Japan's high-cost farmers, sheltered by prohibitive import tariffs, might appear to be most at risk from the giant trans-Pacific trade deal agreed upon last month, but they are instead making an unlikely push to export more of their pricey produce.

The latest figures show that the agriculture sector exports only about 5 percent of its output, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sees the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade deal reached in Atlanta on Oct. 5, as an opportunity, not a threat.

"We should challenge with courage. It is time to make innovation happen and take the step into the open world," he said after 12 nations including Japan and the United States concluded the TPP, which covers about 40 percent of the global economy and aims, in principle, to eliminate all tariffs and quotas.