Japanese consumers required to change wasteful eating habit
(From The Japan Times May 27 issue)

日本人消費者の飽食スタイル見直しを

The recently issued fiscal 2007 government white paper on agriculture conveys a strong sense of crisis over Japan's food supply, stating that "unprecedented changes are taking place." The government must take measures to increase domestic food production and stabilize food imports, and consumers should change their wasteful eating habits.

Japan's food self-sufficiency rate fell to 39 percent on a calorie basis in fiscal 2006. This year, international prices of cereals such as wheat and corn climbed to record levels, due to crop failure attributed to climate change, increasing use of cereals for biofuel production and population increases in developing countries.

In this situation, Japan's abandonment of 386,000 hectares of agricultural fields, equivalent to the area of Saitama Prefecture, mainly to avoid creating an oversupply of rice, cannot be justified. The government should pursue a policy of improving efficiency in rice production while increasing production of other crops such as wheat and soybeans.

At 900.2 billion ton-kilometers, "the food mileage" (amount of food transported times the transport distance) for Japan, the world's largest food importer, is about fives times that of Britain, and about three times that of the United States and South Korea, the white paper warns. Transporting food from abroad to Japan produces 1.9 times more carbon dioxide than transporting it inside Japan. From the viewpoint of fighting global warming, consuming food closer to where it's grown makes sense.

The white paper points out that the Japanese throw away 19 million tons of food as waste every year, equivalent to three times the world's food assistance. Serious attention should be paid to reviewing habits that lead to such waste.

Japan relies on five countries, including the United States, China and Australia, for more than 70 percent of its food imports. To help diversify its food suppliers, Japan should strive to push ahead with now-stalled trade negotiations conducted under the auspices of the World Trade Organization.

5月16日に発表された07年度の農業白書は、日本の食料事情が前例のない変化に直面していると告げた。政府は国内農業生産の増加と食料輸入の安定化のための措置を取るべきだ。

06年に食料自給率が39 % に落ち、小麦やトウモロコシなどの穀物が気候変動やバイオ燃料の需要拡大、新興国の人口増加により高騰している。そうした中、日本がコメの供給過剰を理由に埼玉県の面積とほぼ同じ約38万ヘクタールを耕作放棄地としているのはおかしい。コメ栽培効率化、小麦や大豆の生産増加の政策が必要だ。

食料輸入量世界一の日本のフード･マイレージ（食料の重量に輸送距離を乗じた数値）は約9000億トン･キロと、英国の5倍、米国や韓国の3倍だ。海外からの食料輸送による二酸化炭素排出量は国内の食料輸送の1.9倍に達している。地球温暖化の観点からも地産地消が望まれる。

白書は日本人が世界の食料援助量約３倍の年間1900万トンの食料を廃棄していると指摘した。飽食スタイルの見直しが必要だ。日本は米国、中国、豪州を含む5カ国から70％以上の食料を輸入しているが、輸入先の多角化のために世界貿易機関のもと、貿易交渉を推し進めるべきだ。