-time farmers at 1.7 million in 2014, declining from 2.2 million a decade earlier. Workforce and skills shortages are compounded by the lack of young people becoming farmers. Offering technological solutions, "agri-tech" businesses are marketing a wide variety of products and services for meeting industry demands, to generally increase productivity, lower costs, use less resources such as energy, water and pesticides, and improve product quality and availability. To find out more, please see below: 

Agricultural Technology

The Japanese organic food market size for organic packaged food and beverages in Japan in 2017 is US$597.4mn, making it the 13th largest market in the world by value. Organic packaged food and beverages in Japan are expected to have a flat 0% growth in 2018. This is much slower than the rest of the Asia Pacific region, which will experience approximately 13% year-on-year growth in 2018. For further reading, please click below: 

Organic Produce

Publications:

The report titled 'The Japanese Agrifood Market: Current Obstacles And Growing Opportunities For The Eu Smes In The Context Of The Future Eu-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement' aims to contribute to the support of EU exporters of food products to Japan. In this sense, it provides an analysis of the economic and demographic situation of Japan as well as of its level of trade integration in order to highlight how these factors affect the local demand and supply as well as the market access for EU agribusinesses. The reports also identifies trends in this changing market which, in the favourable context of the forthcoming EU-Japan EPA, are likely to bring opportunities to European exporters of agri-food products. The report concludes with several business and policy recommendations. To access the report, please click below:

Report: The Japanese Agrifood Market

The report titled 'Food and Beverages: Regional Food Products in Japan' provides an overview of the regional food products market in Japan. It provides market insights and information about current food trends in Japan as well as expectations of Japanese consumers regarding imported regional food products. It also examines various regulations for importing and selling regional food products in Japan, and highlights relevant pieces of Japanese government legislation. Finally, the report suggests key success factors for selling regional food and beverages in Japan, and includes case studies and success stories of European food and drink in Japan.. For further reading, please click below: 

Report: Regional Food Products in Japan

Upcoming Webinars:

EPA Helpdesk Webinar 6: EPA Preferences on Meat Products
Date: 11 June 2019 - Time: from 10:30 to 11:30 AM CET
The EPA offers important market access opportunities for EU meat exporters to Japan. Duties will be gradually phased out for pork meat and processed pork meat, as well as for poultry meat. For beef meat duties will reduced from almost 40 to 9% over 15 years. For more information and to register, please click below: 

EPA Preferences on Processed Agricultural Products

EPA Helpdesk Webinar 7: EPA Preferences on Processed Agricultural Products
Date: 18 June 2019 - Time: from 10:30 to 11:30 AM CET
The EPA offers important market access opportunities for EU PAPs exporters to Japan. Duties will be eliminated at the entry into force of the Agreement for important products such as mineral waters, cigarettes, cocoa powder, pectic substances, spirits, yeast and caseinates. For other products such as uncooked spaghetti, esterified starches, food preparations, duties will be eliminated over periods between 6 to 11 years. Sizeable tariff quotas are provided for other PAPs such as wheat flours, food preparations related to wheat and barley and coffee preparations. For more information and to register, please click below:

EPA Preferences on Processed Agricultural Products