The Irish rugby team has started its campaign to win the world cup, but Irish farmers will be even more interested in Irish beef exports winning a share of the Japanese market.

Irish exports are already established in dairy and pigmeat, but despite Japan being the third-largest importer of beef in the world, Irish sales there have not taken off yet.

Up until 2013, Irish beef had been excluded from Japan since the BSE ban was imposed and beef and offal from cattle under 30 months was allowed in.

The 30-month limit was removed earlier this year and access for sheepmeat to the Japanese market was also secured.

Protected market

Japan is a hugely protected market for agricultural produce, but the EU secured a free trade deal which came into effect from February this year.

This means that tariffs on beef imports will fall from 38.5% to 9% over 15 years, most tariffs on pigmeat imports are removed and dairy tariffs will also see an elimination of tariffs to zero over 15 years, having started off at 29%.

Butter will have a tariff quota of 15,000t after six years.

The long transition period from high tariffs means that Irish beef exports have made no significant impact since February of this year.

Some offal, tongues in particular, are sent to Japan from Ireland and in total up to the end of July this year, Ireland exported 880t of primarily offal to Japan.

Big importer

Overall, Japan will import around 600,000t of beef this year, with half of it or more coming from Australia.

The USA is also a major exporter of beef to Japan and will supply approximately 250,000t of beef.

It is then a long way back to the two smaller suppliers of beef to Japan – Canada will deliver around 15,000t and New Zealand around 12,000t of beef.

Doing significant business in Japan will take considerable time, as huge value is given to relationships which have to be built in person, not by email.

This, along with the slow introduction of lower tariffs, means that, unlike China where the tariff rate is 12.5%, it will take a much longer period for Irish exporters to build a significant share in the market.

It is a market worth pursuing, as demand continues to grow while domestic production continues to fall.