Wagyu Cattle: How Japan's Draft Animals Became the World's Marbled Beef

What is Wagyu?

Wagyu is a group of Japanese beef cattle, not a single herd or a brand. Four breeds carry the official name: the Japanese Black (Kuroge Washu), the Japanese Brown (Akage Washu), the Japanese Shorthorn (Nihon Tankaku Shu) and the Japanese Polled (Mukaku Washu). According to the Nippon.com history of wagyu, the Japanese Black accounts for 98 percent of wagyu raised in Japan.

The names people know on a menu, such as Kobe and Matsusaka, are regional brands built on these cattle, with their own rules for birthplace, age and meat quality.

The Tajima roots in Hyogo

The breed's roots lie in the Tajima ushi, a native cattle type of the Tajima region of Hyogo Prefecture. A late Kamakura period illustration in the Kokugyu juzu, from the era running 1185 to 1333, describes the breed as having fine bones, firm muscles, thin hide and rounded backs.

Until the late 19th century, cattle in Japan were mainly draft animals, and eating beef was unthinkable for many people, partly because Buddhism prohibited eating animal flesh. The cattle were valued for labor in rice country, which shaped what breeders selected for.

Meiji crossbreeding and the move to beef

The Meiji era, 1868 to 1912, brought rapid modernization and Western influence, and with it more beef and milk consumption. Native cattle were crossed with higher-yielding foreign breeds to create animals that could serve as laborers and also supply meat and dairy.

The shift to cattle raised solely for meat gained momentum after the 1950s. Later, when beef imports were liberalized in 1991, Japanese producers emphasized marbling to set their beef apart from leaner imports, which is why intramuscular fat now defines the wagyu grade system in the public mind.

Tajiri-go, the bull behind the bloodlines

Most premium Japanese beef cattle trace to a single bull, Tajiri-go, born in 1939 on a farm in the Ojiro district of Kami in northern Hyogo. He sired 1,463 calves over a 15-year life. A 2012 survey by the Wagyu Registry Association found that 99.9 percent of female Japanese Black cattle in Japan descended from him.

He is the founding ancestor of the Matsusaka, Omi and Yonezawa brands. The fact is useful for readers weighing claims about diversity in the breed: the gene pool is narrow by design.

How wagyu went abroad

The export timeline is short. In 1967, wagyu semen went to Canada for artificial insemination. In 1976, two Japanese Black and two Japanese Brown bulls were sent to the United States for research, and they later founded commercial herds there. Australian ranchers began importing wagyu genetics from Japan and the United States in 1989.

Exports to the United States increased in the 1990s, and by the end of 1998 247 head of cattle and about 13,000 straws of semen had been shipped. In the late 1990s Japan halted exports to protect its exclusive hold on the breeds. Herds were established in Britain, Germany and elsewhere in the early 2000s.

Limits, controversies and labeling

The narrow bloodline and the high price have produced problems. Regulation of bloodlines overseas is often less strict than in Japan, and hybrid beef is sometimes sold as wagyu even though it falls short in marbling and tenderness. The word on a menu does not guarantee a Japanese Black pedigree.

Marbling also became the main marker of quality only after imports were liberalized in 1991, according to the same account.

Learn more

For a look at how ranchers in other countries use specialty beef breeds, see farm.FM's ranching coverage and a farm.FM story about wagyu cattle. For background on the breeds, the Nippon.com piece on Australian wagyu and the Wikipedia overview are worth a look.