The calorie-based food self-sufficiency rate stood at 38% for fiscal 2024, unchanged for the fourth year in a row, the agriculture ministry said Friday.
In the reporting year that ended in March, per-capita consumption of rice — which is 99% self-sufficient — and domestic production of sugar beets and sugarcane grew from the previous year, while bad weather conditions, such as downpours and droughts in southwestern and western regions, caused lower wheat and soybean output.
Under the circumstances, the proportion of domestic production to the total food supply on a calorie basis remained far below the fiscal 2030 target of 45%, which the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba upheld in April.
Further efforts to improve productivity and expand production are required, people familiar with the matter said.
Meanwhile, the ministry newly announced that the calorie intake-based food self-sufficiency rate, which focuses solely on actually consumed calories for daily living, came to 46%.
On a production value basis, the self-sufficiency rate increased 3 percentage points from the year before to 64%, the ministry also said.
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