Not only have the agriculture industry, in north east Honshu, been hit by a natural disaster, they are suffering from the nuclear disaster as well.

Many farm fields were wiped out by the tsunami.  Because sea walls are destroyed, and land has actually sunk, the coastal areas could be under water for a time, especially during high tide. Now dairy and produce products are turning out to be contaminated with radiation.

Even though the Japanese government says they have stopped any shipments of such food, and that the levels are not harmful, shoppers have made it clear they won’t buy the stuff: “It’s a little hard to say this, but I won’t buy vegetables from Fukushima and that area,” said shopper Yukihiro Sato, at a Tokyo supermarket.

It’s also affecting Japan’s fishing industry, so far the winds have been blowing the radiation particles out over the Pacific Ocean.

In the immediate term Japanese food producers are benefiting as shoppers turn to their products, out of fear.  But, it will eventual stress the Japanese food industry.  Japan will have to increase imports of food from other countries.

This will add to what the United Nations said, earlier this year, is a growing food “supply” problem.  The supply problems is due to a combination of climate change and social unrest.  Some countries are experiencing long droughts, reducing crop production.  Other countries are experiencing flooding which destroys farm land.  Many countries in Asia experience both climactic conditions.  On top of that, social unrest, in Africa, Middle East (aka West Asia) and even Mexico (drug war) are causing the same end result, reduced crop production as well as interruption in supply.

Supply is the main concern of the UN because there are countries that have excess food but for many reasons, including the way the commodities markets work, the food is not being equally distributed around the world.

The food supply problem will have a bad result for consumers all over the world, prices will continue to go up.