THE ROLES OF MODERN AGRICULTURE

THE ROLES OF MODERN AGRICULTURE

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

The new Abe administration in Japan has revealed its national development strategy in which agriculture is one of the target for the intensive public investment as well as green technologies and advanced medical services. Some people might feel skeptical about this government plan, pointing out that the domestic value from agriculture account only for 1.5% in the total GDP, and moreover, agriculture does not pay in the advanced economy due to the highest labor cost. However, following two stories in Europe suggest agriculture could be the best medicine for the developed region suffering from the prolonged depression. 

The Modern European Tomato -Profitable Structure with New Technologies-*

The Netherlands is the most successful tomato exporter among the EU countries while the country is at 4th in production following Italy, Spain and Greece, yet these countries import tomatoes from the Holland in recent years although the warmer Mediterranean climate is much more suitable for the tomato production. The only difference between the snowy Netherlands and sunny south European countries, excluding the climate, is production efficiency. Dutch growers can get an average of 70kg of tomatoes out of each square meter, using sophisticated growing technologies like the computer controlled greenhouse; on the other hand, Mediterranean growers are lucky if they can get 7kg. The Dutch tomato is not only a good commodity for European consumers but also environmentally friendly due to pesticides free production, resulting in popularity among choosy consumers in Germany, the U.K. and elsewhere. The Netherlands leads vegetable, fruits, and flower exports mainly in the European market as its export value scale of agri-food products is the world’s 2nd next to the United States.

The Young Farmers’ Entry in Italy -Surplus Workers Coming Back to Farms-** 

The financial crisis in Italy has raised an increasing number of unemployed people, some of whom try to restart their career as a farmer; the latest statistic shows the increase rate of workers engaged in the country’s agricultural sector, 10.1% in employee and 2.9% in self-employed, which is far beyond the manufacturing and service industries. They might be out of choice but to work as a farmer if they are poorly educated, but actually 36.5% of  the new farmers below 30 are college graduates and enthusiastic in developing their farm into a large scale exporter by innovative farming technologies such as remotely piloted tractors and online order systems. The government is welcome to this trend and offering a tax reduction on the young farmer’s income and land inheritance, also aggressive for promoting farmland transfer over generations so that young farmers talented in business can extend their production scale and grow the movement into the country’s new income source for the recovery from the depressed economy.  

*TIME, March 11, 2013, pp. 38-42

**Wired.jp, retrieved from
 http://wired.jp/2013/03/22/italy-agriculture/?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=

Precious Holdings

Precious Holdings*

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

Rare earths, materials crucial to the production of everything, are hard to identify in those products but have as big stake as oil in our daily lives. For example, our hard disk drives will not work without just a few cents’ worth of neodymium as well as Toyota Prius without a few tens of dollars of dysprosium. Unfortunately, the production of these products have the largest share in Japan’s manufacturing industry, but, what is worse than that is China takes control of almost all rare-earth elements in the global market. While the Chinese government manipulate the prices to get the most from the rare-earth market that is a monopoly of China, Japan have survived over the absolute shortage and price spike of rare earths through 2010 to 2011, which I believe is full of suggestions about Japan’s resource allocation and diplomatic strategy. 

Nature of Rare-Earth Market Controlled by China

The global market of rare earths is not so big. Its scale is only about $2 billion, roughly equal to U.S. chewing-gum sales, but 95% of the global supply is produced by China. The Chinese government know how to maximize the revenue even under the recession after the world financial crisis. Given the decreasing world’s demand and raising cost for labors at mining sites and refineries, the government gradually tightened the amount of rare-earth elements that domestic producers were allowed to export; in 2010, Beijing slashed its export quota by 40%. This triggered a global panic, rising 300% to 1,000% at price depending on the elements, which would be beyond the Chinese authorities have expected. However, they learned China’s position at the rare-earth market can be a diplomatic pressure on Japan; actually, China stopped delivery of rare earths to Japan for two months that is seen as an indirect provocation over the ongoing territorial dispute. 

Japan’s Response Reminds the Oil Shock

Japan, which purchase about two-thirds of China’s rare-earth export, was the country that had the most severe economic impacts from the market’s tight balance. Japan’s economy is heavily reliant on the high-tech manufacturing industry such as the production of electronic-device components and specialized magnets. The government of Japan immediately responded to the global crisis of the rare-earth market by funding $1 billion worth of subsidies to promote this industry to find new sources of rare earths outside China, develop alternative materials and improve recycling. 

The aggressive investment into the development of new suppliers and rare-earth saving technologies seems to be paying off. This response is a speciality of Japan that have a number of achievement in the country’s history; the most remarkable ones are the energy-saving technologies like hybrid cars after the oil shock in which discipline Japan still lead the world. Although the investment is undermining China’s diplomatic superiority to Japan, the rare-earth market is only one of the cards China can play. In order to change the rule of the game, Japan should keep trading with China even if each country has different concerns. Considering refining rare earths is a complex and environmentally hazardous, Japan can provide China with more efficient and green technologies in reward for the stable supply of rear-earth elements. 

*Article from TIME, Feb 18, 2013

Briefing: Tech Issues of Non-technical Problems

Briefing: Tech Issues of Non-technical Problems

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

#Three different topics

Man vs. Machine −Why a slowdown in tech progress is good news for jobs−*

The rise of social media, big data and other tech trends are expected to boost the economic growth in the similar way computers changed productivity of business a few decade ago, but what about workers less educated to catch up with the next IT innovation? It is suggested that too fast tech advancement delivers higher unemployment and inequality over income levels which many economists believe in turn slow down the pace of growth. Fortunately, some economic reports show that recent prices for IT equipment like software, computers, and networking technology fall at a much slower pace than the one Moore’s law predicted −computer chips double in power roughly every 18 months; technology is not increasing at the same pace it once did. Given that man’s ability to learn new things are limited, what is the optimal innovation speed that fuels economic growth most efficiently?

Electric-Vehicle −Will discounts persuade the masses to plug in electric cars−*

The electric car is in the middle of technological and also economical development. Cars that use at least some electricity for power accounted for under 3.5% of auto sales in the United States throughout 2012, and pure-electric cars represent a tiny fraction of that. One of the biggest hurdle for plug-in type vehicles is range; for example, Nissan Leaf runs only 130 km for every full-recharge that takes hours. Although range extends dramatically when it comes to the hybrid models that use both gas and battery power, another big problem, price, does not let the green cars prevail over the auto market. Despite generous rebates and tax credits, as much as $10,000 off the price, in addition to savings on gas costs that carmakers push for the purchase motive, today’s price fail to catch most drivers. To what extent do carmakers have to compromise price in order to make the electric cars popular, considering a series of relevant factors like switching costs from gas to electricity for users, potential revenue due to cost-effective mass-production after it gets popular, and social investment into infrastructure like plug-in power stations? 

What Free Costs −A suicide fuels the online copyright fight−**

Aaron Swartz was a top programmer who had thought that every idea and innovation must be open access so that people could share it to better the world, just like other ordinary hackers, but in his case, this was nothing like a policy but a lifelong crusade. He ended up with suicide during his trial with a potential sentence of 35 years in prison on 13 counts of fraud, cybercrime and other charges. One of his most remarkable works is the break into MIT’s repository of scholarly publications from which he downloaded some 4.8 million documents and tried to share them online before he arrested. He felt the articles produced with government funding should be available to all, which turned into s surprising result that the academic database have since released some of its collection for free. After his death, his supporters have encouraged the release of copyrighted materials, and hackers have attacked MIT’s network. How much information should be freely available and how aggressively the government should punish those who released it? 

#Articles from TIME, Jan 28 2013* and Feb 4 2013**

RISE OF THE DRONES

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

Military use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or simply drones, has already been popularized over U.S. war zones as tells the news of future installation of the RQ-4 Global Hawk (an unmanned spy plane) into the Senkaku Islands by the government of Japan. However, benefits (and risks) from absence of man are not only for wartime but also for a lot of industrial and commercial applications. A surprising fact about private Drone use is that the most advancing sector is agriculture; the feature of drones, extension of our physical presence, matches the management of vast crop fields, but we face the very problems similar to ones in military drones. 

Drone Use in Wartime 

A solution for Obama administration suffering from the budget deficit was the reduction of the arms budget by the installation of unmanned vehicles, so America’s huge war zones can be covered by cheap remotely piloted vehicles and a few operators. For example, the MQ-1 Predator (an unmanned bomber) costs only a 1/3 billion yens while the latest stealth fighter F-35 is priced at 11 billion yens and more for pilot training**. Although the absence of man on the vehicles has saved money and pilots, however, this may cause a new risk; as the United Nations Human Rights Councils states ‘there is a risk of developing a “Playstation” mentality to killing.’ Whether that is right or not, CIA drone attacks have killed 2,629 to 3,461 people in Pakistan alone, of whom 475 to 891 were civilians*.   

Rising Private Use of Drones

The same reason as the military installation of drones appears over various drone use  amongst many industries including agriculture in which drones are applied to spraying chemicals, correcting soil analysis data and so on. In fact, Japan’s paddy fields sprayed by unmanned helicopters in 2003 accounts for 45% of total rice fields where chemicals in use, and the share of spray drones are growing***. On the other hand, as some environmental organizations warn, sprayers tend to be discouraged from paying attentions to the chemical leakage over neighbors and the natural environment even though much higher concentration of chemicals has been enabled by the unmanned vehicles. 

What the Absence of Man gives and takes

Drones have potentials to extend our physical presence just like the internet has extended our virtual presence; we can perceive situations from a distance and make actions there if you want. This is a fantastic innovation, but we have to care the risk arose from the absence of man as the former case studies suggest. It is typical that some quiet-type people turn into very offensive characters on the Internet communities. Even some people fail to distinguish virtual themselves from the real and keep a good relationship in the real society. Given that extended our physical presence influences directly our lives in the same way the virtual presence does to mentality, it is an imminent and important matter to control the power of drones with development of laws for some certificates or licenses.

*Article from TIME issued Feb 11, 2013

**Video from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d7lHUMDCrg

***Article from http://wired.jp/2013/02/12/drone-farm/?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=