Abstract
Japanese agriculture faces the final stage of import liberalization of agricultural products. The purpose of this report is to investigate the effects of import liberalization of rice and beef.
A partial equilibrium model named the Pilot International Rice Model is constructed. The main assumptions for the calculation using the model are the complete liberalization of Japanese rice import and abolition of U.S. assistance to rice production. The results show that the Japanese rice production would have decreased from 11 million metric tons (brown basis) to 2 or 3 million tons while the U. S. rice export to Japan would have a little increased or decreased according to 1985 or 1986 as the initial base year. This indicates that the U. S. rice production has lost the international competitiveness without the government assistance.
A dynamic Japanese beef model which was built 3 years ago by the reporter and updated recently was used for the conditional projection. The results indicate that Japanese beef industry would be forced to contract to one-tenth by 2000 in case of complete beef import liberalization while the import of beef would increase about ten times as much as 1986 beef import. But Japan could maintain the beef production at the present level if the reasonable border and domestic measures are taken after the abolition of import quota system.
