Yen for Living

Komeri outlet in Sakae Town, Chiba Prefecture

The Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives, more commonly known by the acronym JA (for Japan Agriculture), or the Japanese abbreviation Nokyo, has, in one form or another, controlled the finances and structure of the country’s farm sector since the early 1950s. That means not only does JA help keep prices high so that farmers can make a living, but provides farm families with everything they need to make that living, from loans to sales of equipment, supplies and fertilizer. It even sells insurance and does banking, under an exception granted by the central government. As with any semi-public organization that has a given field to itself, JA’s operations have become sclerotic over the years. In 2008, the agricultural ministry conducted a survey of farmers. When asked where they bought their fertilizer, 70 percent answered “JA,” but 80 percent of these farmers also answered that they were “dissatisfied” with the cooperative’s prices.

JA is famous for using a lot of middlemen in their sales channels, which invariably drives up the prices of everything they sell. In addition, various handling fees and distribution costs make the prices even higher. In a recent Asahi Shimbun article a professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture said that with the recession and the possibility of more imports coming into the Japanese market, farmers have become extra sensitive about costs and as a result are beginning to wonder if JA is really looking after their interests properly. Some have already started leaving the cooperative.

But where to go? According to the agricultural ministry survey, only 2.5 percent of farmers were buying their fertilizer from so-called home centers in 2008, but that portion has likely gone up considerably since then. Home centers, called home improvement centers in the U.S., are large retail outlets that sell everything for the home, but mainly supplies that homeowners need for things like repairs or renovations, as well as gardening and landscaping. The Japan DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Association reports that there were 4,310 home centers in Japan in 2011, double the number that existed in 1990. The home center chain with the most outlets is Komeri, who own more than a thousand. And while home center sales have mostly been stagnant since 2005 owing to the growth of other retail models, mainly drug stores, Komeri is also growing. The chain says it plans to double its present number of stores in 10 years’ time.

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Whale "bacon" in supermarket display case

Japan’s annual research whaling expedition is now being carried out in the Antarctic. As always, the controversy over whaling receives more coverage in the foreign press than it does in the Japanese media, which for all intents and purposes doesn’t normally pay attention unless arrests or violence is involved. However, Tokyo Shimbun last week reported on some of the commercial aspects of the issue.

According to the newspaper, in 2011 the amount of frozen whale in storage and designated for retail distribution exceeded 5,000 tons, which is almost three times the amount of frozen whale meat in storage 10 years ago. There are two sources of this meat: imports from other whale-catching countries, and the research whaling program carried out by Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research and the company Kyodo Senpaku. The purpose of the research is to “determine growth by means of checking weight and body length” of whales that are caught and killed. Afterward, the whale meat is sold to help pay for the research, which costs about ¥6 billion a year. The Japanese government provides a subsidy of ¥1 billion, which means the meat sales have to cover the remaining ¥5 billion.

The increase in frozen inventory means that the costs aren’t being covered, and that the research project is operating in the red, though Tokyo Shimbun doesn’t say by how much. Until 2006, the amount of yearly stock kept increasing because the annual catch quota was also increasing, but ever since the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society started interfering with the Antarctic hunt the amounts caught have not increased. However, overall stocks have. At the end of 2010, they amounted to 5,300 tons, and though Kyodo Senpaku only brought back 18 percent of its planned catch last year after it cut short the hunt, as of last October stocks of whale meat had increased to 5,400 tons.

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