Agricultural products trade in eastern Asia and globalization: The possibility of regional agriculture development through export of high-quality agricultural products

It is important to export high-quality agricultural products for the development of less favored countries, as in Eastern Asia. In this paper, the related mechanism between the export market structure and the domestic regional place of agricultural production is examined through a case study on the export of high-quality rice in the western district of Nishi-Iwami, Shimane prefecture, Japan. The conclusions are as follows: 1. Recently the demand for high-quality agricultural products has grown up in Eastern Asia countries, especially in the newly industrializing economies (NIEs), in which the GDP per capita of big cities is over $10,000, thereby producing a new rich middle class. Thus, intra-trade of agricultural products could be formed between Japan and these countries. 2. As the retail shop system for high-quality agricultural products has established in one of the big cities of one of the NIEs, Taiwan, many high-quality rice and fruits could be exported from Japan. 3. The reasons that high-quality organic rice in the Nishi-Iwami district was exportable to Taiwan were the (a) existence of the demand in Taiwan, (b) the effect of marketing research, and (c) the existence of the organization of rice suppliers in the Iwami district. 4. It was possible to negotiate directly with high class shopping malls for the farmers' organization in this small, less-favored area, Nishi-Iwami, so that this organization could lower the transaction costs, get trusted, and benefit from profitable business conditions from that shopping mall. Even through the scale of this rice trade was just one ton per month, the information of high-quality rice export of Nishi-Iwami to Taiwan spread widely all over Japan. As a result, the rice domestic demand increased more than the export demand, which in turn contributed to improving the economic conditions of the region.