Japan continues to import "risky wheat" from the U.S. Pesticides that have been found to be carcinogenic in the U.S. are now being exported to Japan after being sprayed directly on the crops with an emphasis on efficiency.

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Norihiro Suzuki : Professor, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo 

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2021/08/27 13:00

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(Photo: Daniel Balakov/iStock)

While the size of food-related markets has ballooned 1.5-fold over the past 30 years due to extensive deregulation, food self-sufficiency has fallen to 38%.

Can Japan establish "food security" in the face of rising food demand due to global population growth and declining production due to climate change, which is driving up food prices and raising concerns about export restrictions? A new book, "The Disappearance of Agriculture," tells what kind of crisis Japan's agriculture is now facing.

This article is excerpted and edited from the book.

Foods with risks not found in Japanese products" are being sent to the U.S.

Grain farmers in the U.S. are spraying glyphosate, which has been pointed out as a concern for inducing various diseases by killing intestinal bacteria in addition to being carcinogenic, directly on wheat instead of weeds. If it rains during harvest, the wheat will germinate, so the herbicide is used to kill the wheat before it is harvested. After the wheat is deadheaded and harvested, it is then sprayed with a fungicide*, which is not allowed in Japan, when it is transported.

*These post-harvest pesticides were banned in Japan, but were reclassified as food additives so that they could be sprayed during transportation from the U.S. to Japan.

Added at 9:30 p.m. on September 2, 2021: When first published, there was an inaccuracy regarding the export status of wheat, which has been corrected.

Several Japanese farmers who went to the U.S. for training testified that U.S. grain farmers told them, "This is for the Japs to eat, so it's okay.

Some may criticize that Japanese farmers also use glyphosate. But Japanese farmers put it on weeds.

However, the problem is that Japanese farmers consume more glyphosate residues in grain imported from the U.S. than any other country in the world.

Moreover, because of the increased use in the U.S., the Japanese were asked to loosen the intake limit of glyphosate in wheat by a factor of six, and the Japanese government did so on December 25, 2017, calling it a "Christmas present". Unfortunately, is the threshold for Japanese lives calculated from the required US usage?

According to tests by the Farmers' Federation Food Analysis Center, glyphosate has been detected in most bread sold in Japan, but of course not in bread labeled "Made in Japan" or "Made in Tokachi.

Also detected in soy sauce

In soy products, Rubio and others analyzed soy sauce purchased in Philadelphia for glyphosate and found glyphosate above the quantitation limit in 36 percent of the soy sauce tested. No glyphosate was detected in organic soy sauce (note by Kazuo Watanabe, 2015).

Testing for soy sauce in Japan is also considered essential. The detection rate of glyphosate, which appears to be derived from imported grains, from hair tests on Japanese people is also high (detected in 19 out of 28 people, 68 percent detection rate).

While consumer concerns about glyphosate are growing worldwide and regulations are being tightened, Japan is conversely relaxing its regulations, which raises expectations for profits in Japan.

At the end of March 2018, the Consumer Affairs Agency indicated a direction for stricter labeling of GM (genetically modified) foods as a response to consumers' calls for stricter GM labeling.

Amid fears of increased pressure from the U.S. to disallow GM labeling in Japan, I had my doubts from the moment I heard the announcement that the Agency would consider stricter GM labeling, wondering whether it was really possible to make such a decision that would go against the U.S. request.

In particular, the U.S. is concerned about the voluntary "non-GM" labeling. In other words, "Japan's mandatory labeling of GM foods is okay because the number of items covered is small and the contamination rate is low. The problem is that the non-GM labeling is allowed," one of Japan's GM research experts told us.

GM foods are considered safe worldwide, but allowing such labeling will mislead consumers into believing that GM foods are unsafe. If you continue, you must show scientific evidence that GM foods are not safe.

GM Labeling Obligations" Were Loose to Begin with

Japan's labeling requirements for GM foods (1) impose labeling requirements (Note 1) for contamination rates of 5% or more of the main ingredients (the top three ingredients by weight, 5% or more by weight), (2) are limited to low-processed, near-raw products (Note 2), and do not apply to highly processed (i.e., no recombinant (Note 2), and excludes highly processed (i.e., no residual recombinant DNA) oils, soy sauce, and many other processed foods (Note 3), as well as livestock products made from genetically modified feed.

(Note 1): GM ingredients are considered to be not under separate control, and labeling such as "GMO-free" is mandatory.

(Note 2): Corn, soybeans, potatoes, alfalfa, papaya, corn snacks, popcorn, corn starch, miso, tofu, soy milk, natto, potato snacks, etc.

(Note 3): Salad oil, vegetable oil, margarine, shortening, mayonnaise, soy sauce, sweeteners (corn syrup, liquid sugar, isomerized sugar, fructose, dextrose, syrup, mirin-like seasoning, etc.), corn flakes, vinegar, brewing alcohol, dextrin (polysaccharide used for adhesive agents, etc.), etc.

Compared to the EU, which requires GM labeling for all foods containing 0.9 percent or more GM content, this is extremely lax in terms of both contamination rate and target products.

In response to this, we were surprised when we looked at the details of the decision to tighten the labeling, and found that (1) and (2) remain exactly the same.

The only thing that has been tightened is the voluntary labeling of "not genetically modified" (non-GM), which currently can be labeled "not genetically modified" if less than 5% of the product is "unintentionally mixed," but can only be labeled "not detected" (essentially 0%). (The company's name is also made public in the event of a violation.)

If this stricter labeling requirement is enforced from April 2023, it will reduce the incentive for the companies to pursue non-GM ingredients as much as possible, label them as "not genetically modified," and offer non-GM foods to consumers, even though there are so many foods that are not subject to the labeling requirement. The incentive for such efforts will be removed. And there will be a possibility that foods labeled "not genetically modified" will be swept off the shelves of retailers.

(Click on the book shadow to go to the Amazon site.

For example, many tofu products are labeled "soybeans (not genetically modified)" in the ingredients column. If domestic soybeans are used, it would seem that they can continue to be labeled "not genetically modified" because they are not GM, but many distributors also handle imported soybeans, so the possibility of trace amounts of contamination is undeniable.

In fact, according to an analysis by the Farmers' Federation Food Analysis Center, 11 of the 26 "non-GM" soybean products were "not detected," but 15 products were contaminated with 0.17% to 0.01%, and these will no longer be able to be labeled "non-GM.

Although the law allows for voluntary labeling, such as "We use soybeans that have been sorted and controlled to prevent contamination with GM ingredients, but they may contain GM material," this is difficult to understand, making it difficult to label effectively for consumers. Therefore, many vendors may stop labeling due to concerns about violations. Some have already begun to withdraw from tofu and other products with non-GM labeling.

Consumers will be the ones to suffer

If the scope of foods with mandatory GM labeling is not expanded, and if the rate of contamination with mandatory GM labeling is kept loose, but only the non-GM labeling is made extremely strict, consumers will not be able to identify foods that are making efforts to be non-GM, and they will have to choose what to eat from among all the GM foods. Consumers' range of product choice will be greatly narrowed, and they will be forced to buy whatever GM food they can find because they do not know.

This is the "GM non-disclosure law. While calling it a stricter law, it has become nothing more than a pittance to the demands of the United States.

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