On December 3, 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Overseas Agricultural Service released its annual report on agricultural biotechnology in Japan. The report states that Japan is a major importer of genetically modified (GM) food and feed, and that the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina are important suppliers of GM products to it. As of October 2024, 334 GM products have been approved for use in food and feed in Japan (201 for feed and 133 for food). Gene-edited foods that do not contain exogenous DNA are not subject to the mandatory Japanese food labeling law.

Currently, seven gene-edited products developed by Japanese and U.S. companies have applied for production and sale in the Japanese domestic market, and four of them have been approved.