National food security through corporate globalization: Japanese strategies in the global grain trade since the 2007–8 food crisis

ABSTRACT

English-language research on the contemporary global grain trade says little about Japan. Japanese firms, however, have made extensive overseas investments in grain production and trading since 2007, becoming major players in the soya trade between North and South America and China, and the Japanese state has developed policies promoting ‘foreign agricultural investment’ in grains. This paper documents and explains these developments by exploring the legacies of earlier Japanese grain trade moves, examining three visions of the relationship between foreign agricultural investment and Japan’s food security, and arguing that conceptualizations of Japan as an ‘Asian land grabber’ fit awkwardly with the empirical record.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• food security
• grain trade
• Japan
• land grab
• sogo shosha

Acknowledgements

A much earlier version of this paper was written for the conference ‘Land Grabbing: Perspectives from East and Southeast Asia’, Chiang Mai University, 5–6 June 2015, and I have presented related work at Cornell University, Roskilde University, University of Massachusetts Boston, and the University of Toronto. I am grateful to the participants in and organizers of those events, to two reviewers for JPS, and to Jennifer Clapp, Ariane Goetz, Eric Helleiner, Midori Hiraga, Takeshi Ito, Sarah Martin, Anders Riel Muller, and Kana Okada for their comments and suggestions, and to Matt Gaudreau for his comments and research assistance. All errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Soya is an oilseed, but I follow convention in treating soybeans as part of the grain trade.

2 While the first three firms listed share their names with other Japanese companies, for simplicity’s sake I refer to them as Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Mitsui.

3 Japanese names in this paper are presented with the family name last.

4 There is a large body of research on the sōgō shōsha in Japanese that I have not been able to cover in this paper.

5 On Japan’s role see (Funada-Classen 2013; Nogueira and Ollinaho 2013; Feldhoff 2014; Okada 2014; Shankland and Gonçalves 2016; Kithinji 2017).

6 This paragraph relies on Humber and Suzuki (2011); Mitsui & Co. (n.d.); Callick (2014); JFTC (2014, 347–348); Yushi (2015b).

7 The 2016 FAI report says (p. 8) this acquisition also received trade insurance from NEXI, but I have not been able to confirm that.

8 My account draws mainly on Miyaji (2010); Gialinks (n.d.); Asahi Shimbun (2010); Chūbu Keizai Shimbun (2011); Decide (2012).

9 This paragraph is based on RIA Oreanda-News (2012); Bettles (2014); Yushi (2015f).

10 This section is based on Fujisawa 2012; Himeno 2008; Kaiun 2009; Lee, Jung, and Kim 2014; Marubeni 2009; Shūkan Daiyamondo 2009; Yamaguchi 2009; Murata 2012; Nikkei Business 2010, 2012; Yoshida 2011, 2012; Zaikai 2012.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Short-Term Research Grant from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Notes on contributors

Derek Hall

Derek Hall (PhD in Government, Cornell University) is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Balsillie School of International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University. His research focuses on the political economy of food, agriculture, land and environment in Japan and Southeast Asia. He is the author of Land (Polity, 2013) and, with Philip Hirsch and Tania Murray Li, of Powers of Exclusion: Land Dilemmas in Southeast Asia (NUS Press and University of Hawai’I Press, 2011).