Japan's food crisis goes beyond recent panic buying

[AsahinaKimi]

By MARK SCHREIBER

The neon lights of Ginza flickered out, leaving Tokyo's favorite playground in ominous darkness. Drivers fumed while waiting in long lines to purchase gasoline. Goods disappeared from supermarket shelves, sending housewives on forays into neighboring prefectures in search of everyday items such as toilet paper.

This describes Japan in the winter of 1973-74, after Middle East oil exporters, headed by the late Shah of Iran, jointly reduced output and raised prices in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, spurring the Energy Crisis.

Some of those who had experienced the "oil shokku" of the '70s may have been among the ones who rushed out to snatch up provisions in the immediate aftermath of the March 11 megaquake. Many people harbored legitimate fears that the frequent aftershocks, some in the magnitude 7 class, might set off a chain reaction that would trigger a major quake close to Tokyo.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20110417bj.html
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Muda ga nakereba, fusoku mo nai (Waste not, want not).

[Dappleganger]

1. This is an excellent article and addresses issues far beyond the Japanese food crisis.

Thanks for sharing.

[crickets]

2. Agreed.

Sankei Shimbun editor Hideo Tamura voiced concerns that along with gold and petroleum, food commodities are being increasingly securitized in the form of hedge funds and even bought up by pension fund investors. It was the resultant increases in the costs of food staples, Tamura points out, that sparked the recent unrest in the Middle East and north Africa.