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Niigata, “the Home of Rice” has 63% food self-sufficiency – Steps towards food and energy security
〜Rice Flour Production and Consumption, and Bio Ethanol from Rice Plants〜

 

 

■”Rice flour” as an alternative to wheat flour – eat "rice grains" and "rice powder" – a breakthrough in rice consumption 　(September 25, 2008)  

 

 

Mr. Senichiro Takahashi, Managing Director, Mai World 21, Cooperative Association to Promote Rice Flour Consumption)

 

In Japan, rice flour can now be used to develop products. Rice flour bread is beginning to come on the market.

 

Rice flour can be used to make any kind of cake, such as chiffon cake or Swiss roll.

 

Rice flour noodles are currently being developed. Rice flour is now used to make bread, noodles, and cake.

 

Bread, noodles, and pasta are made of wheat flour. Rice flour is an alternative to wheat flour.

 

The Japanese used to produce rice flour and they still do.
Compared with the conventional rice flour, the new rice flour is filtered through an extremely fine mesh. 

 

The Japanese used to eat rice as a staple food. But over the last 60 years, they changed this tradition and now mainly eat bread and noodles.

 

The current staple food in Japan consists of rice, bread and noodles. Of these, the percentage of rice consumption is about 40%, lower than bread and noodles at 53%. These figures are from FY2005.

 

The central government is now keen to introduce bread and noodles made of rice flour into school lunches.

 

Up until now Japan imported many things including food to reduce the trade surplus it got from selling automobiles or home electric appliances.

 

However, it is obvious that we won’t be able to import food from overseas any more.

 

While Japan’s population is rapidly aging, that of China and a few other Asian countries is exploding.

 

In the midst of this change, it is unforgivable that Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate is as low as 40% on a calorie basis. Food shortage has already begun globally.
Still, the Japanese are capable of producing enough rice to feed themselves. 

 

We propose to consume the rice surplus not only as staple food, the conventional way, but also as rice flour, an alternative to wheat flour, that we largely import from overseas. So using rice flour can be profitable for Japan as it can reduce the amount of imports of foreign wheat flour. 

 

It can also be indirectly profitable to the whole world. With this strong determination I have been making tireless efforts for 15 years.