Japan's exhausted cows cause butter shortage ahead of Christmas

Shops forced to ration butter after shortage of milk blamed on a hot summer and tired dairy herds
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Japan is suffering from a serious butter shortage, raising fears among consumers that they will have to forgo their Christmas staple of sponge cake.

Many supermarkets have seen their shelves stripped of what little butter was left; those that still have it in stock are limiting shoppers to one pack each.

Stores mark the arrival of fresh supplies – increasingly from overseas – with signs proclaiming, “We have butter!”

Although it’s not a staple of the traditional Japanese diet, demand for butter is particularly high at the end of the year, when people celebrate Christmas “Japan-style” by eating sponge cake, filled with whipped cream and topped with strawberries.

The agriculture ministry has blamed the shortage on a brutally hot summer that affected milk production. The high temperatures left dairy cows simply too exhausted to meet their usual milk quotas.

But it is not entirely the cows’ fault. Ageing farmers have been forced to cut production amid falling demand, while rural depopulation is also taking its toll.

As recently as 1985 about 82,000 households ran dairy farms with a combined 2.11 million cows, according to the ministry. That has plummeted to just 19,000 households and 1.4 million animals.
Strict regulation and high tariffs imposed on the imported version mean retailers are struggling to meet the shortfall by bringing in more butter from overseas.

Butter is considered a “national trade item”, allowing officials to impose high tariffs on imports.

Dairy farmers say that cloak of protection could disappear if Japan signs up to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade pact with the US, Australia and other Asia-Pacific nations.

Nonetheless, Japan was forced to import 7,000 tonnes of butter in May, and a further 3,000 tonnes in September.

Another rare foray into the overseas dairy larder looks inevitable with Christmas just a few weeks away.

“Judging from inventory levels at the end of September, stockpiles are down 30% from a year earlier so we’re in a shortage trend,” a ministry official said.

The official said rising costs meant already struggling farmers were unlikely to raise production.

“They are concerned about where the dairy farming industry will go in the future as they see feed prices soaring,” the official said.

Declining milk consumption prompted the government to scale down Japan’s dairy herd in 2007, but the move backfired. Just two years later the country was confronted with its first serious butter shortage.

The Nikkan Gendai magazine reported that bakeries, faced with a shortage of the ingredient, have started using margarine in the hope that the slightly inferior taste will be more palatable to customers than the inflated price of cakes and loaves made with butter.

 
 
Source: The Guardian

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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