"Japan is market pioneer again: the first industrialized nation with no butter."

Thanks to a rise in grain prices, Japanese butter reserves have been nearly depleted. To the London Times, its "reaction to global food shortages will illustrate what happens to a country whose population has far outgrown its farmland's ability to support, whose agricultural population is elderly and disaffected, whose food self-sufficency rates are low, but whose palates have grown accustomed to exotic imports." In other words, it may be a hint of things to come in many other countries. [The Times]