Oil prices and food habits

Asahi notes that high petroleum costs is one factor that is driving up the prices of imported food in Japan.

Imported food prices rise as diets change abroad:

Consumers in Europe and China are increasingly switching from meat to fish, a historical staple of Japanese. Prices of salmon, sardines and red bream, for example, have risen by 20 to 30 percent.

The higher price of oil is also driving up fuel costs for boats and other equipment required to bring fish to market.


Yasuhiro Nakashima, assistant professor at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, comments that a shortage of water resources worldwide is holding down production increases of cereal grains which the animals feed on: "High prices and the tightening balance of the demand and supply of food will continue."

Actually, domestically produced food will also become more expensive, as Japan's farmers use petrol for their equipment, and to transport food by trucks to your supermarket. Fertilizers and other agrochemicals are oil-based to a large extent, and while organic agriculture could be a solution, it would also require a huge change in consumption habits, and current organic production methods are hardly well-suited to feeding large amounts of people.

Energy Bulletin has daily updates on these and other issues as well as a lot of thought-provoking articles... Never heard of Peak Oil or Hubbert's Peak? Here is a primer. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas is another good resource.

As for the debate here in Japan, Andrew DeWit noted last October that there is perhaps increasing interest in the subject. His article for ZNet What Me Worry? was in response to Nikkei's review of two American books about Peak Oil, but frankly there is no real awareness - as far as I can sense public opinion. An article in the May 2005 edition of the Japanese Oil and Natural Gas Review even dismissed Peak Oil theory, according to DeWit. So for the time being, Japan is sitting on its hands, fiddling with ethanol, while at the same time embracing nuclear energy.

Comments

Pandabonium said…
Excellent links. The article about the Nikkei book reviews is interesting.

War in Iraq being supported by Japan troops and refueling ships, China and Russia and their local allies both holding maneuvers in Kazakhistan as the UK moves its troops to the Iran/Iraq border. An interesting time for Koizumi, to visit Kazakhstan in search of uranium.

Nothing to see here folks, move along. Don't worry, be happy.

I think those in power in Japan know full well what's going down, but are controlling the information as best they can - as per usual.
Martin J Frid said…
I don't know if people know.

I just know that stuff like McDonalds' McFlurry would become increasingly expensive, thus eating things like this will be a nostalgic memory:

"Vanilla Reduced Fat Ice Cream: Whole milk, sucrose, cream, nonfat milk solids, corn syrup solids, mono and diglycerides, guar gum, imitation vanilla flavor, carrageenan, cellulose gum, vitamin A palmitate. Contains milk ingredients. Mini M&M'S® Candies: Milk chocolate (sugar, chocolate, milk, cocoa butter, lactose, soy lecithin, salt, artificial flavors), sugar, less than 0.5%: coloring (includes yellow 5 lake, red 40 lake, blue 1 lake), cornstarch, corn syrup, dextrin. Contains milk and soybean ingredients. May contain peanuts."

Source:
http://app.mcdonalds.com/bagamcmeal?process=item&itemID=3830

Cheers!

(How did you get the html tag to work?)
Pandabonium said…
That's wild!


re the tag...
I had left out the "=" sign the first time I commented.

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