Analysis of Food Security in Japan Essay Example

The issue of food security has existed since ancient times, as long as people were concerned with the availability and continuity of food. Japan defines improvement in food security as increasing the self-sufficiency rate by increasing domestic production. Japan's food security is decreasing, and the rate currently stands at a low 15%-17%. Japan’s staple foods are rice and noodles. The majority of Japan is mountainous, and it has a humid climate with a population of 125.8 million. But with a rise in the country’s population, this is affecting Japan’s food security. Several natural factors influence the food security of Japan; however, all involve agricultural issues. Of the total area of land in Japan in 2014, 12.0 percent was arable, 3.1% was residential, and 66.3 percent was forest. Japan therefore has a limited amount of arable land, which has become an obstacle for agricultural expansion. Japan's current agricultural structure is dominated by cultivator ownership of micro sized farms engaged in small-scale farming, with a massive amount of rice farming. The current structure has been implemented as a result of land reforms launched immediately after the war. However, the land reforms did not change the size of the farms and small farms continued to exist, but instead only brought about changes to the ownership of the land. Despite having helped support independent farmers, the land reforms made little impact on agriculture, and the size of the land did not change, so improvement in food security was not seen from land ownership. Thus, Japan's food security was significantly compromised by the land restrictions. Japan’s food security is heavily influenced by many human factors, such as an increase in food demand, raised prices and food waste. In traditional Japanese cuisine, rice, fish, soybeans and seasonal vegetables were served while western meals usually consisted of wheat, meat, dairy, eggs, and increasing amounts of fats and oils. Due to this shift towards Western cuisine, the demand for traditional food declined, particularly rice, which Japan used to be self-sufficient in. As a result, there was an increase in demand for western style food, and to meet the demand, Japan imported more western food. Crop failures, rising oil prices, and Japan's depreciating currency have forced many companies in the country to raise their prices. Due to the price increase, Japan’s consumptions went down by 0.2% in 2021. Despite the increasing costs, Japan has an extremely high rate of food waste, wasting over 54 million kilograms of food annually. The cost of handling this food waste is $19 billion, placing Japan first among Asian countries in wasteful consumption of food.  As discussed in previous paragraphs, there are several human and natural factors that affect Japan’s food security. For countries like Japan, food and nutrition security is a national concern firmly rooted in agricultural issues. Japan's arable land still poses as one of the biggest challenges to food security today, since it prevents crop expansion, leaving Japan with no area to continue growing and farming crops. This led to the decreasing farming population, and farms with sizes below average. On the topic of farming, the Japanese agricultural industry is overworked, as they produce the same amount of food every day, which is mostly discarded to landfill. With these issues, food insecurity is considered a large problem for the country Japan. There are several possible strategies and solutions to assist Japan's food insecurity, including using unused parts of the forest as farming land and upcycling products. As Japan has 66.3% of its land covered by forest, some of it can be cleared for fields for farmers to farm their crops. With more space to farm, there will be less of a need to overwork farmers and they will be able to have a fair pay. As for upcycling, upcycling means to find uses for unused food instead of putting it into waste. By doing this, Japan will be able to reduce the landfill by a large amount and the food waste will be used, rather than ending up in landfill and wasting billions of dollars. Overall, these are a few viable solutions to help with Japan’s food insecurity.