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.
  

