alt Hacker NewsJapan's population peaked decades ago. Surely it can't be a mere lack of land that drives the cost of rice. That would have been worse in the 1990s. Plus, rice is a super high-yield crop and Japan has rich volcanic soils. Many countries have higher populations densities and export food (the Netherlands, Bangladesh). More likely it's the cost of farm labor driving up prices.
Perhaps one strategy would be to find some economic use for the byproduct biomass from rice farming. Bioplastic is going to be the highest value-add; biofuel, except possibly aviation fuel, has a low price ceiling. This could effectively subsidize rice production without drawing from the public till.
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> Surely it can't be a mere lack of land that drives the cost of rice.
It's not, it's a consequence of some land reform policies that made sense after WW2 to take power away from the rich, but has meant that economies of scale for rice farming has suffered later on.
The median rice farm owner in Japan only is in charge of single digit acres, whereas in EU/US it's like tens or hundreds of acres. So it's harder to justify mechanisation since the economies of scale don't work out and the children of farmers don't want to continue working the farm after their parents are no longer able to because the ceiling of what the farm can produce is low and economic and social prospects are better elsewhere.
That's without even getting in to the JA and the fact that a lot of these farmers are part time.
It's a really complicated issue without a simple fix or cause like labour costs. Realistically these farms are going to have to get consolidated, which is something that is happening, but slowly.
Japan's population peaked decades ago.
less farmers, hardly any automation, people moved to cities
An interesting thing about fertility rates is that they determine not only population, but the exact young:old ratios, approximate average age, and more! Imagine you have a fertility rate of 1. That means each successive generation will be half as large as the one before it. As humans have a peak fertility window of ~20 years, this ends up being the time of a generation, making it really easy to model.
Imagine you have exactly 1 newborn in the latest generation. Then the prior generation must be composed of 2 ~20 year olds, 4 ~40 year olds, 8 ~60 year olds and 16 ~80 year olds. So you end up with a total ratio of 24:7 old (defined as 60+):young and a 24:6 or 4:1 retirement:working age (after we remove the 1 newborn). By contrast a fertility rate of 2 means each generation is the same size as the one prior so you end up with a 1:1 retirement:working ratio. And with positive population growth you have an exponential system with more workers than retirees
This is one of the main mechanisms through which fertility collapse drives economic collapse. Not only does your population shrink far more quickly than most realize, but you end up with the overwhelming majority of your remaining population being elderly. So yes - you have fewer people consuming resources, but you also have exponentially fewer people working those resources.