4 ms·

Are US potatoes really lower quality than Japanese ones?

by JohnJamesRambo 10y ago

emodendroket 10y ago
Without protectionist regulation Japanese farming isn't competitive.
- dm3730 10y ago
  > Without protectionist regulation Japanese farming isn't competitive. Without protectionist regulation and subsidies European and American farming isn't competitive either. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6256274 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6256274
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    Fair enough. I just meant to say that the point of the regulation isn't necessarily just the quality of the produce.
    - nihonde 10y ago
      It may have little to do with policy-making and is surely anecdotal, but Japanese produce is far better and cheaper than what I used to get in America. (And the same is true of meat and baked goods.) The difference is plainly obvious. The idea that anything other than junk food would be worthy of importing from elsewhere is almost laughable to me. On the other hand, I don't buy corn or potatoes too often here.
      - emodendroket 10y ago
        As for better: some of it is and some of it isn't. Lettuce is definitely not better. As for price... not so much. Fruits are much more expensive in Japan.
yladiz 10y ago
I doubt it, especially since you can generally get a much wider range of varieties of potatoes in the US than in Japan, not just organic/non-organic, but different colored potatoes as well. My guess is that the rhetoric coming from the companies that US potato quality is lower is more due to the government being protectionist about national agriculture. It's also probably due to the mentality that producers want specific kinds of potatoes for specific purposes and maybe only trust Japanese farmers to make the specific kind of potatoes the way they want them.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  I remember seeing a "food security" campaign where demonstraters wanted the country to achieve 100% food sufficiency as a national security prerogative. Wasn't sure if it was a strange form of nationalism, or a veiled lobbying effort by an interest group (the abundance of very small scale farmers across the countryside)
  - alva 10y ago
    Intuitively it sounds quite sensible. The more a nation can sustain itself on its internal market, the longer they can hold out through negative external circumstances. Much like energy. When everything is going rosy, relying on high % imports can be economically beneficial. In the case of extreme events like local or global wars, it leaves the country extremely fragile. Even outside wars, if there are drastic price increases in the global market then you are highly exposed. Look at OPEC, the power they wield and how they direct their efforts in essentially geo-political 'battles'. I don't know much about it, but I suspect that energy and agricultural self-sufficiency are very important and underestimated factors in (developed) nation state security.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      I don't think they're underestimated. Most rich countries have large subsidies to national farmers. In the US federal budget, Food & Agriculture is the largest slice right after the big ones (social security, healthcare, military, veterans).
mc32 10y ago
Likely it's just something similar to the argument that Japanese snow is unique so they don't need French skis[1, 2] when they attempted to frustrate the importation of Rossignol skis into Japan. Or they could not digest beef in the same quantities as other peoples when they wanted to thwart importation of US beef into Japan. [1]http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/06/weekinreview/the-world-japanese-are-special-types-they-explain.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/06/weekinreview/the-world-jap... [2]https://books.google.com/books?id=lfAu0Tl0018C&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=japan+rossignol+unique+snow&source=bl&ots=QkoEkUrpRf&sig=LfMipZ5_g_29fisXqHuf3W4aYRg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR8LbHo6rTAhUKwWMKHSKLDukQ6AEISTAF#v=onepage&q=japan%20rossignol%20unique%20snow&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=lfAu0Tl0018C&pg=PA105&lpg=...
pasbesoin 10y ago
From memory, U.S. potatoes have gone GM (genetically modified), IIRC. This may present a barrier -- I don't know WRT Japan. (And if so, maybe one day will be thankful for those barriers and the genetic diversity they facilitate/protect.)

Are US potatoes really lower quality than Japanese ones?

emodendroket 10y ago

Without protectionist regulation Japanese farming isn't competitive.

dm3730 10y ago
> Without protectionist regulation Japanese farming isn't competitive. Without protectionist regulation and subsidies European and American farming isn't competitive either. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6256274 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6256274
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Fair enough. I just meant to say that the point of the regulation isn't necessarily just the quality of the produce.
  - nihonde 10y ago
    It may have little to do with policy-making and is surely anecdotal, but Japanese produce is far better and cheaper than what I used to get in America. (And the same is true of meat and baked goods.) The difference is plainly obvious. The idea that anything other than junk food would be worthy of importing from elsewhere is almost laughable to me. On the other hand, I don't buy corn or potatoes too often here.
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      As for better: some of it is and some of it isn't. Lettuce is definitely not better. As for price... not so much. Fruits are much more expensive in Japan.

yladiz 10y ago

I doubt it, especially since you can generally get a much wider range of varieties of potatoes in the US than in Japan, not just organic/non-organic, but different colored potatoes as well. My guess is that the rhetoric coming from the companies that US potato quality is lower is more due to the government being protectionist about national agriculture. It's also probably due to the mentality that producers want specific kinds of potatoes for specific purposes and maybe only trust Japanese farmers to make the specific kind of potatoes the way they want them.

hkmurakami 10y ago
I remember seeing a "food security" campaign where demonstraters wanted the country to achieve 100% food sufficiency as a national security prerogative. Wasn't sure if it was a strange form of nationalism, or a veiled lobbying effort by an interest group (the abundance of very small scale farmers across the countryside)
- alva 10y ago
  Intuitively it sounds quite sensible. The more a nation can sustain itself on its internal market, the longer they can hold out through negative external circumstances. Much like energy. When everything is going rosy, relying on high % imports can be economically beneficial. In the case of extreme events like local or global wars, it leaves the country extremely fragile. Even outside wars, if there are drastic price increases in the global market then you are highly exposed. Look at OPEC, the power they wield and how they direct their efforts in essentially geo-political 'battles'. I don't know much about it, but I suspect that energy and agricultural self-sufficiency are very important and underestimated factors in (developed) nation state security.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    I don't think they're underestimated. Most rich countries have large subsidies to national farmers. In the US federal budget, Food & Agriculture is the largest slice right after the big ones (social security, healthcare, military, veterans).

mc32 10y ago

Likely it's just something similar to the argument that Japanese snow is unique so they don't need French skis[1, 2] when they attempted to frustrate the importation of Rossignol skis into Japan. Or they could not digest beef in the same quantities as other peoples when they wanted to thwart importation of US beef into Japan. [1]http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/06/weekinreview/the-world-japanese-are-special-types-they-explain.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/06/weekinreview/the-world-jap... [2]https://books.google.com/books?id=lfAu0Tl0018C&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=japan+rossignol+unique+snow&source=bl&ots=QkoEkUrpRf&sig=LfMipZ5_g_29fisXqHuf3W4aYRg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR8LbHo6rTAhUKwWMKHSKLDukQ6AEISTAF#v=onepage&q=japan%20rossignol%20unique%20snow&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=lfAu0Tl0018C&pg=PA105&lpg=...

pasbesoin 10y ago

From memory, U.S. potatoes have gone GM (genetically modified), IIRC. This may present a barrier -- I don't know WRT Japan. (And if so, maybe one day will be thankful for those barriers and the genetic diversity they facilitate/protect.)