Gov't to raise food self-sufficiency to 50%; wants people to eat more rice

Tuesday 02nd December, 02:22 PM JST

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meiwaku at 05:54 PM JST - 2nd December

Increasing food self-sufficiency is a wonderful idea but how about a little bit of diversity? Bread, rice and milk?! That is all the Ministry of Agriculture can come up with? Pathetic. How do these morons ever get into politics? Does indeed sound like a third-world diet plan. Japan has great soil and good climate for growing all sorts of great food.
gonemad at 06:49 PM JST - 2nd December

JT, like always, you forgot to mention some important facts: what is the government going to spend on this program and who is going to receive it under which conditions? Oh, they didn't tell you in the press conference? Sure you didn't bother asking...
mareo2 at 07:01 PM JST - 2nd December

Agree with most of the previus posts.I think that food self-sufficiency must to aim for the high kalories food, not rice just because is the tradition. Maybe LDP care more about votes than about attainable national objectives.
Sammi33 at 07:44 PM JST - 2nd December

Yay, more wheat and rice for them to mill until it's white and has lost most of its nutrients!!! Empty carbs for all! And I'll wash it down with some super vitamin fiber drink but goddamn that constipation just won't go away! Fruits? Vegetables? Who needs them? We have RICE!
gogogo at 07:46 PM JST - 2nd December

Why did he say "Japanese people" seems strange to me that he should have just said "people"
plasticmonkey at 08:09 PM JST - 2nd December

eat an additional bite of rice at every meal

How about a tuna, corn, mayo, and rice pizza?
bogdana at 09:34 PM JST - 2nd December

The only reason people should be eating MORE white rice is if there's nothing else. The nutritional value is close to nil. Even if you were starving it would not be sufficient!
Ah_so at 10:24 PM JST - 2nd December

How does Japan plan to increase food productivity by 25%? I do not see much unused arable land.
30061015 at 12:01 AM JST - 3rd December

All a very nice, but with the average age of farmers approaching 70, who ya gonna get to do the difficult, dangerous & dirty work? Hmmm?

"Productive use should be made of farm and other land that is now idle..." Mr.Ishiba, how are you going to do this? Do you know how hard & expensive it is to regain productivity from overgrown weed infested idle land? Most aging farmers are already maxed out...their kids are long gone. There are villages in Hokkaido that can't give land away. Where is this extra productivity going to come from? The policies that allowed the land to become idle in the first place need to be changed, not just political lip service to "feel good" ideas about eating rice.
European1 at 12:06 AM JST - 3rd December

Good for them. If they find something, I hope they won`t try to find anymore as foreign stuff.
usaexpat at 01:11 AM JST - 3rd December

A great idea and as I always say food security is national security. Now the problem with the plan: There is plenty of unused farm land because the younger generations have moved to the cities to find other work. How do you entice people to take up farming rather than moving to the cities? Again the problem is not the land but the human capital necessary to raise agricultural production.
ptolemy at 01:59 AM JST - 3rd December

People already eat rice with every meal here, how much more can people eat? Is rice all Japan can grow? I think this story is incomplete, even an LDP flunky could not be this daft.
30061015 at 12:14 AM JST - 4th December

usaexpat: "the problem is not the land but the human capital necessary to raise agricultural production."

Exactly. Well written.
Balefire at 01:35 PM JST - 4th December

rice powder production is to be jacked up to 500,000 tons from 10,000 tons in the year ended in March 2008

Surely that's supposed to be "2009", or even "2010"? There's a definite tense confusion of some sort here, and I don't think it's Ishiba's. He has enough other confusions of his own.
SumoBob at 03:33 PM JST - 5th December

Where will all the extra rice come from? Why, from the vast amount of government-hoarded stock kept in warehouses. Arudou Debito came across just such a stockpile about ten years ago in Sapporo. Pallets of 100 kg bags of rice, 12 pallets deep, three pallets high and 200m long. Low consumer demand requires shelving rice to maintain Japan's high rice prices to keep LDP-supporting farmers happy. No doubt there will be enough extra rice kicking around to make this plan work.

http://www.debito.org/hbldg4ricestockpile.jpg (direct link)

http://www.debito.org/housebuildingfour.html (indirect link)