Above: MCGA Past President and Chairman of the Board Richard Syverson (back row, fourth from left) was among the farm group leaders, state legislators, and Minnesota Department of Agriculture staff to participate in a recent ag trade mission to Japan.

Written by Jonathan Eisenthal

How Japanese consumers buy their food—even how they think about food—is quite different from European and North American markets. A recent trade mission organized by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) allowed Minnesota farm industry representatives, including Richard Syverson of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA), to gain  firsthand perspective.

“Food retailing is completely different in Japan,” reported Syverson, MCGA’s past president and chairman of the board. “The way one of our guides put it is that the average living space in Japan is very small, so the average refrigerator in Japan is a fraction of the size of an American refrigerator. And the freezer is proportionally smaller yet. So, there is no way for most Japanese consumers to stock up on anything.”

Syverson, who farms in Clontarf, was one of 14 participants in the September trade mission. At the time, he was serving as MCGA president. He passed the role on to Eyota farmer Dana Allen-Tully on Oct. 1.

Japan and Minnesota have a rich trade history. In 2021, Japan accounted for 8% of Minnesota’s $9.4 billion in food and agricultural exports, according to MDA.

For Minnesota and U.S. corn growers, Japan is a particularly important market. Between 2018 and 2022, the U.S. exported 2.3 billion bushels of corn and 2.6 million tons of dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) to Japan, according to the U.S. Grains Council (USGC). Additionally, the U.S. exported 3.85 million tons of red meat to Japan during that span, accounting for millions of additional bushels of corn.

To facilitate sales of corn, DDGS, corn coproducts, and U.S. meat to Japan and other international markets, Minnesota Corn invests corn check-off funds in USGC and the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF). In 2023, for example, Minnesota Corn’s investment in USMEF is going specifically toward promoting U.S. beef in Japan and South Korea.

Visiting a starch producer

During the mission, Syverson and other members of the ag delegation had the benefit of an industry insider as guide and interpreter. Their guide, born in raised in Minnesota, moved to Japan two decades ago and works as a facilitator helping American companies import to Japan.

Among the meetings tailored to Syverson and the corn industry was a tour of a food starch producer that processes 40,000 bushels of corn each day.

“Right now, they are sourcing their corn out of the Gulf of Mexico and I put in a plug for the Pacific Northwest, where a lot of Minnesota corn actually goes, exported west,” Syverson said. “I would think it would almost guarantee them reduced transportation costs, because they wouldn’t have to transit the Panama Canal, and there would be less handling. I think that it could be a higher quality product, too.”

Syverson also met with management from TsubameBHB Company, which has developed a promising method for producing fertilizer locally and with renewable resources. Additionally, he and the rest of the group toured Japanese food stores. There are large malls or walkable spaces near the train stations, in both Tokyo and Osaka, where vendor after vendor has stands with all kinds of food. The food is prepared right there and consumed fresh. Food is sliced thin. Portions are small.

“That’s the way it’s eaten there,” Syverson said. “There’s lots of seafood. But we learned that pork, particularly American pork, is becoming more popular as seafood consumption is slowly going down. That’s a real opportunity, I think, for the American pork industry. With their high-quality and low-cost product, this is a good time to capture a larger share of the Japanese food business.”

Syverson also reported hearing how Japanese consumers are very health and price conscious and how they have not experienced genuine retail inflation for 20 years.

Absorbing the culture

The delegation’s first day in Japan helped them absorb culture and get a handle on the society that plays such a key role for U.S. farm goods. They toured a traditional Japanese garden in central Tokyo that was established by the shoguns (a warrior class) during the 1300s-1400s.

“We attended a traditional tea ceremony there,” Syverson said. “We were instructed on how to properly center ourselves and to prepare the utensils and to prepare the tea and then to share it with others.”

From there they got a bird’s eye view of Japan’s capital city.

“We were taken to the observation tower at the top of this huge building in downtown Tokyo,” Syverson said. “I come from Swift County, which has 9,000 people. We were told that the Tokyo metropolitan area encompasses 38 million people. We stood at the top of this building, and we could see four or five downtowns, each one roughly equivalent to downtown Minneapolis. … There was construction everywhere.”

Another key component of the trip was the chance for farmer producers like Syverson to connect with the state legislators. Among the mission participants were state Reps. Samantha Vang, Samantha Sencer-Mura, and Kaohly Vang Her. Vang is chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Sencer-Mura is a member of the ag committee, and Her is a member of the House Legacy Committee. They joined several MDA staffers and a handful of farm group leaders on the trip.

Syverson said he feels that the opportunity to have casual conversations over dinner or during touring will make it easier for these grower-leaders to make their voices heard when important policy discussions occur back in Minnesota.

View the complete list of trip participants here.