Governing Insecurity in Japan by Drifte Reinhard Vosse Wilhelm Blechinger-Talcott Verena

Author:Drifte, Reinhard, Vosse, Wilhelm, Blechinger-Talcott, Verena
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781135091507
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

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Securitizing food in Japan

Global crises, domestic problems and a neoliberal state

Hiroko Takeda

Introduction: food as a critical political issue in contemporary Japan

A magnitude-9 earthquake followed by a massive tsunami on March 11, 2011 brought about a series of difficult challenges for the Japanese government – perhaps more challenges than it could handle. These historically unprecedented natural disasters triggered the malfunctioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and eventually developed into a large-scale nuclear accident, contrary to the long-standing official view promoted by the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Company that nuclear power plants were disaster-resistant and sufficiently safe. The nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which was eventually categorized as a Level 7 accident on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, the same level as Chernobyl, released a vast amount of radioactive materials into the atmosphere. In the process of “managing” the accident, the power plant deliberately discharged radioactively contaminated water directly into the sea (Fukushima Genpatsujiko Dokuritsu Kenshō Iinkai 2012: 44–49; Tokyo Denryoku Fukushima Genshiryoku Hatsudensho Jiko Chōsa Iinkai 2012: 267–268). The radioactive contamination of natural resources – the soil, atmosphere, drinking water, and the sea – in one of the major areas of agriculture and fishery production in Japan intensified anxieties over the radioactive pollution of food among Japanese people. The management of food-related risks has been a pressing and ongoing task for both the Japanese government and Japanese people since 3/11.

The issue of food security, therefore, emerges as a top political priority in Japan today. However, a look back at the political process in the 2000s reveals that this is by no means a new situation. Rather, the Japanese government has faced continuous challenges over food security throughout the decade. It was on September 10, 2001, the day before the 9/11 attacks, that the identification of the first BSE case was reported to the Japanese public. Since then, a series of food scares, bird flu, food poisonings, contamination of imported foodstuffs and dishonest labeling are just a few of the examples that have been exposed and circulated through the mass media. These food scares during the 2000s significantly eroded Japanese people’s sense of security over food, an indispensable resource for all human beings to survive, while revealing a series of problems and deficiencies existing in the national system of managing food scare cases. As a result, policymaking elites were frequently forced to confront these issues and to reorganize the institutional arrangements responsible for handling food risks throughout the decade.

Today, the issues of food security facing the Japanese government are not limited to food scares. The soaring prices of food and energy in the global market remind us of the other side of food security issues, namely, the various risks relating to food production and supply. The contemporary transnational food chain cannot be sustained without the international food trade system, a heavy consumer of fuel and energy. The ongoing rise in energy prices affects local food prices and erodes consumer confidence over the food supply in industrially advanced countries.

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