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.
Japan Agricultural Cooperatives
There are several vulnerabilities to JA's business model. First, the very existence of the agricultural cooperative is based on a law called the Agricultural Cooperative Association Law, which can be rewritten or repealed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). While this law justifies various privileges that JA enjoys including exemption from Japan's antitrust law, it does remain outside of JA's direct control. Secondly, highly priced rice produced by Japanese farmers will easily lose market share should cheaper rice be imported from overseas. JA's business is dependent on high import tariffs on foreign rice controlled by the government. The current import tariff on foreign rice is 778%. The third vulnerability is the decline in Japan's farming population. Agricultural production declined from 11.7 trillion yen in 1984 to 8.2 trillion in 2011, and the number of farming households plummeted from over 6 million representing 14.5 million people in 1960 to 2.5 million households in 2010 representing a working force nearly one sixth the size 50 years ago.