Japanese Beef Production

Unlike countries where most of the beef production systems rely heavily on pastures (e.g. Australia and New Zealand), the limitation of grazing land in Japan restricts beef production to mainly intensive management systems and long-term concentrate feeding. As a result, the relative cost of raising beef cattle in Japan from weaning to finishing is high. Beef cattle herd sizes are smaller in Japan than in many other countries and some of the beef comes as a by-product of the dairy industry where Holsteins are major contributors (~14.6% of national herd). The Wagyu, particularly the Japanese Black, is the predominant national cattle breed (~65.2% of the national herd). Wagyu cattle naturally produce beef with an unmatched level of marbling, unique taste and flavour that commands a traditional sense of pride in Japanese beef consumers.

Japanese animal production (2010) had a gross value of 2552.5 billion yen (AU$1 = 80.985 yen), with 463.9 billion yen attributable to beef production, thus accounting for 31.4% of the gross agricultural production compared to rice (19.1%) and vegetables (27.7%) (MAFF 2012a; Table 8.1). Of the total 354 kg tons of domestic beef production (subprimal base) in Japan in 2011 (Table 8.2), Wagyu cattle accounted for 45% of domestic beef production (subprimal base), while the remainder was from dairy cattle comprising purebred Holsteins and their crossbreeds with Wagyu (52%), and others (3%) (MAFF 2011; ALIC 2012a; JETRO 2012).