"Eric Takabayashi" <etakajp@yahoo.co.jp> wrote in message

> the world is selling Japan a full 60% of the food they eat,
> because Japanese are no longer willing to grow food for themselves.
....
> I suppose when the world runs short on food, Japan will simply try to buy
some, and
> deny food to the poor in countries which really need it.

No, they won't have the money nor the need. They'll take more whales and go
back to agriculture. I disagree with your analysis, they are potentially
more self-sufficient than ever.
Yes, they import 60% of the food they buy,  but today they are eating and
wasting like pigs, they'd live well with only the 40%. If they didn't throw
away half full bowls of rice and any supermarket item with a scratch on the
package, and didn't eat junk and sweets, they'd still be far from
starvation.
Probably their agriculture is more developed and polyvalent than ever
before. Yes, less rice, but more potatoes, more wheat, more soy (and the
technology and land possible to rapidly expand those cultures in Hokkaido),
more fruits and vegetables of all sorts, and they have developed a meat and
dairy industry from scratches. The fish/seafood farming produces more than
the needs in many products. They have managed to keep over-fishing and wood
destruction away from their islands. I know they import the wood they waste
now and over-fish in other continents, but here in Kansai, there are still
dolphins and mountains full of sugi planted to build houses, in reserve.
Add to that, they are not as threatened by water shortage (which is a real
threat for European agriculture, more than a threat for Africa and I've
heard Americans saying they had the problem too), and still they are already
training experts in agriculture with reduced water.
Frankly, they've done a good job in the last 50 years, I don't mean morally
good. OK, there are problems of pesticides, etc, but no country escapes to
it, and compared with others the environment damages have been really
limited (look at Thailand, the development of their export rice industry
comes an ecological suicide), and they are not the last ones to delevop less
chemical ways of cultivating everything and to diversify the cultures.
.
That's even surprising, that sounds smarter than them.

CC