How Beef Is Mass Produced Japan

Yoshihisa Godo

Professor, Meiji Gakuin University, Japan

INTRODUCTION

Although Nippon is the third largest beef importing country in the earth (US Department of Agronomics, Livestock and Poultry: World Markets and Traders), with imports accounting for almost 60% of domestic beefiness consumption (Table 1), the merchandise barriers pertaining to Nippon'south beefiness market remain i of the key obstacles in international agricultural trade negotiations. For instance, in the latest round of Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations, the US government urged Japan to remove all trade barriers for beef. In the same vein, in their Economical Partnership Agreement negotiations with Japan, the Australian and Mongolian governments likewise requested that it lower its tariff charge per unit on beef imports. Against this background, the nowadays newspaper provides basic data on the beef marketplace and beef cattle farmers in Nihon.

Beefiness imports in Nippon

Until 1991, the Japanese government restricted beef imports by using an import quota. Notwithstanding, under pressure in international trade negotiations considering such an import limitation violated GATT principles, which urge member countries to remove all non-tariff trade barriers, the Japanese regime abolished its beef import quota and introduced a lxx% tariff rate on beef imports. This rate was later on reduced to 60% in 1992 and was further reduced to 50% in 1993. Thereafter, according to the Marrakesh Agreement of 1994, the Japanese government reduced the beef tariff rate every year from 50% in 1994 to 37% in 2000, at which level information technology has remained since.

Tabular array 1 shows that beef imports increased sharply until 2000. Before 2003, the Us and Australia were the major beef exporters to Japan, sharing almost 80% of Japan's beef imports (Table 2). Immediately after the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak was discovered in the U.s. in Dec 2003, however, the Japanese government prohibited US beef imports. In response, restaurants and supermarkets began to utilise more than Australian beef. As a outcome, beefiness imports from Australia increased sharply from 2003 to 2005. After fierce discussions betwixt the Usa and Japanese governments, Japan resumed beef imports from the United States under rigid conditions in December 2005. These conditions were gradually eased after 2005, and US beefiness imports have been increasing since. Nevertheless, today'south total volume of beef imports from the United states even so has not recovered to the pre-2003 level.

Beef consumption

Meat consumption increased significantly after the Pacific War. For instance, beef consumption per capita is now well-nigh half-dozen kg per annum compared with i.1 kg in 1960. However, as shown in Figure i, beefiness consumption has not been on a continuous upward trajectory and has even declined several times in the past two decades. In 1996, reports of food poisoning because of E. coli O-157 reduced beef consumption past x% compared with the previous year. For case, in July 1996, seven,996 persons in Sakai Urban center were taken ill during a schoolhouse lunch, 1 of the largest cases of mass food poisoning in the globe. However, although infected beefiness was suspected as the source of the contamination, this was not proven officially. In 2001, the BSE infection was so found for the first time in Japan. Every bit a result of ascent customer anxiety virtually the condom of beef, consumption dropped over again significantly. Similarly, the import ban on US beef in December 2003 caused a further reduction.

In 2011, more negative headlines about beef were reported by the Japanese mass media. In May 2011, 11 people who had eaten raw cow's liver in a popular franchise restaurant concatenation died. 3 months later, high levels of radiations in beef were found because some farmers in the Tohoku Region had been feeding their cattle on rice harbinger that was highly contaminated with radiation following the accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station. However, in contrast to the consumer reactions in 1996 and 2001, beef consumption did not subtract.

Meat consumption tin exist divided into 3 types: household consumption, processing (e.grand., ham and sausages), and others (e.g., restaurants), as shown in Tabular array iii. Since 1985, total beefiness consumption as a percentage of household consumption has decreased significantly in contrast to the trend for chicken and pork. This fact reflects that the removal of the beef import quota in 1991 followed by the subsequent reductions in the import tariff rate from 1992 to 2000 helped restaurants serve beef dishes (eastward.grand., beef bowl) to consumers.

Types of beef cattle

Beef cattle in Nihon can be categorized into 3 types: wagyu, hybrid (inseminating female dairy cattle with sperm from male wagyu cattle), and dairy. Figure two compares the price of Japanese and foreign beef. As shown in this figure, beefiness from dairy cattle, which competes fiercely with foreign beef, is the cheapest of these three types of Japanese beef, whereas beef from wagyu cattle is rich in marbling and demands the highest price. In order to avoid vehement competition with foreign beef, more and more dairy farmers prefer to inseminate mother cows with sperm from wagyu cattle. As a result, the production of hybrid beef has been increasing drastically (Figure 3).

Breeding and fattening cattle

Because the system for breeding and fattening wagyu cattle differs from that of the other two types, information technology is useful to depict the two systems separately. There are 3 types of wagyu cattle farmers, namely those involved in breeding, fattening, and continuous management. Effigy 4 shows the process of raising wagyu cattle. As can exist seen, breeding farmers impregnate cows and grow calves for nearly 9 months after their birth. Fattening farmers then buy the calves and grow them until effectually 29 months one-time, at which point wagyu cattle are usually shipped to slaughterhouses. Those farmers that bear out both convenance and fattening are called continuous management farmers. Convenance farms are small in size and large in number, whereas fattening farms are larger in size and smaller in number. Continuous management of farmers are the smallest in number among the three types of convenance farms due to technical and financial reasons. Get-go, dissimilar skills are needed for breeding and fattening. 2d, including the pregnancy period, it takes well-nigh 48 months from the insemination of the female parent moo-cow to shipping an adult moo-cow to a slaughterhouse. The fiscal hazard of waiting for such a long menstruum can exist intolerable for small-sized farms.

Figure five shows the process of raising dairy and hybrid cattle. Dairy farmers proceed female parent cows to produce calves and milk but sell male dairy infant calves and hybrid infant calves to breeding and continuous management of farmers. Dairy farmers usually do not sell female dairy infant calves because they produce milk later they reach maturity. Nonetheless, when dairy farmers are planning to reduce the production of milk, they may sell female dairy infant calves, too.

Breeding farmers enhance babe calves until around 7 months old and sell them to fattening farmers. The fattening period for dairy cattle is two months shorter compared to that of hybrid cattle. As for wagyu farmers, those who conduct out both breeding and fattening are also chosen continuous management farmers.

The boilerplate size of beef farms that manage dairy and hybrid cattle is much larger than that of wagyu farms, every bit shown in Figures 4 and v. This distinction can be explained by the unlike management strategies needed to compete with foreign beefiness. Wagyu farmers try to overwhelm foreign beef by improving the quality of wagyu beefiness (by focusing on a limited number of cattle). By contrast, the major strategy of beefiness farmers for dairy and hybrid cattle is to reduce product costs by enlarging subcontract size.