JAPAN SEEN REDUCING BEEF, PORK INTERVENTION PRICES
The Agriculture Ministry is expected to
reduce official intervention prices for beef and pork in
1987/88 starting in April, but the cutback ratio has not been
set yet, industry sources said.
    Production prices, the basis for setting intervention
prices, have been falling because of declining compound feed
prices due to low coarse grain import prices, they said.
    Last November an advisory panel urged the government to
work on reducing officially set high farm product prices to
levels closer to international values, the sources added.
    In Japan the government maintains a price stabilisation
zone system for beef and pork to support domestic producers.
    The stabilisation zone is kept by the semi-government
Livestock Industry Promotion Corp (LIPC) through a buffer stock
operation in the wholesale market.
    The 1987/88 beef and pork price stabilisation zone will be
set by the end of March after an advisory panel to the
Agriculture Ministry recommends the price zone at a meeting on
March 25, ministry officials said. At present, the standard or
bottom price of castrated wagyu beef, known as marbled beef, is
1,400 yen per kilo, while its ceiling is 1,820, they said.
    The standard price of other beef, mainly produced from
dairy steers, is now 1,090 yen per kilo and the ceiling is
1,420, the officials said. The pork standard price is now 540
yen per kilo and the ceiling 760.
    They said the domestic beef intervention price influences
imported beef selling prices on the domestic market.
    Japan sets an annual beef import quota. A semi-government
body imports most of this and releases it to wholesalers or
processors in line with the standard price of other beef
categories in an attempt to avoid jeoparadising domestic beef
prices, they said.
 REUTER
