Nine out of ten Japanese prefer pasta
Written by: adekun on 11 May, 2008 7:21 pm - Filed under: blog ?
Price rise announcements are now a common precursor to each month. Earlier in the year there were reports of Japan’s WPI being at a 27 year high and CPI being hitting decade highs. In a country where the economy is as stagnant as the wages, cost-driven inflation is really spanner in the works. Being so hideously short on natural resources you would think it prudent that the country not to be reliant on something that can be grown at home.* Japan’s food self sufficiency has fallen to a meagre 39%. Despite this there is still a surplus of the tightly controlled rice. Rather than relay my own thoughts and experiences this article sums it up much better and offers an insight as to what the government is cooking up (skip cynical typo). I think it’s worth adding however, when asking students what their favourite food is, they almost always respond with pasta or spaghetti.
What I am yet to understand is flour cost increases are met regular tax increases levied upon the millers. I can only surmise as I don’t have an understanding of how things work here. Nor do any Japanese I speak to. In fact there is so little interest in the subject it is little wonder things go awry or politicians get repeatedly caught with their hands in the till. On a more positive note there are plans to increase the self sufficiency rate; with a coffer that no doubt needs to be filled.
This month was greeted with a McPrice Hike. An example given was because of cheese and flour cost increases the ¥100 hamburger will now cost between ¥20 and ¥30 extra depending on the region. The last part made me laugh. Undoubtedly the forbearing Japanese will swallow the latest price rise.
* herein lies a little of the problem
TopVeg
14 May, 2008 #
It is hard to see what the politicians are thinking of - when food is such a basic necessity. With Japan’s food self sufficiency falling to 39% & the UK government telling its farmers that they are only needed to keep the country pretty as we can import all we need, one cannot wonder.
KATE
17 May, 2008 #
I have never even heard a single Australian politician mention our self-sufficiency rating. I doubt anyone has ever calculated one. But we have mountains of resources (mostly underground in the form of metals, oil, gas, etc etc) and agriculture so it would probably seem good, on paper. But the problems are deeper than the mines! Do you like the pun?? Food security is my main concern and a lack of water is at the root of it - or rather the fact that water is being used for the wrong things, such as uranium mining (the biggest user in the world) followed by cotton (grown on cheap, dry land by pumping extreme amounts of water into dams the size of Sydney harbour, stopping the flow of whole rivers.)So food is being shipped in from China. Completely crazy.
I was in Japan in 1979 for 6 months and I never even saw pasta or non-Japanese food! Still, then there were Y250 to AUS$1. Things change!
Maybe one day you will have a food-growers/bloggers get-together in Japan!
adekun
2 June, 2008 #
A nice pun. No idea about the uranium mining, surprised at that and your mention TopVeg (was it really said?). Food and water are already a commodities, what next?