Japan warned of food shortage

[Francois Cellier]

From the Australian

Japan warned of food shortage

10jun06


TOKYO: Surrounded by fast-growing Asian economies and their even faster-growing appetites, Japan is facing a potential food crisis that could reduce daily diets to the austere meals of the 1950s, a senior government adviser believes.

According to the stark warning of Akio Shibata, director of the Marubeni Research Institute, the rise of China and the intensifying global race for commodities mean that the rich and highly varied diet of modern Japan could be savagely curtailed within the next 10 years.


If imports to Japan were slashed, sushi, teriyaki beef, tonkatsu pork cutlets and other favourites could be swept off the menu and a Spartan diet of plain white rice, pickles, radishes, miso soup and sardines would become the norm as Japan struggled to feed itself.

The Government's plan for dealing with the potential food crisis is likely to involve two strategies. First, to force domestic farmers to use Japan's one million acres of unused agricultural land more efficiently. Second, to persuade the vast ranks of baby boomers, who will retire en masse next year, to take up farming in their twilight years.

Japan has thrived in an environment of cheap imports of meat, soybeans, wheat and corn -- 40 per cent of the average daily calorie intake of Japanese comes from imported food -- but that era may be drawing to a close. Restaurants serving meat dishes now regarded as commonplace could become the preserve of the very wealthy.

Although the vision of a Japan with no food imports is Mr Shibata's worst-case scenario, it is being taken seriously by the Japanese Government.

Mr Shibata sits on a specially convened panel of academics, senior bureaucrats and non-Japanese experts on the global food industry. Its role is to establish whether Japan is indeed on the brink of a food crisis, and if so, prepare for it.

Mr Shibata's prediction is based in large part on the rise of China, where large parts of the population are escaping from poverty, creating ever greater global demand for better food.

China already consumes half the global output of soybeans, and that consumption is expected to continue growing fast. The greater demand for meat has increased the demand for cereals used for human and animal consumption. Demand now far outstrips supply, and global cereal inventories have been dropping sharply: they are now where they were during the oil shock of the early 1970s.

But Mr Shibata also points to the sharp, immigration-led population growth in the US of about five million each year. The US, now relied upon by Japan as an exporter of corn, will consume 90 per cent of its own corn output by 2012, creating a price-inflating scramble for exports of what remains.
Many Japanese remember previous food shortages, in particular when the US embargoed all soybean exports to Japan in the 1970s.

[LanternBearer]

Has anyone notified Pearl?

The amazing thing about this is that what is about to bcome a reality has not just creeped up on us or them in any hidden way. The precipitous loss of the ability to feed-as-usual may seem unexpected but the signs have been blazing away like a garish Ginza.

I apologize for not taking note of this earlier M. C.

Lantern Bearer