November 29, 2010

Japanese cattle herd declines

The Japanese cattle herd declined 2% on-year to 4.29 million head as of October 2010, according to the National Livestock Breeding Center of Japan.

When broken down by breed, the Holstein herd was the largest (1.9 million head, down 0.3% from last year), closely followed by the Japanese Black Wagyu (1.8 million, down 0.7%). While the two key breeds have similar numbers to last year, the crossbred herd (cross between beef and dairy cattle) declined by 12.2% from October 2009, to 0.5 million head.

The decrease was probably because of slow beef sales in the market and the challenges associated with the crossbred as it is deemed as second-tier quality to the Wagyu although it costs more than domestic dairy beef.

The number of cattle properties in Japan fell by 5% on-year to 89,690 farms, continuing the gradual decline of recent years.

Japan slaughters approximately 1.2 million head of cattle per year, producing around 517,000 tonnes of beef yearly. Japan's beef self sufficiency rate was 43% in the Japanese Fiscal Year 2009.