Japan News: No Butter, Expensive Fuel.

News from Japan (not design related).

An apparent shortage of raw milk, combined with changes in dairy product consumption and the price of grain have all conspired to see supermarket shelves devoid of butter over the last couple of weeks. One Japanese blogger who runs a small dairy farm has posted some very lucid thoughts on the issue (some of which are very helpfully translated here) including the 'many different kinds of soft drinks [available], milk consumption at school decreasing because of the low birthrate, allergies, and some people who are not even allergic but frantically [trying to] make milk sound like a bad thing.' The writer goes on to point out that the rising standards of living in countries such as Russia, China and India and the removal of subsidies for dairy export in the EU mean that there is less butter being imported to Japan. The author concludes, quite correctly, that this is part of the 'food self-sufficiency' problem that Japan is facing. Perhaps if they stopped building ugly apartment blocks everywhere, there would be more room to grow crops. What are the big businesses doing in response? Well, Asahi has just announced that it will build a milk plant in China to 'to raise its profile in the Chinese market'. No mention of diverting some of the one ton of milk it aims to sell daily to Japan.

On a different, but slightly connected, note, the day after the government announced that the 'provisional gasoline tax rate' would expire, the price of fuel shot up across the nation, rising from around ¥120/litre to around ¥155/litre almost at the stroke of midnight. Although one news report stated that 'gas stations will try to keep prices low as they wait for rivals to raise their prices', it seems that 99% of them just decided to put it up anyway.

It will be interesting to see what happens on these two issues, particularly in light of the recent hike in food prices.