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Food Security Issues in Japan

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Work with a partner to make a list of current issues connected to

food security in Japan.

Looking at the Data

Work with a partner of small group. What are your initial impressions? Are

the following statements true or false?

1. The number of young farmers in Japan has risen slightly over the past

10 years.

2. The largest group of farmers is between 60 and 70 years old.

3. The aging of Japan's farm population seems to be happening at a similar

rate to the aging of Japan's whole population.

4. Farmers in Japan tend to make less money than people who work in

other industries.

5. Compared to other OECD countries, Japan has high farm subsidies.

6. If a farmer wants to sell their land, it is more profitable to sell it to

another farmer than to a non-farm user.

7. Japanese consumers strongly prefer to buy domestic food.

8. In the frozen food market, sales of domestic products are rising faster

than sales of imports.

9. Japanese consumers tend to be worried about the safety of food imported

from other Asian countries.

10. Japanese consumers tend to trust the labels prepared by food

manufacturers.


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Check your answers using the data on the following pages. Then, prepare 3

more true false questions based on the data.

11.

12.

13.

1)


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2)

3)


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4)

Global Frozen Foods Almanac - October 2007 www.qffintl.com/pdf/oct_2007/almanac2.cfm

5) a) When buying foods from the following countries, do you feel worried about safety?

Not worried A little worried Rather worried Don’t know

Japan 53.6% 40.8% 3.0% 2.6%

European Union 26.0% 48.4% 10.5% 15.1%

China 0.4% 5.7% 90.3% 3.2%

Thailand, Vietnam 2.8% 35.1% 50.9% 11.2%

South Korea 4.9% 44.3% 43.3% 7.6%

USA 7.4% 58.7% 26.4% 7.5%

Australia, New Zealand 24.1% 53.2% 10.8% 11.9%


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b) Which of the following specific aspects of food safety do you feel uneasy about?

Whether the date of manufacture, use-by date, or best before date, etc is correct 69%

Whether there are additives 68%

Whether there are agri-chemical residues 67%

Whether the region of production or labeling is correct 61%

Other 4%

Gallup Poll http://www.nrc.co.jp/report/090105.html

6) Farm subsidies as a percentage of total value of agricultural production for selected

OECD countries.


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7) Ratio of farm household income to all household income in selected high-income

countries (1.0 = national average income)

OECD. (2003). Farm household incomes: issues and policy responses. Paris.

8)


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Japan's Aging Farmers

Pre-reading Vocabulary Check

Reading A - Japan’s Rice Farmers Fear Their Future Is Shrinking

fertile

malaise

abandon

deficit

prop up

vested interest

status quo

reform

cooperative

barriers

resuscitate

Reading B - Younger farmers blogging their way to success

gloomy

savvy

profitable

depict

fringe benefit

discretion

cooperative

distribution

discourage

scarce

Connections

Work with a partner. Choose 5 of the words from the lists above and discuss

how they might be related to the topic.


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Examples: Maybe the land is still fertile but no one wants to work on it.

Many young people have a gloomy image of farming.

Reading A:

Japan’s Rice Farmers Fear Their Future Is Shrinking

MARTIN FACKLER

SHONAI, Japan — This broad coastal plain near the Sea of Japan, blessed with

abundant water and rich soil and checkered with rice paddies hued golden yellow in the

early spring, is one of the country’s most fertile areas. But there is an unmistakable

malaise here.

The farmers who work the paddies are graying and dwindling in number.

Abandoned, overgrown plots are a common sight. Because of how small their farms are

and how far rice prices have fallen, many farmers find it impossible to make ends meet.

“Japanese agriculture has no money, no youth, no future,” said one farmer, Hitoshi

Suzuki, 57.

According to many farmers and agricultural experts, rural Japan is fast

approaching some sort of dead end, the result of an aging population, trade

liberalization and reduced government spending. They speak of the worst rural crisis

since World War II. In Shonai, farmland prices have dropped as much as 70 percent in

the past 15 years, and the number of farmers has shrunk by half since 1990. Across

Japan, production of rice, the traditional staple grain, has fallen 20 percent in a decade,

raising alarms in a nation that now imports 61 percent of its food, according to the

government’s Statistics Bureau.

Aging is seen as the biggest problem in rural areas, where, according to the


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Agriculture Ministry, 70 percent of Japan’s three million farmers are 60 or older. But

the overall economic system is also problematic. Since 2000, soaring deficits have forced

Tokyo to halve spending on public works projects, which propped up rural economies,

and falling exports have now cut factory jobs on which many farming households

depended for extra income.

While the current global financial crisis has added to the grimness, the root

causes lie in Japan’s rural economic system of tiny, inefficient family farms. But while

many farmers and agriculture experts agree that this system is breaking down, change

has been blocked by an array of vested interests and a fear of disturbing the established

ways.

The question now is whether some sort of breaking point might soon be reached.

Many say they feel the government has not gone far enough in reforms, complaining

that local farmers are blocked from making big improvements that challenge the status

quo.

One of those innovators is Kazushi Saito, a rice and pig farmer who six years

ago took on one of rural Japan’s most powerful institutions, the national agricultural

cooperative J.A., by trying to establish his own, smaller, alternative co-op. He signed up

120 other farmers who were unhappy with the national cooperative, which they said

they felt only tried to sell them expensive machinery and fertilizer. But when he sought

to register his new co-op, the prefectural agricultural officials refused to do the

paperwork, effectively killing the plan, he said.

Mr. Saito and other farmers said the government also throws up barriers

against the most obvious remedy to agriculture’s problems, the creation of larger, more

efficient farms. The average Japanese commercial farm is now just 4.6 acres, compared

with about 440 acres for the average American farm. Mr. Saito and others say their

efforts to accumulate land are blocked by government price supports on farmland,

which were intended to protect the value of small farmers’ assets but which make the

property too expensive to buy.

“Agriculture could resuscitate local economies, if it were made healthy again,”

said Masayoshi Honma, a professor of agriculture at the University of Tokyo. “But

Without reform, it will just decline to death.”

Adapted from the New York Times March 28, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/world/asia/29japan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1


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Reading B:

Younger farmers blogging their way to success

Internet seen as tool to make agriculture attractive, profitable

NATSUKO FUKUE

Hard work, low pay and a gloomy future. That's the image many young people have had

about farming. But a growing number of young, savvy farmers are trying to make the

industry more attractive and profitable through the Internet.

Shinichi Soga of Niigata Prefecture is selling tomatoes almost faster than he

can grow them thanks partly to his popular blog, which he started in 2006. Soga, 31,

initially began blogging as a way to connect with customers and other farmers. The blog,

titled Furyo Nomin (the Delinquent Farmer), depicts his life in rural Niigata and is

viewed more than 10,000 times a month.

"I started blogging because I also felt lonely, surrounded by much older

farmers," said Soga. In a recent entry, he used photos to explain that after harvesting

asparagus, some of the stalks need to be left in the ground to grow like bushes so their

roots will accumulate nutrition for the next year.

He also uses the blog to reveal his thoughts on working with nature, one of the

fringe benefits of the job. "There's one thing I felt was pretty as I lay on the ground,"

Soga wrote. "The light coming through the asparagus bush looks like the Milky Way.

It's very beautiful."

Soga is also challenging some of the traditions of Japanese agriculture by

selling his harvest only at his shop or at a nearby farmers' market, where he can price

his produce at his own discretion instead of being controlled by the powerful Japan

Agricultural Cooperative.

Most farmers traditionally rely on J.A. to sell and distribute their products.

This is usually a boon to small farmers operating in the mass market because it

reduces their workload and ensures they get a stable price. But farmers dealing in

premium-quality crops stand to lose money because J.A. mixes the good with the bad for

mass distribution. Critics say this discourages farmers from being creative and

producing more value-added products.

Although Soga admits his profit remains modest, the brisk tomato sales

prompted him to accept email orders as well. Farm products are one of the most popular

items sold online. According to Rakuten Inc., which runs the nation's biggest online

shopping site, sales of farm products rose 20.9 percent compared with last year, and


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organic foods are particularly popular.

Former pastry chef and Tokyo businessman Tomoharu Ishii, 25, is also

attempting Internet sales for his family's Koshihikari, the nation's most well-known

rice brand. Ishii, who just returned to his home in Niigata six months ago, said he would

not be able to survive by copying his father's generation of farmers, who simply

concentrated on production. He said today's farmers must approach the market in a

new way.

"Young farmers have to find a way to reach customers," Ishii said. Like Soga,

he maintains a blog to share his daily farming experiences and explain how he grows

his crops. "Sales would increase if we actively share information and connect with

consumers," he said, adding the Internet can be a tool to do just that.

Although blogs may have become an everyday tool or hobby for many people,

they are still scarce among the older generation of farmers. According to Ishii, only four

farmers, including him, are in their 20s in a village of 8,500 people mostly engaged in

agriculture. He hopes more young people will enter the agriculture industry but admits

it will be difficult unless they can be shown that farmers can make a comfortable living.

"That's why, within a few years, I hope to show young people that we can."

Adapted from The Japan Times May 21, 2009

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090521f2.html


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Reading Summary

Reading: A /B Title:

One sentence summary:

Important Points: Key Words:

Extension Points:

(connections to other topics, discussion points, personal connections etc.)


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Farm Land Policies

One of the main issues in Japanese food security is the

inefficiency caused by small farm size. MAFF has an official goal

to promote larger, more efficient farms. They say that 15 hectares

is the optimal size for a farm in Japan. This is the size which is

thought to be the most efficient, environmentally sustainable and

economically profitable. However, the average farm size in Japan

is only 1/10th that size. In fact, 75% of farms in Japan are less

than 2 hectares and many are as small as 0.5 hectares. And these

numbers have not changes significantly in decades.

So why isn’t the average farm size growing in Japan. There

is a clear economic pressure pushing towards larger farms but the

average farm size is not growing. What forces are holding back

farm growth?

Physical Constraints

Cultural Factors


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Political Structures

Economic Concerns


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Understanding the TPP

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in

Japan these days. But what is the TPP? It started as an agreement in 2005 between

4 countries. Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore negotiated reductions in

tariffs and other import restrictions between themselves. They also agreed to strict

protections for intellectual property. Currently 6 additional countries (Australia,

Malaysia, Peru, Japan, United States, and Vietnam) are negotiating to join the group.

In Japan, joining the TPP is a controversy because of fears of the impact it will have on

the agriculture industry and Japan’s food security.

For next class, research one of these questions and be prepared to discuss the results

with your classmates.

1. Why is the current government in favor of joining the TPP?

2. How is the TPP expected to influence Japan’s economy as a whole?

3. How is the TPP expected to influence agriculture and food security in Japan?

4. How is the TPP expected to influence farmers in Japan?

Notes: Be sure to make a note of your sources.

Take care - question 3 and 4 may seem similar but they are very different

questions.


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Food Labeling Scandals

Pre-reading Vocabulary Check

Reading A - A year of food safety scandals upsets Japan’s applecart

fake

reputation

concerned

spokesman

avoid

struggle

convince

differentiate

unscrupulous

Reading B - Wait, don't eat that: candy scandal stuns Japan

celebrate

be exposed

tamper

poultry

disclosure

confectioner

be associated with

whistle blower

falsify

transgression


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Reading A

A year of food safety scandals upsets Japan’s applecart

By Andrew Sharp

TOKYO — Each December, the chief priest of Kyoto’s historic Kiyomizu temple unveils

the single Chinese character voted by the public as best representing the past year.

While the temple’s name means “clear water,” the character selected for 2007 was far

from pure: “nise,” meaning fake, was chosen after a series of food-mislabeling scandals

damaged the reputations of some of the country’s best-known food companies. No

deaths have yet been reported in Japan, but the public is increasingly concerned about

what they eat — especially food imported from China.

“I’m worried about the food I buy these days, especially food that comes from

China,” says Hiroko Saijo, a 45-year-old part-time worker from Yokohama. “I check

carefully to see where everything comes from and avoid foods that I’m not sure about.”

Saijo is not alone. A government survey in September found that 89% of Japanese

consumers would pick domestically produced products over imported foods. The Yomiuri

Shimbun reported in February that since the Chinese gyoza scandal broke the previous

month, increasing numbers of people stopped buying frozen dumplings and began

making their own with fresh domestic ingredients. According to the agriculture ministry,

imports of vegetables from China dropped nearly 40% in the first three weeks of

February. And that was a full six months before the industrial chemical melamine killed

or sickened thousands of Chinese children.

Supermarkets have certainly noticed this shift in consumer behavior. “The

scandals have led to more people avoiding processed foods and buying proper

ingredients to cook at home,” says Kazuya Suzuki, a spokesman for the Peacock chain of

grocery stores. “Whenever a scandal hits, sales of similar products drop. Sales of frozen

foods fell by nearly half in some stores following the gyoza scandal.”

Restaurateurs are another group struggling to convince customers of food

safety. “Every time new customers come in, I tell them that we only use fresh

ingredients, nothing frozen,” says Etsuro Den, manager of Tom’s Seimen. “Once they

taste the food, they come back.” Den adds that Chinese food is always cooked through,

unlike Japanese dishes such as sashimi. And he notes that the scandals have played out

very differently in his homeland.

“I sometimes read the Chinese papers, and they take the opposite stance to the

Japanese media,” he says. For example, according to Chinese news reports, the gyoza at


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the center of the January scandal became tainted in transit or after they reached Japan.

the U.S.

The panic that these

incidents have touched off may

be due to the fact that Japanese

are more conscious of food

safety risks than people in other

countries. So says Luke Nottage,

an associate professor of law at

Sydney University and

contributor to the East Asia

Forum blog. It may also be due

to the media over-reacting to

the situation.

“When it comes to

Chinese food products, the

media make no attempt to

differentiate between specific

processors and importers and

instead focus on the country of

origin,” he says. “Even in the

domestic market, there are

many unscrupulous Japanese

importers motivated by short-term profit who pay no attention to processing standards

or agricultural chemical applications. The scandals are issues of criminal intent and are

not related to the nationality of responsible importers, retailers and processors.”

Adapted from Metropolis, December 11, 2008

http://metropolis.co.jp/features/feature/annus-scandalous/


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Reading B

Wait, don't eat that: candy scandal stuns Japan

Norimitsu Onishi

ISE, Japan — It was supposed to be a celebratory year for Akafuku, a confectioner that

had been selling bean-jam sweets here since 1707. On its 300th anniversary, instead of

celebrating, Akafuku has become the latest Japanese food company to be exposed for

lying about the contents of its products, tampering with expiration-date labels and

recycling ingredients.

At the same time, executives at a meatpacking company called Meat Hope were

arrested for labeling ground pork, chicken and even rabbit as 100 percent beef.

Separately, the 76-year-old president of Hinaidori, a poultry company, admitted to

mislabeling his chicken products after he disappeared for several days in the mountains

in a failed suicide attempt.

These and many other disclosures have shaken Japanese consumers, who have

long been willing to pay a premium for Japanese food products that were, or so many

believed, safer than imported goods, especially from China. But the scandals involving

the freshness of products by Akafuku, as well as two other nationally known

confectioners, Shiroi Koibito and Fujiya, have resonated beyond the marketplace in a

way that chicken or beef does not.

Akafuku and Shiroi Koibito

were two of the most popular sweets

in Japan's deeply-entrenched

gift-giving culture. As for Fujiya,

the company popularized Western

sweets in Japan. In the minds of

most Japanese, the products of

these companies were associated

with happy times, birthdays or days

when their fathers returned from a business trip bearing sweets, said Akira Shimizu,

an economics professor and expert on product brands at Meiji Gakuin University in

Tokyo. "In that sense, there is a strong feeling that these happy episodes are being

denied," Shimizu said of the scandals. "It's as if the sunny days were all rotten after all."

Whistle-blowers inside the companies appeared to have tipped off the

authorities. Fujiya, which opened its first shop in 1910 in Yokohama, was found to have


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used out-of-date milk to make cream puffs. Ishiya, the maker of Shiroi Koibito, the most

popular cookies from Hokkaido, admitted falsifying expiration dates. The two

companies have resumed operations and are struggling to win back credibility.

Staging a comeback may

be more difficult for Akafuku,

whose transgressions are far more

serious. The sweets had remained

largely unchanged over three

centuries, and the confectioner

always said it made its bean-jam

sweets the same day and disposed

of all unsold goods. But according

to a government investigation, for

at last three decades Akafuku had systematically reused up to 90 percent of its unsold

products. What is more, the company had falsified expiration date labels and had frozen

and thawed the sweets. As one former customer said "The purer something is," he said,

"the dirtier it will become."

Adapted from The New York Times Tuesday, October 30, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/world/asia/31iht-31japan.8123604.html

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