Tōhoku region
Tōhoku was traditionally considered the granary of Japan because it supplied Sendai and the Tokyo-Yokohama market with rice and other farming commodities. Tōhoku provided 20 percent of the nation's rice crop. The climate, however, is harsher than in other parts of Honshū due to the stronger effect of the Siberian High, and permits only one crop a year on paddy fields.
Trade policy of Japan
Japan's quotas also dropped. From 490 items under quota in 1962, Japan had only twenty-seven items under quota in the mid-1980s, and that number dropped again late in the decade to twenty-two with further agreements scheduled to come into effect in the early 1990s, which would reduce the number again. But those products still under quota proved to be highly visible and were the object of complaints by exporting countries. The reduction of controlled items in the late 1980s resulted from Japan's loss of a GATT case brought by the United States concerning import restrictions on twelve agricultural products. In addition, heavy pressure from the United States led to an agreement that Japan would end import quotas on beef and citrus fruit in 1991. The one restricted product that continues to prompt objections from other countries is rice, imports of which until 1994 were prohibited. Rice has traditionally been the mainstay of the Japanese diet, and farm organizations played upon the deep cultural importance as a reason for prohibiting imports. Farm organizations also had a disproportionate political voice because of the shift of the population to the cities without any significant redistricting for seats in the Diet. Despite such entrenched political and cultural opposition, foreign rice gradually found its way into Japanese markets and even on to the emperor's dining table by 1994.