Japan's self-sufficiency in rice is expected to be roughly flat at 96 percent in fiscal 2010, up from from 95 percent in fiscal 1998, according to an estimate by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The figure is based on the assumption that both the consumption and production of rice in Japan will continue to fall, as seen in recent decades, ministry sources said. The ministry forecast that consumption of the nation's staple food will total 9.45 million tons in fiscal 2010 against domestic production of 9.06 million tons, they said. The ministry will brief a meeting of a subcommittee of the Agricultural Policy Council, an advisory panel to the prime minister, Monday on these estimates. The council will use the data to set a target for Japan's self-sufficiency in rice and other food for fiscal 2010, the sources said. The ministry also estimated a fiscal 2010 self-sufficiency of 9 percent for wheat, unchanged from fiscal 1998, 49 percent for meats, down from 55 percent in fiscal 1998, and 50 percent for seafood, down from 60 percent in fiscal 1997, the sources said. In fiscal 1998, the latest reporting year, Japan's food self-sufficiency fell as low as 40 percent on a calorie basis, the second lowest since the inception of the government survey in fiscal 1960. The lowest was 37 percent posted in fiscal 1993 due to a poor rice harvest.
