Japan Disaster

[burnt]

Clearly, there is no justification for some of the comments that were made. They show a total lack of regard for the human suffering in the "Japan Disaster".

Yet what I at first found very troubling was that most of the initial posts were all about potential loss of markets and how the "Japan Disaster" was going to affect the value of commodities and stocks. In other words, our bottom line.

They showed a total lack of regard for the human suffering in the "Japan Disaster".

[charliep]

Perhaps the point was Japan needs access to grains and oilseeds to
feed their human and livestock populations. It would appear that
most of the bulk handling ports are away from the worst part of the
earth quake/tsunami - a good thing I think we all would agree. Japan
will deal with the distribution issues as best it can with support (when
needed and asked for) by the international community.

From our side (Canada), we need to work on execution and logistics
to fullfill the terms of the contracts/commitments we have made. Not
easy but needs to happen. This becomes even more important in the
current environment as Japan moves forward. The basic functions of
life need to continue in spite of the tragedy that has unfolded.

[gustgd]

http://ww2.producer.com/blogs/ejw/wordpress/

Japanese earthquake hitting very close to home
0Posted in Commodities by Ed White
March 14, 2011

Friday morning, as I sat in a chair at the hospital with my newborn baby daughter and my recovering-from-surgery wife, I offered thanks for the miracle of life.


Baby Anastasie
That’s what made it so sickening for me to read about and see on TVs at the hospital all the death, destruction and devastation that had just occurred in Japan. I felt almost guilty to be filled with my own personal joy about our new baby when so many in Japan were feeling such overwhelming losses.

A few days after the earthquake and Tsunami the Japanese are still finding bodies, and fearing nuclear reactor meltdowns.

And that makes me feel cold-hearted this morning as I call various crop and meat groups and ask how this disaster will affect Canadian ag exports. It doesn’t seem fitting, with the human situation, to ask about commercial matters, but what happens to Japan matters greatly to us because we are major trading partners, so we need to think about that, even at this moment of tragedy.

It doesn’t matter what prairie farm commodity you look at, Japan matters. It is a major, top-dollar buyer of Canadian wheat, canola, beef and pork. Lots of Canadian pulse crops go there.

Everyone in every ag industry I have spoken to says the same things about the Japanese: they are honest, demanding, reliable and trustworthy business partners. They buy top quality products from us for top prices – but demand that quality standards are the highest. That last point, to me, is the best thing they do for us. By being demanding, but being willing to pay for quality, they have put all the incentives in the market to make us develop our prairie industries to be quality-focused. Their expectations and trustworthiness are a big part of how we have evolved our system, so we owe them a big thank you for that.

So in a cold-hearted way, we need to care about the situation in Japan.

But many of us also have had human relationships with Japanese buyers, traders, and industry representatives, and that is what makes the present tragedy so painful for so many of us.

In my job here i often get to meet Japanese people, usually as they visit the Canadian International Grains Institute. I get to meet them,chat with them, interview them for stories. When I went back through my photo files this morning, looking for Japanese people, I found a surprising number. Here are a couple from stories in the past year or so.


Three representatives of the Japanese durum milling and manufacturing business on a visit to Winnipeg

The woman on the right is a Japanese journalist with a vegetable oils magazine
I wonder how they are and will email them when I get back to the office in a few minutes. But just seeing their faces in these photographs again makes a massive tragedy very human and close. So while we in the ag world will probably focus on the financial implications to us of what is happening over there, many of us will also be thinking of those Japanese people we’ve met over the years.

[charliep]

More information on impact Japanese grain handling system.

[URL="http://brownfieldagnews.com/2011/03/14/japanese-grain-storage-remains-a-question/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_camp aign=Feed%3A BrownfieldAgNews %28Brownfield Ag News%29&utm_content=Google Reader"]japanese grain storage[/URL]

[buzz]

It looks even worse this morning on CNN, trying to waterbomb the reactors to cool them down. This strikes me as a desperate attempt to contain it.
I wish them luck.

[charliep]

More information (E-malt) on impact Japanese brewing industry. Will impact our maltsters.


Begin quote:

Japan: Beer makers close plants after earthquake

Japanese manufacturers including the large breweries closed plants after the nation’s strongest earthquake damaged factories and crippled nuclear power plants, causing electricity shortages, Bloomberg reported on March, 14. In Sendai, where many parts of the city were under water, four large beer-storage tanks at Kirin Brewery Co.'s factory were toppled. The factory's storage area was swamped, and workers were forced to seek refuge on the roof.

There were no reports of injuries, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun reports. Sapporo Breweries Ltd. said the ground level of some parts of its plant in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, appeared to have fallen and water was flowing in, which officials said could have been caused by earthquake liquefaction.

Asahi Breweries Ltd., Japan’s biggest brewer by volume, will reduce production at a plant in Kanagawa prefecture by 50 percent because of blackouts, said Takayuki Tanaka, a spokesman for the Tokyo-based company. It has halted operations at factories in Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures. “The market will remain weak,” Matsuno said. “Japan’s economy will be hurt for a while, and then will show a big recovery on rebuilding efforts.”

End quote.