I have been researching Japan's high dependency on food imports. Japan imports 60% of his foodstuffs which has become an issue of concern among Japanese citizens and for the Japanese government. In this context, the low food self-sufficiency rate of 40% has been discussed as a problem, in particular in the context of the expansion of free trade negotiations Japan has been involved in. I have been asked several times by students whether a low food self-sufficiency rate is really a problem, or if it is portrayed as a problem in order to promote domestic foodstuffs more strongly? Can anybody recommend materials in which the significance of a high food self-sufficiency is not a given but is more critically discussed? Thanks!
In my point of view it IS a problem, even if not a really big one.
A low food self-sufficiency causes dependence on import, wich, by its turn, depends on good international relationships.
On the other hand, in our actual stage of world development relations and economy, it is unlikely for a country to have any serious problem for depending on import.
Regards,
Toni.
hi there. my answer is from an angle larger than the one you pose the question and specific for fish. i can see two types of problems:
1) an ecological one, when the exploitaiton of imports is less sustainable than that of national resources (and is a way to bypass more stringent regulations)
2) a social one, when imports reduce per capita fish consumption in the exporting country (japan has a per capita fish consumption rate about 4 times the global mean if I am not wrong and even more than low income food deficient countries)
both these problems are usually seen as externalities in global trade.
best
ys
Many thanks for both of your answers which are very helpful, in particular from an ecological and social perspective!
you are welcome. and then you have the carbon footprint of some imports (another externality). importing tuna fattened in southern australia with sardines flown from california or moroco does not seem to be a practice that can be sustainable in the long run.
In my opinion, dependency on food imports is a problem as it disturbs the foreign exchange balance of a country and sometimes causes inflation.
Yes, it is a problem. The world is currently in an economic crisis and food is part of world economy. Two problems arise from your question:
The national food security of Japan - the availability and accessibility of 60% of its food needs at all times - will depend on the political, economic and social stability in other countries elsewhere. The 2007 world food crisis was caused by the rise in food prices (this itself having been partly caused by food speculation in unregulated financial markets. Please see: http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/food-speculation) in industrial countries and as a result food riots were registered in more than 40 countries of the world. Some of the grain exporting countries actually moved quickly to curtail the exportation for the fear of exhausting their own grain reserves. Please see here: http://www.world-crisis.net/food-crisis.html .
Secondly, a relatively developed country that may thus be affected could cause social crisis elsewhere. The 'land grabbing' phenomenon in Africa is actually partly being driven by countries which cannot produce enough of their own food and are worried about relying on the turbulent world market. They have had to move into less developed countries with the aim of acquiring vast chunks of land to grow food for their own home use. This was the factor behind South Korea's trouble in Madagascar. Please see here: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6e894c6a-b65c-11dd-89dd-0000779fd18c.html#axzz3W41HDyBr . Then the backlash that is said to have caused a military coup in Madagascar. Later the new regime cancelled the deal: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/madagascar/5012961/Madagascars-new-leader-cancels-Korean-land-deal.html .
Thank you, Patricia and Richard, for your answers and for alerting my attention to very valuable sources!
Concerning Food Safety it depends on an established structure of risk assessment, import control and screening. Then a high import quota does not pose a problem. Generally if local food quality is poor it even may improve food safety - which is obviously not the fact for Japan.
About food security you have got already a lot of answers.
We have to remember that Japan has the longest average life expectancy at birth. This can be caused by two factors: good health care system and good food. Japan was using a rather modest amount of national income on health care compared to many other rich countries (cp. p. 170 in the attached book). Thus we can state that the dependency on food imports has not been a problem. In addition, we have to notice that Japan has succeeded best of all countries to transform national income to a decent living for citizens (cp. p. 249).
Book Missing a Decent Living for Everyone: Success and Failure in...
Hi Stephanie, this report provides an assessment of biophysical patterns of food import dependency and might be of help. Cheers, Andreas
http://www.ejolt.org/2015/03/patterns-global-biomass-trade/
Thank you, Andreas, for alerting my attention to this document! This is very useful. Sincerely, Stephanie
Dear Stephanie, just to add to the already excellent discussion above: Problematisation of high import-dependency might also be framed in terms of democracy and the value of knowledge preservation. I participated in a project on Corsica, where local groups want to retain the viability of traditional pork production methods. Current agricultural and food-importing policies leave the island open to cheap imports from Australia, rendering it increasingly difficult for local producers to retain demand as tourists often do not taste the difference between locally produced meat and imported meats. Local action groups argue that they do not have sufficient say in the policies that affect them so seriously. One aspect of this is that national agricultural policy is decided upon in France, which has a very different agricultural reality. So, in addition to exposure to international market volatility, import-dependence may be seen as problematic because the voices of marginal groups are excluded in the policy-making processes that support it and import-dependence may result in the progressive loss of knowledge of specific local production processes.
Dear Justa, Thank you so much for adding the political dimension of democracy. You are right, it has been a great discussion, and I have received many hints and inspirations. Sincerely, Stephanie
Dear Stephanie, thanks for the great question! As man have pointed out already, food import can be a sort of externalising environmental costs, and importing makes the food supply vulnerable to supply chain disruptions. Recently, we had two examples of the latter in Japan with the insufficient butter supply and empty supermarket shelves (something the West has used in the past to make fun of planned economy), and the ... tragic shortage of fries at McDonalds. In my opinion these examples show that minor disruptions are possible, but certainly not a major concern. As with many aspects of the globalised economy, as long as everything goes well enough, the problems (at least for the importer) are likely limited. In larger crises, the system may not hold up that well though - the Queensland floods of 2011 cut off supplies of milk and other basic goods to Brisbane, a city the size of Sapporo, even though goods were only locally "imported" from other regions. In that regard, I believe we should think about food self-sufficiency for disaster scenarios not only on the national level, but the regional and local level as well. For students, I would maybe raise the question of Sapporo vs. Tokyo self-sufficiency to demonstrate the point.
Dear Christoph,
Thank you very much for your answer to my question. I look forward to reading your comparison on Brisbane and Sapporo, which will be very useful for approaching the topic of food self-sufficiency in my class.
Hello Stephanie, i'm just writing a text where one chapter is exactly about why the reliance on food exports is a problem. I used for it a lot of studies so i just give you the list - and the one on collapsing food markets ... Greetings
321: “Carrying Capacity, Globalization and the Unsustainable Entanglement of Nations”; Professor William E. Rees; Proceedings of 2012 Blue Planet Prize Commemorative Lectures, 2012
322: “Anthropogenic pressure on the open ocean: The growth of ship traffic revealed by altimeter data analysis”; J. Tournadre; Geophysical Research Letters Volume 41, Issue 22, 2014; DOI: 10.1002/2014GL061786
323: “Global trade imbalances: A network approach”; Dueñas, Marco; Fagiolo, Giorgio, LEM Working Paper Series, No. 2013/12, 2013
324: "Structure and evolution of the world trade network"; Diego Garlaschelli, Maria I. Loffredo; Physica A 355, 2005; DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2005.02.075
325: "On the Topological Properties of the World Trade Web: A Weighted Network Analysis"; Giorgio Fagiolo, Javier Reyes, Stefano Schiavo; Physica A, Volume 387, Issue 15, 2008; DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2008.01.050
326: „The world trade network“; Luca De Benedictis, Lucia Tajoli, 2010
327: "Patterns of dominant flows in the world trade web"; M. Ángeles Serrano, Marián Boguñá, Alessandro Vespignani; Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Volume 2, Issue 2, 2007; DOI: 10.1007/s11403-007-0026-y
328: "TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT REPORT, 2014"; United Nations Puplication, 2014
329: "Why has world trade grown faster than world output?"; Mark Dean, Maria Sebastia-Barriel ; Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin: Autumn 2004
330: "Water for food: The global virtual water trade network"; M. Konar, C. Dalin, S. Suweis, N. Hanasaki, A. Rinaldo, I. Rodriguez ‐ Iturbe; Water Resources Research, VOL. 47, 2011; DOI:10.1029/2010WR010307
331: "The water footprint of humanity"; Arjen Y. Hoekstra, Mesfin M. Mekonnen; PNAS, vol. 109, no. 9, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1109936109
332: "On the temporal variability of the virtual water network"; Joel A. Carr, Paolo D ’ Odorico, Francesco Laio, Luca Ridolfi; GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L06404, 2012 DOI: 10.1029/2012GL051247
333: "Evolution of the global virtual water trade network"; Carole Dalin, Megan Konar, Naota Hanasaki, Andrea Rinaldo, Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe; PNAS, vol. 109 no. 16; 2011; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1203176109
334: "Recent History and Geography of Virtual Water Trade"; Joel A. Carr, Paolo D’Odorico, Francesco Laio, Luca Ridolfi; PLoS ONE 8(2): e55825., 2013; DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0055825
335: World Resources Institute; Aqueduct project; global map for “Agricultural exposure to water stress”, category: “all cropland”; Source: http://www.wri.org/applications/maps/agriculturemap/#x=0.00&y=-0.00&l=2&v=home&d=cropland&init=y
336: "3 Maps Explain India’s Growing Water Risks"; Tien Shiao, Andrew Maddocks, Chris Carson, Emma Loizeaux; World Resources Institute, 2015
337: “Global impacts of energy demand on the freshwater resources of nations”; R. A. Holland, K. A. Scott, M. Flo rke, G. Brown, R. M. Ewers, E. Farmer, V. Kapos, A. Muggeridge, J. P. W. Scharlemann, G. Taylor, J. Barrett, F. Eigenbrod; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1507701112
338: "Structure and controls of the global virtual water trade network"; S. Suweis, M. Konar, C. Dalin, N. Hanasaki, A. Rinaldo, I. Rodriguez ‐ Iturbe; Geophysical Research Letters, VOL. 38, L10403, 2011; DOI: 10.1029/2011GL046837
339: „Spatial organization and drivers of the virtual water trade: a community-structure analysis“; Paolo D'Odorico, Joel Carr, Francesco Laio and Luca Ridolfi; Environmental. Research. Letters. 7 034007, 2012; doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/3/034007
340: "Virtual Scarce Water in China"; Kuishuang Feng, Klaus Hubacek, Stephan Pfister, Yang Yu, Laixiang Sun; Environmental Science & Technology, 48 (14), 2014; DOI: 10.1021/es500502q
341: “The Role of Scarcity in Global Virtual Water Flows”; Lenzen, Manfred and Bhaduri, Anik and Moran, Daniel Dean and Kanemoto, Keiichiro and Bekchanov, Maksud and Geschke, Arne and Foran, Barney, ZEF - Discussion Papers on Development Policy No. 169, 2012
342: "Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat"; David. S. Battisti, Rosamond L. Naylor; Science, Vol. 323, no. 5911, 2009; DOI: 10.1126/science.1164363
343: "Water for food: The global virtual water trade network"; M. Konar, C. Dalin, S. Suweis, N. Hanasaki, A. Rinaldo, I. Rodriguez‐Iturbe; WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, VOL. 47, W05520, 2011; DOI:10.1029/2010WR010307
344: "Rapid growth in agricultural trade: effects on global area efficiency and the role of management"; Thomas Kastner, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl; Environmental Research Letters 9, 2014; DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/9/3/034015
345: "Globalization of land use: distant drivers of land change and geographic displacement of land use"; Patrick Meyfroidt, Eric F Lambin, Karl-Heinz Erb, Thomas W Hertel; Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability Volume 5, Issue 5, 2013; DOI:10.1016/j.cosust.2013.04.003
346: "Feeding humanity through global food trade"; Paolo D'Odorico, Joel A. Carr, Francesko Laio, Luca Ridolfi, Stefano Vandoni; Earth's Future Volume 2, Issue 9, 2014; DOI: 10.1002/2014EF000250
347: "Rethinking Agricultural Trade Relationships in an Era of Globalization"; Graham K. MacDonald, Kate A. Brauman, Shipeng Sun, Kimberly M. Carlson, Emily S. Cassidy, James S. Gerber, Paul C. West; Oxford Journals, BioScience Volume 65, Issue 3, 2015; DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biu225
348: “From Food Insufficiency towards Trade Dependency: A Historical Analysis of Global Food Availability”; Miina Porkka mail, Matti Kummu, Stefan Siebert, Olli Varis; PLOS ONE, 2013; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082714
349: "Eating on an interconnected planet"; Graham K MacDonald; Environment Research Letters 8, 2013; DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/021002
350: "Assessing the evolving fragility of the global food system"; Michael J Puma, Satyajit Bose, So Young Chon, Benjamin I Cook; Environmental Research Letters, Volume 10, Number 2; 2015; DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/2/024007
351: "Spatial decoupling of agricultural production and consumption: quantifying dependences of countries on food imports due to domestic land and water constraints"; Marianela Fader, Dieter Gerten, Michael Krause, Wolfgang Lucht, Wolfgang Cramer; Environmental Research Letters, Volume 8, Number 1, 2013; doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/014046
And some on how markets react to shortages and yield reduction through extreme events ...
"Architecture of the global land acquisition system: applying the tools of network science to identify key vulnerabilities"; J W Seaquist, Emma Li Johansson, Kimberly A Nicholas; Environmental Research Letters 9, 2014; DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/9/11/114006
“Feeding capitals: Urban food security and self-provisioning in Canberra, Copenhagen and Tokyo”;Porter, J.R., Dyball, R., Dumaresq, D., Deutsch, L., Matsuda H.; Global Food Security, 2013, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2013.09.001
"Resilience and reactivity of global food security"; Samir Suweis, Joel A. Carr, Amos Maritan, Andrea Rinaldo, Paolo D’Odorico; PNAS vol. 112 no. 22, 2015; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1507366112
"Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat"; David. S. Battisti, Rosamond L. Naylor; Science Vol. 323 no. 5911, 2009; DOI: 10.1126/science.1164363
"Water-controlled wealth of nations"; Samir Suweis, Andrea Rinaldo, Amos Maritan, Paolo D ’ Odorico; PNAS, vol. 110, no. 11; 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1222452110
“Extreme weather and resilience of the global food system”; Final Project Report from the UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience, The Global Food Security programme, UK., 2015
“Long term dynamic modeling of global population and built-up area in a spatially explicit way HYDE 3.1.”; Klein Goldewijk, K., Beusen, A. & Janssen, P.; The Holocene, vol. 20 no. 4, 2009; doi: 10.1177/0959683609356587
"Rethinking the Global Food Crisis - The Role of Trade shocks"; Derek D. Headey; International Food Policy Research Institute, Discussion Paper 00958, 2010
“Food Export Restrictions: Review of the 2007 - 2010 Experience and Considerations for Disciplining Restrictive Measures”; Ramesh Sharma; FAO COMMODITY AND TRADE POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPER No. 32, 2011
It's a lot but now you have quite an overview on the problem ;)
Dear Jan, Thank you so much for generously sharing your bibliography with me and apologies for my very late reply! Sincerely, Stephanie
Dear Stephanie,
Sorry it is a while ago since you posted the question and I am certain that by now you are doing other things. However if it is still relevant then have a look at Pacific Island countries such as Kiribati or Tuvalu, which virtually import everything including most of their food. Here it becomes very clear that the problem then starts, if the country has little to earn foreign exchange with which it can pay for the imports. When one looks at the shops in Tarawa, the capital atoll of Kiribati, then there is mainly very cheap food available in form of canned stuff, instant noodles etc, which then leads to enormous health challenges of the people.... Hardly any vegetables or fruits, hardly any what we would call quality food. Of course the issue goes much deeper than the trade balance, it is mainly the result of poverty; people surely would love to eat more healthy food, if they could afford it. This micro-economic aspect is surely very different from the situation you experienced in Japan.....
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