Abstract

Japan is the world's largest importer of agricultural products. Even so, agricultural imports in Japan are more restricted than any other OECD country. Many of the instruments used by the Japanese to protect the agricultural sector fall under the general heading of quantitative restrictions; these included quotas and – to a lesser extent – import tariffs and domestic subsidies to farm inputs. As a result of border protection measures, domestic producer prices for Japanese grains in 1986 were an average 420 percent above world prices (Vincent, 1989). The corresponding margin for livestock products averaged 116 percent.