Less farms and pigs, more cattle in Japan

Although the number of beef cattle farms had fallen by 2.3 percent to 80,400 farms compared to 2007, the number of beef cattle has increased to 2.89 million head, a 3 percent increase, Japan's Ministry of Finance said. 

Japan's Ministry of Finance recently released national cattle and hog inventories as of February 2008.

Total beef breed cattle equaled 1.82 million head, which was up 4.6 percent over a year ago.

Cows and heifers increased 5.0 percent over a year ago to 1.17 million head. The number of steers totaled 654,000 head, 4.1 percent more than a year ago. 

The number of hog farms also fell 4.2 percent to 7,230 compared to 2007, while hog inventory also fell slightly to 9.75 million head.

Breeding sows and gilts numbered 910,000 head, which was down a little from a year ago. Barrows and gilts totaled 8.12 million head, unchanged from a year ago.