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Japan Economy News on Radio Australia

I was interviewed for a piece on Japanese agricultural policy on Radio Australia. Playlist and mp3s are available here - the interview is in the second half of the 29 August program.

Also appearing is Tobias Harris from the excellent Observing Japan.

Japan’s food self-sufficiency to 40%; Marubeni to source soybeans and corn directly from the US

In last night’s post on Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s new cabinet, Japan’s food self-sufficiency rates merited a brief mention at the end:

[N]ew agriculture minister Seiichi Ota also spoke to reporters on Monday, saying that Japan needs to achieve a level of food security. Can Ota put policies in place to help Japan boost its current 39% self-sufficiency rate on a calorie basis.

This morning, Kyodo reported that Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate had risen one percentage point to 40% in fiscal 2007. This was the first rise seen in 13 years. Former Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Masatoshi Wakabayashi had set a goal of reaching 50% food self-sufficiency by 2015. New Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Seiichi Ota told reporters, “We will make efforts both on the production and consumption sides to ensure this trend.” Read more

Amidst rising prices, might foodcrime be the next trend?

After all the hoopla surrounding food safety and labeling in Japan over the past year, and the subsequent hand-wringing over higher prices, especially of dairy products and grains, it seems just about time for a new trend to come in: Foodcrime.

To set up some background, first we need to keep in mind that wholesale wheat prices have nearly doubled in Japan in the past year. According to data released by the Bank of Japan yesterday, the rising price of wheat and wheat flour imports continue to contribute to Japan’s rising wholesale prices. Products such as noodles and spaghetti, which are made from wheat, have seen consumer price increases over 10% over the past months.

Japan is certainly not slowing down in its importation of wheat. According to figures released by the USDA this morning, the size of Japan’s wheat purchase from the US increased to 84,200 metric tons last month, ranking third behind Nigeria and Chile. This accounts for just over 13% of the wheat exported by the US in that time (on a side note, Japan purchased 33.6% of the corn that the US put up for export sale, though Japan did buy less corn than South Korea).

On the domestic front, a 30% price hike has been approved for wheat sales for the 2009 crop.

back to the story: this morning, the Mainichi reported that 2 tons of flour had been stolen from a wholesale company’s warehouse in Saitama. Although we’re not told if this was wheat flour, or whether it was imported or domestic in origin (which would be more likely), we do know that the flour was valued at 270,000 yen and that it was stolen with the firm’s own truck, which was returned to the warehouse, showing an increase of only 8 kilometers on its odometer.

This is hardly the first time food has been stolen in Japan, but we’re forced to wonder if the current environment of rising prices mixed with the guaranteed rise of prices for next year’s crop won’t lead to an increase in such incidents. If nothing else, more cases of mislabeled food should be expected.

200,000 of Japan’s fishing vessels to strike for public awareness of increased fuel costs on July 15

According to yesterday’s Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives is planning a one-day shutdown of fishing operations on July 15. The paper reports that 16 fishing groups with a total of 200,000 vessels will stay in port on that day in order to raise public awareness of the difficulties faced by the fisheries industry in the current economic climate. The group claims that the current price of 95,300 yen per kiloliter is 2.4 times greater than it was four years ago.

In the article, Kuniyuki Miyahara, who runs the National Foundation of Fisheries Cooperatives, says that the spike in fuel prices has caused the nation’s fishing groups to exhaust all means of holding down costs by themselves. He would like for the government to start subsidizing fuel costs for fishing vessels.

Will this really raise public opinion? Last month we saw a one-day stoppage of 3,000 squid fishing vessels. Prices briefly shot up 30% and then returned to normal. The public simply ignored squid for a few days. Is a one-day stoppage of fishing vessels going to do anything to make the public call for subsidized fuel for fishing vessels?

If the action fails to help raise awareness, Mr Miyahara told the Asahi that spending a second day in port is not out of the question.

Japan to commence emergency butter imports from October

A post discussing Japan’s recent importation of whale meat from Iceland published back on June 4 ended with the line, “Seriously, we could use some butter.”

The Ministry of Agriculture has listened. Today’s Nikkei is reporting that Japan will import about 5000 tons of butter this autumn, from Europe and other yet unspecified markets. The plan is to get the butter into Japan sometime around October, when it is believed that shortages will be the most acute.

In case you’re worried over whether The Ministry of Agriculture will allow the butter to be imported under a free market, fear not: the Agriculture and Livestock Industries Corporation, an entity controlled by the ministry itself, will be handling the import shipments.

Japan imports whale meat from Norway and Iceland for first time in 18 years

For the first time since 1990, Japan has imported whale meat, according to today’s Japan Times and other sources. Apparently, 80 tons of fin whale caught in 2006 by Iceland arrived in Japan in May, and five tons of minke whale caught by Norway have been shipped to Japan so far this year.

The imports have hardly gone unnoticed, however, as the US State Department is urging Iceland and Norway to stop the export of whale meat. The International Whaling Commission will be holding its annual conference in China later this month, and we again expect to see a full-on soap opera of ego, activism and nationalism mixed in a broth of greed, PR and spin. Sort of like a pre-Olympic primer.

However, the importation of whale meat raises several questions: Have western protests over Japanese whaling led to increased domestic demand? Is the government importing meat to pass off to hospitals and schools? Have the decreased sizes of Japan’s “research” catches in recent years led to shortages of whale meat on supermarket shelves? And finally, getting to food we need: Do Norway and Iceland have any butter to send over?

Seriously, we could use some butter.

Global Voices Online looks at the butter shortage

Hanako Tokita over at Global Voices has posted an interesting article entitled Where has all the butter gone? As US retail shops grab headlines by rationing rice to customers, there has been a rash of supermarkets in Japan that simply have no butter left on their shelves. To help give a perspective on the issue, Tokita has translated a blog entry from Bebe Kobo, a site run by a small-scale dairy farmer in Japan.

Where has all the butter gone? at Global Voices Online

Kentucky Fried Chicken to raise prices by 7% across Japan

In line with the price hikes being announced across Japan’s food industries, Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan has announced that it will raise its prices by about 7% from April 24. This will be the first time in 16 years that “Kentucky” has raised its prices, and they will apply to items sold at all of the firms 1,150 shops nationwide. Higher wheat prices are behind the rise, as well as increased costs for corn and soybeans, which are used in chicken feed.

Will we be seeing higher prices at other fast food chains and izakayas? It seems inevitable, given the rise in wheat, meat, dairy and beer prices having already happened or set to kick in over the coming months. Such a situation could certainly be more beneficial to those retailers with deep enough pockets to attract customers with discounts, though we remember what happened when McDonald’s Japan nearly bankrupted itself with this strategy a few years back.

Kyodo poll: 75.9% of Japanese say they will no longer use Chinese food

Kyodo News conducted a telephone survey Saturday and Sunday and apparently found that 75.9% of respondents said they “will not use Chinese food from now on.”

According to the Kyodo article:

…[S]urveys show that Japanese consumers using Chinese food stood at 57.9 percent until before the incident came to light in late January, but plunged to 21.6 percent after the incident.

Kyodo doesn’t tell us which surveys it is referring to, though there are plenty of other numbers included from the current survey:

69.0% of those surveyed stated that they are “greatly” concerned about Chinese products, while 51.1% said that the Japanese government has not done enough in the wake of the current scandal. The survey also found 55.5% of respondents want Japan to increase it’s food self-sufficiency, while 15.3% want the government to communicate better and not withhold information when food-related scandals break.

We’re not surprised by these numbers, and over time, we expect to see emotions calm and for many people to forget about the answers they gave to that pollster who called on behalf of Kyodo News this weekend. Nonetheless, and no matter how the investigation into the current scandal turns out, China stands to be dogged with safety concerns in the future. What will it do to ensure confidence in products for export? Does it actually need to?

Interested in where my own food comes from, I decided to have a quick look at the fridge. 7 of the 8 items on top of the fridge were made in Japan, with the eighth item being from China. Of those items in the fridge, 14 were from Japan, 12 from China, 2 from Thailand, 2 from Korea, 2 from the US, 2 from Italy, 1 from Poland, and 1 from Turkey.

This is one potential trend that we will certainly be watching the development of…

Bad news for Japan’s beef eaters - price hikes on the horizon

It seems that every week we’re hearing announcements that prices are about to rise in some sector of Japan’s consumer economy - milk, beer, electricity, cheese, mayonnaise and gas prices have all either risen or are set to rise soon. Now beef prices are set to join that group, with the JA Group announcing on Wednesday that beef prices are set to increase about 15 yen per 100 grams.

Domestically raised beef accounts for about half of the beef sold in Japan, and corn is often used as feed. As global ethanol and oil prices have risen, so has the price of corn. The Japan Times quotes Toshihiko Baba, an official at the JA Group as saying, “We are facing a crisis that is endangering our very survival.” As recently as 1960, nearly all of Japan’s beef supplies were secured through domestic production channels.

Desperate to may a plea for public understanding on the matter, the JA Group intends to hand out some 25,000 packs of tissue paper in Tokyo this Saturday, along with leaflets explaining why meat prices will rise. One has to wonder what other wasteful costs could be cut in order to increase efficiency in the industry…

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