Japan: food security threatened?

[TheNoNamedOne]

Seems like Japan could be in for some tough times in regards to food security in the not so distant future. While population is declining (despite efforts to reverse that), Japan is still far over its ability to feed itself. Over the last several decades valuable farmland has been converted to residential areas, the change in diet to value more red meat has increased, China's prosperity in the food markets have caused feed grain to rise, etc...

Japan is a market pioneer again: the first industrialised nation with no butter
An explosion in grain prices and a slide away from self-sufficiency is causing global crisis. And wealth is no guarantee of insulation
Times Online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3746900.ece) -- Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondence

Japanese farmers who once scoffed at the low prices of imported cattle feed have been crippled by the global rise in grain prices.

And a rich country that has not gone without anything it wanted on its plate for 35 years is suddenly panicking about food security. ...

... Japan’s reaction to global food shortages will illustrate what happens to a country whose population has far outgrown its farmland’s ability to support, ...

Wealthy Japan faces low risk of starvation, food rioting or any of the associated social unrest which threaten much of the developing world. ...

Japan, its leading food importers say, will inevitably take a step backwards in the food it eats. “The time will come,” says Akio Shibata, the director of the Marubeni Institute and one of Japan’s foremost experts on food supply, “when the Japanese people will realise that they will not have the quality, taste and prices of food they are used to.”

Looks like this will be bringing Japan back to a more traditional diet, meaning less meat and more vegetables and rice. And with the oceans' fish stocks of many species near collapse, it will be quite hard for fish to regain its traditional position in lieu of meat.

[proudtobnotpc]

don't have the hard figures right now but off the top of my HEAD Japan imports about 65% of their food, due to construction (lack of thinking) they are killing (starving themselves):ohmy:

[TheNoNamedOne]

Here is some more detailed data (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080226i1.html)[good read] on it from a different source reinforcing the article in the OP, proud (from 2006 data):

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said in August that Japan's food self-sufficiency in 2006 was 39 percent on a calorie basis ...

What imported food products does Japan rely heavily on?

Although Japan's self-sufficiency rate for rice, eggs, whale meat and mandarin oranges exceeds 90 percent, the rate for essential ingredients for Japanese cuisine, including soy beans, is a mere 5 percent, and just 13 percent for daily necessities like cooking oil.

Half of the meat products consumed in Japan is imported.

What about other countries?

Japan's food self-sufficiency rate on a calorie basis is the lowest among 12 developed countries cited in an international comparison released by the farm ministry in 2003. ...

Japan's food self-sufficiency ratio of 39 percent means the nation can provide about 2,000 Kcal of food a day for every citizen. This, he said, is barely above the danger level.

The dip below 40 percent is "a wakeup call" for Japan, given that the global food supply-demand situation appears to be at a turning point, with some developing countries already starting to limit food exports to ensure domestic demand is met as well as meeting increasing demands for ethanol as biofuel, Shogenji said.

[Tony Stacks]

Well Union and San A have a full stock and I always get good prices so as long as they keep it up I'm good!

[TheNoNamedOne]

Well Union and San A have a full stock and I always get good prices so as long as they keep it up I'm good!

Of course, for as long as they keep it up. I think the point is that Japanese and others who have made our life-time residences here, should be thinking of ways of how we as a group/the government, or as individuals, can each lessen this threat that could be a disaster in-the-making, something hard for us to imagine on any scale we have seen in the news such as in other countries in Africa or some other places where starvation stalked the people.

With this threat, is it really wise for the Japanese government to promote an artificial rise in births to grow the population? or would it be more wise to let the population lower itself so that a population size is in accordance to what the land can bear in food production?

With more competition for land being used for biofuels, China and India driving up grain and soy prices as they add more meat to their diets, less land for food production due to overall world population growth, hardships are bound to come to those large populations that need to feed themselves through imports. If we spend 15% of our income on food now, think of the difficulties it will mean if like other nations we find ourselves having to apportion 40, 50 or even 70% of our income on food?

It wouldn't be pretty if and when it comes to that -- and the possibility is not so inconceivable.

btw, here is The Democratic Party of Japan listing the food imports of Japan as 60% (2nd para):

Japan depends on imports for 60 percen (http://www.dpj.or.jp/english/manifesto/manifesto08.html)t of its food consumption.

[proudtobnotpc]

Japan's hunger becomes a dire warning for other nations (http://business.theage.com.au/japans-hunger-becomes-a-dire-warning-for-other-nations/20080420-27ey.html)

Japan's acute butter shortage, which has confounded bakeries, restaurants and now families across the country, is the latest unforeseen result of the global agricultural commodities crisis.

A sharp increase in the cost of imported cattle feed and a decline in milk imports, both of which are typically provided in large part by Australia, have prevented dairy farmers from keeping pace with demand.

While soaring food prices have triggered rioting among the starving millions of the third world, in wealthy Japan they have forced a pampered population to contemplate the shocking possibility of a long-term — perhaps permanent — reduction in the quality and quantity of its food.

A 130% rise in the global cost of wheat in the past year, caused partly by surging demand from China and India and a huge injection of speculative funds into wheat futures, has forced the Government to hit flour millers :old: