I often eat vegetables for my health. However, compared to other foods, vegetables are expensive. When I researched the prices of vegetables in other countries and compared them with Japanese vegetables prices, I found out that prices in Japan are expensive. So, in this article, I will discuss the reasons why vegetables in Japan are expensive.
Reasons for the high prices
It is that the farmland in Japan is much smaller than the farmland in foreign vegetable growing areas. The land is not large enough for mechanization to do everything, so a large part of it relies on human labor. It is said that the highest cost is the labor cost. It takes more time to produce domestically grown vegetables by hand than by machines.
Safety aspect
Domestically grown vegetables can’t often be produced without pesticides, reduced pesticides, organic farming, or other skimpy, rough work. Domestic farmers produce vegetables using farming methods that focus on the safety of the vegetables that consumers eat.
Instead of using pesticides, they have to spend more time, effort and money on pest control. Neither are genetically modified crops produced with the idea that the nearest pest-free crop is not safe for human health. Reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides is a constant battle against diseases and pests. There are many risks involved. If pesticides and genetic modification make vegetables disease-free, they can be produced in large quantities without human intervention. However, vegetables grown in an environment with fewer pesticides cannot be produced in large quantities, and these domestically grown vegetables are safe, which is one of the reasons why they are so valuable. The Japanese vegetable standards established for safety are said to be very strict, covering a wide range of aspects such as safety and appearance. The cost of this detailed inspection is also very high. It can be said that the cost of production, the cost of labor, and the cost of subsequent inspections all come into play when the vegetables finally reach the hands of the consumer.
Why are foreign vegetables cheaper?
Growing crops in countries such as the U.S., Australia, Canada, and Brazil, which have vast areas of land, means that in addition to the essential conditions for agriculture, such as nature and environment, the “birthplace” of agriculture is something special. It’s also the reason why these countries were able to suddenly adopt the method of plowing fields with machines, because they had such a large area of farmland for free that there was no difficulty in obtaining it.
Large-scale agriculture is managed by machines without increasing human labor. Because of the vastness of the land, we use agricultural methods that allow crops to grow smoothly using pesticides and other chemicals all at once so that we can manage crop diseases and other problems without much effort. In addition, in order to prevent the excessive use of pesticides, which can lead to safety problems, vegetables are genetically modified to make them more resistant to diseases and less prone to pests, which in turn can have adverse effects on the human body. It is also said that labor costs are lower than in Japan. As you can see, the size of the land, low labor costs, and mechanization have made it possible for foreign vegetables to be distributed at low prices.
Knowing these things, the high prices make sense to me. I eat vegetables for staying healthy, so I choose to buy pesticide-free vegetables even if the price of them is expensive.
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