The Japanese Farm ministry will raise the wheat price by 18% in April of this year

The Japanese government will raise the price for five major brands of imported wheat to be resold to flour milling companies by an average of 18 percent, starting in April due to rising wheat prices on the international market, so it announced last Wednesday. The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said the planned action will bring the average price to 56,710 Yen ($620.00)per ton, which could translate into higher retail prices for bread and other wheat products. The average prices for basic food items in Japan are already one of the highest as is, making this latest price increase challenging for consumers through out the country.

In the U.S. for instance a loaf of bread cost around 130 Yen($1.60), where as in Japan that same loaf of bread does cost 360 Yen($4.10). The price difference between Japan and other Industrialized countries can vary to an even greater amount depending on the product. Apples for instance will cost per unit an average of 130 Yen ($1.40) Where as the same apple will cost only 32 Yen ($0.45) in the U.S.. Japan is overall one of the most expensive countries, even Japanese made products are far cheaper to purchase in North America or Europe then they are here in Japan. Still the difference in the price of food items can be dramatic at times.

Japan's food self-sufficiency ratio is the lowest of all advanced nations.
Australia is 237%, Canada 145%, USA 128%, France 122%, Germany 84%, England 70%, Italy 62%, Switzerland 49%, South Korea 47%, Japan 39%.
With one exception, being rice, for which Japan’s self-sufficiency is 100% and yet, even this segment of the Japanese agricultural sector is on  the brink of collapse, in large part due to an ageing rural population with an average of 65 years of age for farmers and with no one to take over those farms. Japan depends on imports for the majority of its food intake. This certainly not because of its climate nor its rich top soils, since Japan's climate and soils are most favorable for agricultural production that could easily make Japan a food exporting country and feed all it own people at the same time.

The trouble is that the Japanese policy makers have not only neglected the agricultural sector but more over they have sabotaged it in order to force the rural population to work in factories such as Toyota, this mainly to avoid having to allow massive immigration in of a foreign labor force to maintain and expand the export boom of the 1960^th and 70^th that Japan witnessed. Even today the driving force for reforms and changes such as allowing free trade as well as immigration into the country after opposing such so fiercely for decades is changing in part due to an aging population and an almost extinct rural population caused earlier by an exodus in favor of Japans heavy industry.

Rather then reviving its agriculture and insuring that Japan will be able to feed its own people and maybe even be able to export food through out the world, the government is neglecting the agricultural sector even further, promoting instead the revival of its industry and building factories in India and the US to insure its marked shares there. All the wile creating not only more unemployment at home and increasing the national deficit but also putting into jeopardy an aging population that needs to be taken care of.

The most important sector in this day an age of global unrest, food insecurity and climate changes is certainly not the profit margin of Toyota nor that of some stock holders, but rather insuring and securing the very basics of life, being food, shelter and peoples health.

It is crucial to revive and invest heavily into the agricultural sector again now, since it takes a very long time to get this sector going again as well as  train a new generation of Farmers to produce food efficiently and this with new environmentally sound methods. Certainly Japan is not the  only country to find it self in an agricultural crisis. Germany, Italy and many other countries find them self in a similar dilemma. However, Japan is by far in the worth of positions when it comes to its Agricultural sector. 
We can not afford to take any further risks here, since far to much is at stake as is.