Japan's food self-sufficiency rate recovers to 40%

Wednesday 06th August, 05:15 AM JST

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Latest 15 of 19 Total Comments Show All

sammuraisteve at 07:42 AM JST - 6th August

I wonder what percentage it would be if rice weren't included.
TJrandom at 08:29 AM JST - 6th August

This is terrible news. The forces of darkness have prevailed.

We consumers are paying high taxes so that inefficient farmers can have their votes bought in order to keep the regime in office. This increase in domestic consumption was not brought on by a lowering of prices due to higher yields or lower costs of production, but instead by protectionism.
borscht at 08:50 AM JST - 6th August

Tjrandom, Fear and protectionism.
TJrandom at 09:08 AM JST - 6th August

borscht

Yes – I agree – Fear mongering and protectionism. Citing higher domestic vegetable demand due to imported Dumplings – as if there haven’t been a slew of domestic cases. Such as mad cow in Japanese beef, recycling of expired use-by date items, etc. Food safety is important to consumers, but this will not come from promotion of domestic produce consumption.
serindipity at 09:22 AM JST - 6th August

I wonder if the extra 1% is made up of the chicken, eel and apples that were mislabeled as Japanese produce.
Altria at 09:29 AM JST - 6th August

Are you sure they didn't just relabel some extra stuff?
MeanRingo at 09:42 AM JST - 6th August

Serindipity and some14some... don't know if they corrected, but that is a 0.1 percent increase. Not a WHOLE percentage point. Which is why I'm only 0.1 percent interested in this non-stat at all. I mean really, how do they even calculate such a thing? What if some kids eat bugs or something? Does this increase include any cannibalistic acts? Just stupid.
jaybeeb at 10:13 AM JST - 6th August

This is good news. A small step in the right direction. With the increasing costs of transportation, I expect this this trend will continue.

TJrandom: If your idea if efficient farming is large scale agri-business, I'm sorry to say it's not sustainable. The inputs required for such methods are only going to increase in price right a along with transport costs.
TJrandom at 11:39 AM JST - 6th August

jaybeeb

Transportation costs are negligible, with the last unit costing as much as the rest combined. So transporting wheat by ship from the US, Australia, Argentina, etc. cost less than the trucking from port or local field. Hence distance is not important. By all means - purchase at the roadside stall when you can and pay no transportation costs, but this is not realistic for most consumers nor for producers who need a large market.

Large scale agribusiness is sustainable in those locations where the conditions make it efficient. This is easily proven – just look at the costs of produce where high efficiencies provide a glut.

Large scale agri-business is unsustainable where efficiencies can not be obtained – like Japan for rice, hence the 700% tariff to meet price equilibrium with the costs of Japan production.

Short term, I do feel for the Japanese farmers – who need to get out of inefficient farming and into something that does not waste the resources of the entire country as we pay on both ends – for their tax transfers and for high food prices too. Better to pay them to set down their tools, than pay them for produce.
Sarge at 02:55 PM JST - 6th August

"It is an encouraging sign"

What's the goal? 100% self-sufficiency? The higher the number, the more Japanese consumers are going to pay for their food.
ChimpsAhead at 02:58 PM JST - 6th August

Sarge- Great post.

0.1% increase is not much to boast about now , is it.
TJrandom at 02:58 PM JST - 6th August

Sarge

What's the goal? 100% self-sufficiency?

If we were all hunter gatherers, we would be 100% self sufficient – but hungry and poor, since we would only have what we picked up, and competition for items to find would be fierce. If we all progressed to self sufficient growers, we would not be as hungry, but we would have little else (and there would be no transportation costs). Now that we are in a global economy based upon free/fair trade, we have so much more - both plentiful food and material goods.

The right food self sufficiency ratio (the one that we should be striving for) is the resulting one following removal of all subsidies and tariffs. The number itself is meaningless.
dennis0bauer at 04:28 PM JST - 6th August

only with soylent green will Japan reach 100% self suffiency!
TJrandom at 04:37 PM JST - 6th August

dennis0bauer

Unfortunately - even with soylent green, Japan will still need to import. Not enough bodies to go around.
as_the_crow_flies at 11:13 PM JST - 6th August

Can anyone tell me, apart from the meaningless statistics, what "40% self-sufficient" actually means? It's double-talk to me, like 40% honest, 40% home-made, 40% pesticide-free, 40% fresh... George Orwell would be feeling vindicated if he read Kyodo News stories, even though he wrote "1984" thinking of Stalinism, it seems like the J-Gov and all its branches have adopted double-speak and trot out garbage that is supposed to make everyone feel warm and woolly and not question the massive economic quagmire that Japan risks sinking itself into if it doesn't make some major changes, fast. Specially in rural Japan, where the fabric is crumbling before everyone's eyes.