CHARGE TALKS BEEF, SELF SUFFICIENCY AND WTO WITH

UNCLAS TOKYO 002361 SENSITIVE SIPDIS SECSTATE PASS TO USDA/FAS/ONA, OSTA SECSTATE PASS TO USTR E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAGR ETRD ECON JA SUBJECT: CHARGE TALKS BEEF, SELF SUFFICIENCY AND WTO WITH SENIOR DIET MEMBER ¶1. (U) Summary: Charge D'Affaires Zumwalt met on August 27 with Mr. Yoshio Yatsu, a senior Diet Member in the House of Representatives and key member of the agricultural caucus. Mr. Yatsu reiterated the GOJ position on beef and conveyed his view that the WTO discussions must resume quickly in order to reach an agreement. He also revealed that agricultural policy is going to incorporate new measures to encourage domestic production. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) Mr. Yatsu said that it is up the United States to make the next move on the beef discussions. Japan's position of moving first to a less-than-30 months (LTTM) protocol remains firm, even more so following the outcome in South Korea. He noted that the GOJ and he himself followed those events well and see the result as a precedent. He was confident that Japanese consumers would accept a LTTM agreement and that it would also be accepted by the Food Safety Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture. ¶3. (SBU) Regarding the Food Safety Commission (FSC),Yatsu confirmed that he intervened to make a strong case to the Prime Minister's Office to keep the FSC outside of the new Consumer Agency. As one of the founders of the FSC, Yatsu firmly believes that it needs to remain as independent as possible. ¶4. (SBU) Turning to preparations of the JFY09 budget, Yatsu said that that the GOJ is placing its emphasis on increasing Japan's food self sufficiency and the budget will be there to support it. While Yatsu acknowledged the important role the United States plays as Japan's key supplier, there is concern about the future availability of non-biotech crops, soybeans in particular. Despite the GOJ's efforts, the Japanese people are still skeptical of biotech foods. Regardless of whether that is right, the Diet must respond. In addition, rising feed prices have hit Japanese livestock producers hard. The GOJ is looking for ways to encourage the use of domestically grown feeds, primarily rice and/or rice straw, as feed. (Comment: No doubt this will take considerable government intervention to be price competitive. End Comment.) ¶5. (SBU) Reflecting his role as one of the GOJ's top WTO agriculture negotiators at the last round of meetings, Yatsu lamented that the last two points on agriculture, special safeguards and sensitive items, could not be resolved among the key countries. Yatsu explained the strategic and economic importance of the sugar industry to Japan and the fear that under the proposed Doha round text that Japan would lose its protection for sugar. He will travel to Geneva for a meeting with WTO Commissioner Falconer on September 1 in an effort to ensure that the talks will resume imminently and to clarify what the starting point of a new round of negotiations would be. End. ZUMWALT