There is at least one group of people who are happy about high food prices, the rice growers in Japan. Bread and pasta prices are soaring, but the price of rice has been falling. As a result, the Japanese, for one, are going back to the staple the country grew up on.

Japan’s farm ministry say per-capita rice consumption is up 0.6-percent from last year. What, did they go house to house to see who’s eating more? In response, Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is launching a ¥200 million ($2 mil) ad campaign to urge Japanese to eat more rice.

It reminds me of a problem we have here in America. Everybody eats too much, so ad campaigns urge them to, ’supersize it’?

In 1965, Japan had a 73-percent food self-sufficiency which dropped to 39-percent last year, in large part because Japanese were eating more wheat-based products and imports from countries like China. Poisoned dumplings from China and rising prices of bread and pasta have caused the Japanese to eat and make more at home.

Flavoring for rice (furikake and ochazuke) sales are up 30-percent as have sales of ingredients that are mixed with cooked rice. Sales of ingredients for home-cooked meals are also up.

Japan’s government has always wondered what to do with the oversupply of rice produced by its farmers. Instead of giving it away or selling it cheaply to other countries, the bureauwigs just hoped that their own would eat more. Well, they got that wish!

Meanwhile, far too much of the rest of the world is going hungry.

Image courtesy of fumiya

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The dude who helped co-draft China’s national energy strategy, Song Yanqin, participated at Asia Clean Energy Forum 2008 and said that “food security comes first in China, more important than fuel”. He went on to explain that China has no plan to sacrifice food for fuel. Biofuels can find another source, dang it. China is hungry. We want to eat first, then think about energy sources and all that.

The debate is indeed far from over as to the effects of using maize, palm oil, sugarcane and jatropha to produce biofuels or what the effect would be on food prices.

One U.S. designer of high-tech alcohol plants said that “food versus fuel is 99-percent noise. Do your homework and get a noise filter. Time magazine is not your key reference document”. Does that mean that main stream media is not the authority on this topic? What about us bloggers?

In any event, China plans to have dinner, then think about it.

What’s your stance on the biofuel vs food price increase issue?

Image by stelzert

Not all countries think more biofuels are the answer. At least not yet.

There’s Japan, the United States, Brazil…the major biofuel-producing countries.

The beef, um, corn is that biofuel output is causing food prices to soar. Biofuels are made from corn, sugar cane and other food stuffs.

At the just closed U.N. Food summit Japan argued for promotion of second generation biofuels, those made from nonfood sources like grass. (But, then the cows, horses and such are likely to want some input.)

The final U.N. declaration called for supplying seeds, fertilizers and such to low-income food-deficit countries. The overall goal “to eliminating hunger and to securing food for all, today and tomorrow.”

Here! Here!

In the end, however, lots of doublespeak and vague wording. The importance of ”in-depth studies” and ”international dialogue.” To be sure, while everyone is talking, nothing is being solved.

The next round of hot air blowing (another cause of climate change?) the G-8 meeting in Hokkaido next month.

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For those expecting rice and corn to be the only food prices to reach record levels, we have news. Chicken meat is going to be sold for more money this year because food companies noted sharply higher production costs. With oil and grains breaking record after record, there is nothing that can be done but to increase the prices, said Chief Executives from the two largest US companies.

Corn, which is a major feedstock, reached a record $6.5 a bushel this year because of high demand from food companies and the bio-ethanol industry. Chicken producers are concerned because they haven’t been able to increase their prices at the same rate their costs soared.

“We have attained some (higher) pricing but not at the same pace as our inputs have increased, especially in chicken. The lag of higher priced corn is just now coming through the products that we are taking to market,” Richard Bond, chief executive at Tyson Foods Inc, said on Thursday. The first solution producers will take, is to cut production 3 to 4 percent to generate the higher prices needed to cover costs.

Now I really wonder if anyone will listen to Jeffrey D. Sachs, who said that the African farmers are one of the solutions to the spiraling food prices, or if any will turn vegetarian if the chicken is going to be very expensive.