A delegation of representatives of four Japanese flour mills that account for about 80pc of the Japanese market, aired their concerns at a meeting in Sydney on Monday with representatives of four Australian farmer organisations.

They are visiting Australia to assess what impact the new marketing arrangements will have and to gain first hand information on the likely size of the crop.

Japan imports mostly noodle wheat from Australia and most of it comes for Western Australia and not surprisingly noodle wheat quality dominated the meeting, including dissatisfaction with the current most popular noodle wheat variety in Western Australia, Calingiri.

But WA Pastoralists and Graziers Association executive member, Gary McGill, warned the millers WA farmers were now making decisions on what seed to use in next year's sowings and needed positive signals from Japan if they were to continue growing noodle wheat.

The meeting was organised by Mitsubishi Australia which runs cattle feedlots in Australia and has been granted a bulk wheat export licence in the wake of AWB Ltd's loss of its single desk wheat export powers.

A Mitsubishi subsidiary, Riverina Australia, has announced it will open an office in Perth to accumulate grain for the noodle market.

Delegation leader and president of Nitto Fujo Flour Milling Co, Kazui Kondo, said Japan imported about a million tonnes of wheat a year from Australia, and more than 80pc was noodle wheat.

Mr Kondo said with AWB's single desk wheat export power now "almost disappeared" Japanese millers wanted to know if they would be obtaining the same high quality noodle wheat as they had in the past.

He said the biggest concern for Japanese end users under a deregulated market was who would be checking the quality of noodle wheat destined for Japan.