Monday, April 21, 2008

Like I was saying

Justin Currie Norrie files a report on how the food crisis is impacting Japan.

He managed to find a Mrs. Watanabe for the intro.

Classic.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Justin Norrie.

I was able to find butter in the Sunkus around the corner, I guess was amazingly lucky.

MTC said...

garrett-

Oh, hells bells. I guess I could plead that I just seguewayed from one traditional Japanese foodstuff to another.

Brendan said...

Sorry Shisaku
I get the sense that you're just so exasperated by the quality of this reporting, you don't even want to get into explaining all the things that are wrong with it.

But... I don't see it. Quotes, statistics, analysis ...
Sorry? Would you mind ranting a little?
Have you torn apart an article somewhere else? Maybe I could read that to get a sense of what you're saying.

MTC said...

brendan -

1) It's MTC.

2) I have no serious qualms about the article, aside from the outrageous title...which was not Justin Norrie's choice, I am sure.

3) I would only take issue with the assertion of Professor Shogenji Shin'ichi. The decline of Japan's self-sufficiency ratio is a function of changing tastes, yes, but it is also a function of the decline in the number of hectares of arable land per person due to population growth and industrialization. Japan and South Korea have the fewest hectares of arable land per capita of any of the members of the OECD. Holland, which is as densely populated as the ROK and Japan, is also almost completely flat--meaning that almost all of it is arable.

Even if there were a huge shift back to seafood, local vegetables and rice, Japan and the ROK would still be in a special bind.

Excess Information said...

"He managed to find a Mrs. Watanabe for the intro"
made me laugh out loud (as the kids used to say).

Am back in Tokyo (not quite up to speed). Are you planning on attending any of this week's events?
-Gill

MTC said...

Gill -

I will be attending a few of them.

I'll explain in an email.