Fresh fruit and vegetable prices in Japan can be exorbitant. In the case of fruit, it's commonplace to hear people say that this is because so much care goes into the cultivation of each individual fruit. But what of day to day produce like potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes?
You could come up with all kinds of excuses, but in the UK, another small, island nation with not many farmers and an overwhelmingly urban population, prices are less than half those in Japan.
In 2016, the value of Japan’s domestically produced vegetables was estimated at U.S.$22.9 billion. Compare that to the value of domestically produced vegetables in the UK - U.S.$1.89 in 2017 – and you can see that, even allowing for the fact that Japan’s population is about twice that of the UK, Japanese farmers are on to a winner.
Why the discrepancy in prices? To some extent, the blame lies with fussy shoppers. When Japanese farmers are preparing their crops for sale, they know that only the most beautiful items will pass muster with the supermarkets. A misshapen spud or slightly discolored tomato will either be eaten by the farmer’s family or thrown away. Aside from being wasteful, this makes vegetables more valuable than they should be, and thereby more expensive.
Another factor to bear in mind is that Japan doesn’t have much farmland. Only 12% of the land is used for growing crops, and most of that is used for rice production. The most important factor, however, is that Japanese farms are much smaller than those in other OECD countries.
According to government statistics, the average size of a Japanese farm is just 1.9 hectares (4.7 acres), compared with 198 hectares (490 acres) in the United States. Small farms are less efficient than big farms, and small farmers have less ready cash to invest in the machinery needed to bring costs down.
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July 22, 2020 at 07:06PM
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Why are fruit and vegetables so expensive in Japan? - hortidaily.com
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