Japan’s Farm and Food Exports Hit New High As Trade Patterns Shift

Why It Matters

The rebound in food exports and tourism‑linked consumption helps offset Japan’s chronic trade deficit and signals expanding global appetite for Japanese culinary brands, while highlighting vulnerabilities to tariff and geopolitical shifts.

Key Takeaways

• Farm and food exports rose 12.8% to ¥1.7 trillion.
• Scallops, green tea, and sake led growth with double‑digit gains.
• U.S. and China remain top markets, but U.S. exports slipped.
• Tourism surge boosted overseas demand for Japanese culinary products.
• Trade deficit narrowed 52.9% despite overall import growth.

Pulse Analysis

Japan’s farm and food sector has entered a new phase of export dynamism, with 2025 shipments climbing to roughly ¥1.7 trillion—12.8% higher than the previous year and the thirteenth straight record. The surge is anchored by flagship products such as scallops, which jumped 30.4% to ¥90.6 billion, green tea, whose volume rose 16.1% and value 24.7%, and sake, up 5.5% in value. Diversification beyond traditional markets, especially after the post‑Fukushima restrictions, has opened new channels in the United States, Southeast Asia and the EU, reinforcing Japan’s culinary brand equity on the world stage.

Tourism has acted as a catalyst for this export upswing. A record 42.7 million foreign visitors in 2025 generated ¥9.5 trillion in spending, with a sizable share funneled into food‑related purchases that travelers later replicate at home. The United States, China, South Korea and Taiwan emerged as top destinations for Japanese scallops, matcha and sake, while South Korea’s seafood imports rebounded 27.2% to ¥38.3 billion. These consumer‑driven flows helped narrow Japan’s overall trade deficit by 52.9%, even as total imports edged up only 0.3%, underscoring the outsized impact of tourism‑linked demand.

Beyond agrifood, Japan’s export profile is being reshaped by high‑technology gains, notably a 40% jump in semiconductor shipments and a 51.7% surge to China in early 2026. Government initiatives, such as the TSMC partnership to produce 3‑nanometer chips in Kumamoto, aim to translate this momentum into a more balanced trade structure. However, lingering tariffs on U.S. goods and geopolitical tensions with China pose risks to both food and tech exports. Sustaining the current trajectory will require continued market diversification, supply‑chain resilience, and policies that align tourism growth with export promotion.