Japan's food self-sufficiency alarmingly low; 72 mil could go hungry, magazine says

In most of the world the cry of food security is not much more than an excuse to throw the public's tax money at agribusiness for subsidies and to impose tariffs on imported agricultural crops. Japan is famous for this and it raises food prices needlessly and dramatically. Year after year during the 1990s the US Embassy would sponsor trade fairs featuring US products including California rice. And year after year the California rice delegation would be detained by Japanese authorities and expelled. Japan resented the US, specifically California, trying to peddle their rice at prices that considerably undercut the local product, especially when the rices offered were generally Japonica imported to California from Japan but grown very differently than Asian practice using laser leveled fields, minimal water, aerial seeding and mechanical harvesting. Japanese authorities would sniff that California has nothing to teach Japan about growing rice and summarily expel the California delegation. Decades later Calrose rice is a hot seller at Japanese Costcos. Why? Because it is excellent rice.

If Japan has something to sell the world wants to buy it will have no problem buying food. Places like Singapore grow virtually none of the food they consume but survive and thrive. But if Japan truly wants to be food independent then they need to adopt indoor vertical farming for fresh fruits and vegetables, saving arable land for the few crops that cannot be grown in vertical farms.

 These are the outward symptoms, but Suzuki hints of an inner one, still more intractable: Japan’s inability to change.

Its political system is frozen. The overpowering Liberal-Democratic Party has governed all but uninterruptedly since its founding in 1955. It is taken for granted, the opposition parties all but resigned to marginal status. Voter frustration rises to no purpose, to no effect, with  no outlet. It seethes impotently and the system lurches on. Urgent issues go unaddressed. Other nations broaden their sexual orientation, acknowledge diversity, grant official approval to lifestyles and moral attitudes once despised if not forbidden. Not Japan. The demographic crisis now pressing was previsible in outline 40 years ago. No measures were taken. The food crisis is previsible now, Suzuki and other experts warn. The warnings go unheeded.

Funny. Many of us posters here have been warning of these exact problems for years only to be called Japan-haters.

The people remain pretty apathetic and don't particularly hold the government accountable so nothing changes. Many are pessimistic, but also think that because of the way Japan has always been able to sustain its wealth and status, that someone Japanese will come along with a viable solution and everything will be fine. Time will tell.

This problem could be solved over night if people would eat vegan. But it seems no one in power in Japan is bold enough to encourage people...

A very interesting topic, with so many questions to follow up on.

When was the last time that Japan had food self-sufficiency, and what was Japan's population at that time?

The importance of imported food and raw materials to Japan cannot be overstated. Anything that threatens the ability to import food and raw materials, and to export goods, is a threat to the very existence of Japan.

Thus, the importance of free trade on open-seas becomes easier to understand, and the threat to open seas from China's claim to control the right of way in Eastern waters is worrying, to say the least. China is determined to be able to "legally" deny the right to traverse the Eastern seas, and by doing so, poses an existential threat to countries like Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

When the USA got on board with the European idea of opening up world markets to China, the hope was that becoming prosperous would make China more democratic, and less inclined to align with the Soviet dictatorship. What we have seen is that China, like Russia, has become a dictatorship, and has poured its wealth into making itself a dictatorial threat to the other nations of the world.

Japan decided long ago that it was going to be an industrial and technological giant, not a farming giant. Can’t have your cake and eat it too.

I don't see what the problem is.

Japanese already eat a small amount by world standard.

Beside, international grains market is based on winning bids by the highest price. It's usually the 3rd world countries that lose out in grains price bidding wars, Japan has nothing to worry.

So what if the grain price doubled? It's not much of a big hit to average Japanese household finance, while it's a famine for 3rd world countries.

So what if the grain price doubled? It's not much of a big hit to average Japanese household finance, while it's a famine for 3rd world countries

Laughable. Rising food prices are a problem for families in the wealthiest countries. If the price of grain doubles it would do significant damage to our monthly budget.

Globalisation made famine a thing of the past in first world countries. Now that governments have decided to return to nation state tribalism, it will return.

In the UK our supermarkets were full of food, anything approaching its sell-by date, being donated to worthy causes. Now into Brexit, there are huge gaps on supermarket shelves, nobody to harvest homegrown produce as migrant labour has been kicked out, and no energy to heat greenhouses as prices have been artificially hiked. Now, shelves have a few of each item at the front of the shelf. On any trip to the supermarket, something you would normally have bought will be unavailable.

Our governments have ruined our society and our economy, just when we really needed those supply chains we had perfected, with climate change knocking on the door. So, yes, famines will come, even in first world countries, and many more will die of hunger in developing countries.

It's too late. The Chinese and Southeast Asians have largely purchased Japan's farmlands and agricultural facilities through a series of proxies and individuals. They're largely responsible for the weird, polarized economic nature of Japan's agriculture where the food self-sufficiency is so low, yet Japan's food exports continue reaching an all-time high. The exports are going directly to restaurants in China and Southeast Asia to satiate the Asian appetites for Japanese food.

Hell, the article suggests that we will witness a similar phenomenon to Irish Potato Famine in Japan soon - the Irish Potato Famine was deliberately caused by the British by taking all the food surplus of Ireland for export; thus, it left the Irish population starving to death.

Everyone eating the same food such as fish and rice, Japanese should diversify their by eating Fish Tacos, Tortillas Soup , Chicken Salad,I bought a pork butt roast for 6 dollars,make some Bbq,Chili , Enchiladas,and a few more dishes with that roast

This is an embarrassingly bad article. It's full of stream of conscious nonsense, and the author just goes through a laundry list of gripes from nationalism to gay marriage that he doesn't even attempt to tie convincingly to food security.

A poor country is not food self sufficient? then yes, people there may go hungry. Japan would just buy food from any country that would sell it, so it would export its hunger.

I think food security 30 years ago was 60% now down to 40% relying on too many food imports.

I like his comment "urgent issues go unaddressed". This sums up modern Japan neatly. There's no urgency, just a quiet resignation and hopelessness. I feel an uneasiness when 'I increasingly see robot waiters delivering meals in a restaurant, self service creeping in everywhere, and when I see all the masses of imported food in the supermarkets. Japan has always been able to adapt and survive (and thrive), but I feel this time the demographic and geographic realities may be just too intractable even for the ingenuity of the Japanese.

Japan has friends, good relations with two massive food exporters in the US and Australia. NZ also exports plenty of food. These countries will not let Japan starve. Unless the planet goes nuts and food production in more than one area goes belly up at the same time, Japan will not face NK level starvation.

It is good to have friends.

Long, long past time for the science deniers in Japan to join the 21st Century and allow plant breeders in Japan to develop GMO crops.

When was the last time that Japan had food self-sufficiency, and what was Japan's population at that time?

At a guess, the 1910s or 1920s and about 50 million. Japan may have been importing food from Korea, then a "protectorate", but I do not know.

At the beginning of the 1930s, the crops then repeatedly failed and Japan invaded Manchuria. This is historical fact but will be downvoted with that little button below.

This is an embarrassingly bad article. It's full of stream of conscious nonsense, and the author just goes through a laundry list of gripes from nationalism to gay marriage that he doesn't even attempt to tie convincingly to food security.

Agreed. Should have at least run it through ChatGBT or the Bing.

Additionally they surely also want to plaster everything with solar panels and wind turbines. That brings us even nearer to the above scenarios.

One reason the shrinking population is a good thing. Another is the certainty that 50% of current jobs will have been made obsolete within the next 25 years.

Here in the States, farmers are paid not to farm on 25 million acres of farmland, which is not as bad as it sounds. Before the advent of high intensity farming, with heavy fertilizer use, farmers here would not only rotate crops, but they would routinely allow part of their land to go fallow, as a way to replenish the nutrients in the soil.

@Yrral are you and Awa no Gaijin connected the comments are of the same logical rhetoric.

Everyone eating the same food such as fish and rice, Japanese should diversify their by eating Fish Tacos, Tortillas Soup , Chicken Salad,I bought a pork butt roast for 6 dollars,make some Bbq,Chili , Enchiladas,and a few more dishes with that roast

@1glenn

Allowing land to go fallow is the least sustainable farming practice. Nutrients don't "magically" appear out of nowhere. Most farmers in the US have at least a corn-soy rotation. Soybeans are a legume, rhizobia bacteria that live in nodules in the roots and actually do "magically" fix nitrogen from the atmosphere that reduces the amount of nitrogen farmers need to apply to grow corn the following year.

Fallow is what caused the "dirty thirties."

A lot of land is long fallow in Japan as nobody is around to farm it.

Regularly traveling in the countryside here it is possible to see how deserted some areas are.

What Japan needs are small agricultural robots to cope with ploughing and sowing and harvesting.

There are various models being produced outside Japan but not that I can see here