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Japan’s small size and mountainous terrain present challenges for food self-sufficiency. The country imports almost two-thirds of its food and three-quarters of its livestock feed. Yet each year, Japan throws out 28.4 million tonnes of food – much of it edible.
This comes with steep environmental and economic costs. Compared to many countries, consumers in Japan pay higher prices for food because so much of it is imported. And they also pay taxes to cover the majority of the 800bn yen (£4.2bn/$5.4bn) the country spends each year on waste incineration. Food makes up about 40% of the rubbish that Japan incinerates, and incineration produces significant air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
As the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, Japan has set goals of cutting emissions by 46% by 2030 and becoming fully carbon neutral by 2050. Tackling food wastewill have to be a part of those efforts, Takahashi says.
At slaughter, it stops being a hog and starts being pork but, whilst there are other bacterial and similar concerns, it isn’t being fed anymore at that point.
Before slaughter, some farmers sell feeder pigs for other people to raise until slaughter. In order to get paid, no one in that chain wants to actively harm their health if only because it impacts their bottom line.
A non-animal way of looking at it would be producing mushrooms on some media. If I could safely and effectively grow my mushrooms on a medium that recycles something without otherwise damaging them on cheaper/greener material, why wouldn’t I do that? Conversely, why would I if that material ended up costing me more in the long run by stunting growth or something?