On December 6, Global Asia Research Center, Waseda University, hosted a postgraduate workshop entitled “Food and Capitalist History” presented by Dr. Midori Hiraga, an Associate Professor of Kyoto Tachibana University.

Firstly, Dr. Hiraga addressed that food has been considered as the basis of human health and introduced her latest book published in Japanese: Tabemonokara Manabu Sekaishi (Food and Capitalist History). Then, she started her presentation by highlighting the word ‘Hunger’ in the current global context addressing “3Cs”: Conflict, Covid-19, and Climate Change.

Dr. Hiraga underlined that one-fourth of the global greenhouse gas emissions came from food products, and the current food system is harming the global climate. She then explained the capitalistfood systems. She argued that the contemporary food culture and agriculture embedded in the capitalist food system, produced in ‘industrial agriculture,’ is causing damage. Dr. Hiraga covered the history of soy beans as a ‘traditional cultural food’ and how it evolved into industrialized products widespread in Asian regions, especially Japan.

To address the political economy in vegetable oil supply, Dr. Hiraga explained three stages of “Food Regimes” in her research. The first regime (1870-1914) was the period before the First World War (WWI), and it was under the British hegemony when there were cases of imports of wheat, meat, and tropical raw materials from the colonies. The second regime was under the U.S Hegemony (1947-1973), in which the U.S. used a durable foods complex as a strategy during the Cold War. The third regime started in 2005 to the present day, which she called the global corporate food regime.

Her Ph.D. research regarding the Japanese case mainly focused on soy and vegetable oil (political economy and vegetable oil) and questioned how vegetable oil became cheaper and ubiquitous in the Japanese diet. Then, she observed the role of the Zaibatsu (financial conglomerates) and Sogo-shosha (general trading companies) as actors behind these massive developments. Her observation revealed the changes in the Japanese diet using vegetable oil leading to transformations in its production scales from the traditional into industrial. After a fruitful discussion, Dr. Higara indicated that soy and other vegetable oils were not widespread in Asia. However, it became an excellent case study compared with the EU, where drastically animal livestock was replaced. At the end of the session, Dr. Hiraga expressed the intention to publish her Ph.D. dissertation in English and to expand the research on vegetable oil consumption and food regimes into a broader scope.