Japan has no domestic food security, it imports 60% of all food (one of the highest in the world btw) and it would be unsustainable any other way so it must have a strong trade policy. This makes the recent Japanese alt right moves all more idiotic.
Definitely. I lookup Japan’s immigration programs every year and every year is not good enough for anyone worth their salt to bother, especially when compared to neighboring countries. Also the current political shift to right is a major red flag.
Thought I read somewhere a long time ago that they imported a bunch of rice from the US as a result of some trade agreement. But they don’t want to eat the rice from the US because it’s lower quality. So it doesn’t get sold for human consumption. Though I guess they use it to make other stuff. Like you could ferment and distill it.
Iirc we use American rice in cheaper restaurants and donate it for himantarian aid overseas but I imagine not many people, myself included, would buy American rice at the grocery stores unless absolutely necessary.
JA has a tight grip on rice in Japan. Add to that the insistence of JP govt to not import rice in almost all circumstances and you can guess that the rice market in Japan is almost disconnected from the global rice markets
Good to hear. I don’t see Japan mentioned in the article, hopefully this resolves their shortage.
Japan’s “rice crisis” is totally self-inflicted and very solvable.
At the cost of their domestic food security.
Did we not learn from the pandemic?
Japan has no domestic food security, it imports 60% of all food (one of the highest in the world btw) and it would be unsustainable any other way so it must have a strong trade policy. This makes the recent Japanese alt right moves all more idiotic.
Makes a lot of sense to try and preserve the remaining 40% then
How? The bottle neck is workable land not farmer incentive.
Correct. So that means the incentive would obviously be placed on higher value crops and not necessarily staple crops like rice.
That’s a big problem for a nation’s food security
Farmers being 80 years old and young people moving to the cities doesn’t help.
Nor do the laws making it essentially impossible for foreign nationals to own and manage farmland.
Definitely. I lookup Japan’s immigration programs every year and every year is not good enough for anyone worth their salt to bother, especially when compared to neighboring countries. Also the current political shift to right is a major red flag.
I thought the issue was japan not importing rice, not necessarily a global shortage
Thought I read somewhere a long time ago that they imported a bunch of rice from the US as a result of some trade agreement. But they don’t want to eat the rice from the US because it’s lower quality. So it doesn’t get sold for human consumption. Though I guess they use it to make other stuff. Like you could ferment and distill it.
Iirc we use American rice in cheaper restaurants and donate it for himantarian aid overseas but I imagine not many people, myself included, would buy American rice at the grocery stores unless absolutely necessary.
They were using it for pig feed.
I thought maybe I read that about soy beans?
Tbf Japan uses rice for sooo many things. Would not be surprised to see clothing woven from it.
JA has a tight grip on rice in Japan. Add to that the insistence of JP govt to not import rice in almost all circumstances and you can guess that the rice market in Japan is almost disconnected from the global rice markets