David @ Tokyo

UPDATE 02/14: I have added updated graphs including December 2006 figures below...

Tomorrow (9th Feb), Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will release the December 2006 figures for the volume of marine products in cold storage, including of course our favourite, whale meat, amongst the array of other marine products that are consumed in Japan.

November was a bumper month in terms of outgoing stock volume. The figure was surprisingly large, even given the increasing trend in outgoing volume over the last 3 years for which data is available. My assumption is that the JARPN II by-product sell-off which commenced on November 29 may have been a reason for the large drop in stocks reflected in the November figures, in which case we may expect that the December outgoing stock figure to come in lower compared to the December 2005 figure of 626 tonnes (in 2005 the JARPN by-product sale didn't start until December 5).

I don't plan to have any graph updates for this until sometime next week, but I'll post the raw figures here around 24 hours from now.


UPDATE 2007/02/09 23:50: The figures are below. December 2006 was another relatively big month for whale meat consumption in Japan

Outgoing stock for December 2006

807 tonnes of outgoing stock (a 29% increase on December 2005). Obviously despite the large outgoing stock volume in November, retailers still wanted more product. Regional figures indicate a drop in stock for pretty much all the major regions with large volumes (graphs next week).

With the December 2006 figures in, we now see that total outgoing stock in 2006 totalled 8,558 tonnes, as compared to 5,955 tonnes in 2005 (a 44% increase overall).

Incoming stock for December 2006

308 tonnes of incoming stock for December.

Total incoming stock in 2006 thus totalled 8,950 tonnes. This volume is just 5% larger than the total outgoing stock volume for 2006. Yet, this figure also represents a massive increase in supply compared with 2005, when total incoming stock volume was 5,832 tonnes (most of the increase is due to the JARPA II research expansion).

Taken together, the increased volumes of both incoming and outgoing stocks in 2006 indicate that there is plenty of demand for whale meat. 2006 consumption could not have been serviced if the lower levels of supply seen in 2005 had persisted.

Total stockpile movement in December 2006

Total stocks dropped from 4,403 tonnes at November month end to 3,904 tonnes at the end of December 2006. By comparison, at the end of 2005 stock levels stood at 3,511 tonnes.

Despite the massive increase in incoming stock in 2006 of 3,188 tonnes, the stockpile increased by only 393 tonnes.

Graphs

All the graphs below are based on official figures from http://www.maff.go.jp/www/info/bunrui/bun06.html

1) Annual volumes of whale meat coming on to and leaving frozen marine product stockpiles around Japan:

That's 2 years of solid consumption growth. Even if you throw in Iceland's tiny supply of whale meat (a few hundred tonnes according to some reports), we can expect supply to be roughly the same in 2007 as 2006. Accordingly, it won't be possible for consumption to exceed much more than 9,000 tonnes in 2007.

There will however be another significant increase in supply from 2008 onwards with the JARPA II programme getting fully underway (another 40 fin whales plus 50 humpbacks), which will allow for additional consumption. Beyond that, I suspect that Japan will probably have resumed commercial whaling one way or another by then (coastal whaling for starters), so who knows how much supply there will be.

2) Monthly stockpile movements since February 2004:

This is a new graph, showing the raw figures and the stockpile fluctuation.
Note that the trough stockpile level in 2006 (just under 3,000 tonnes around February/March) was roughly the same as the trough size in 2005. The trough level in 2007 looks set to be comparable as well, based on the current downward trend in the size of stockpiles.

3) 12-month moving averages:

This graph is a brand new one. "Freelance journalist" Junko Sakuma made headlines last year with an "analysis" of stockpile statistics. What she showed was average increases in the size of the stockpile over recent years, asserting that this shows a lack of demand for whale meat. This of course is nonsense, as is seen by looking at the figures in context, and the above graph illustrates this as well in another way. In her propaganda piece, Sakuma never mentioned the statistics related to outgoing volume of stock - an obvious indicator of consumption - and the graph shows why: The 12-month moving average volume of outgoing whale meat stock is trending upwards, as has been the case with incoming stock as well. Sakuma's aim was to give the impression that consumption was falling, when in fact the opposite is evidently true.

* Note: The calculation I used here is to average the previous 12 months worth of figures - i.e., the final December figure indicates that the average volume for the 12 months to December 2006 was just above 700 tonnes. The incoming stock line is much jerkier than the more constant outgoing stock line because supply of whale meat is heavily seasonal in nature, whereas consumption is more constant all year round.

4) Cumulative graph:


This graph is a little bit redundant this month, as the graph of annual volume was rounded out with the December 2006 figures. Just a small difference in supply and consumption for the last 12 months. Given the increasing consumption trend, we can possibly expect this cumulative 12-month figure to go slightly negative sometime over the next 2 months.

5) Whale meat stockpiles by region.

What do you know? I found the figures for 2004 were also available, but for some reason they weren't supplied during 2005. So this is the graph with figures for 2004 and 2006:


This doesn't exactly provide the image of stagnant consumption that the anti-whaling propaganda merchants have tried to portray.

Labels: Junko Sakuma, stockpile figures, 鯨肉の在庫, 鯨肉の消費

November figures for the volumes of frozen marine products in circulation, including whale meat (item #35) were published on the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries homepage today.

While last month we found that October was slow in terms of both incoming stocks as well as outgoing volumes (with outgoing volumes falling below October 2005 levels), November 2006 has provided a big contrast.


Outgoing stock volume in November came out at 908 tonnes, the second largest amount of outgoing volume since February 2004 (that's as far back as the figures go on the MAFF's homepage).

To put some context around the figure, only July 2006's massive 1,723 tonnes was larger, with the third largest volume recorded being for March 2006 (827 tonnes). The fourth largest amount was also from 2006, the 785 tonnes in August. It's only once we go down to the fifth and sixth largest volumes that we find non-2006 figures - 747 and 745 tonnes in respectively in August and July 2005. The seventh largest figure is the 705 tonnes in August 2004.

But back to the November figure - the 908 tonnes recorded is a massive 73% increase on the November 2005 volume, and a whopping 133% increase over the November 2004 amount.


The figure of 349 tonnes is relatively high, considering that the coastal component of the JARPN II programme finished at the end of October, for which there was only 233 tonnes of incoming stock. I'm not aware of any other relevant background for this figure.


The volume of frozen whale meat overall dropped from the 4,962 tonnes at the end of October, down to 4,403 tonnes at the end of November - a big overall decrease due to the large amount of outgoing stock for the month.

Last month with the outgoing volume figure surprising on the downside (against the trend of ongoing increases in consumption), I noted that it seemed unlikely that the stockpile levels in early 2007 will bottom out at a lower level than they did in February 2006. Outgoing supply would have to exceed incoming stocks over the next 3 months by an average of around 500 tonnes a month for that to happen.

I still have my money on the likelihood of that outcome, although December traditionally appears to be a strong month for consumption, so who knows. Each year, the JARPN by-products are also put on the market around the time.

An ICR press release (in Japanese) indicated that almost 1,600 tonnes of by-product were available for sale through the wholesale markets between November 29 2006 and January 09 2007. In 2005, this sale didn't start until December 5, however, so I wonder if perhaps the JARPN sale starting in late November for the 2006 figures contributed to the big outflux of stock for the month.


1) Here's the updated annual graph showing incoming stocks alongside outgoing stocks.
With November figures added, and only December figures for 2006 outstanding, we can now see that 2006 outgoing volume was at least 30% higher than the total for 2005, and 76% higher than in 2004. Also, total outgoing stock in 2006 is already 33% higher than total incoming stock for 2005. In 2005, total outgoing stock was approximately equal to the total of incoming stock in 2004.

2) By region, stockpile levels in all of the top regions fell, including a big decrease of more than 200 tonnes in Hakodate. Kanazawa, the port to which I believe the JARPA II fleet will return to in April, also again had an appreciable decrease. Tokyo's stockpile levels only fell by a smaller amount to 989 tonnes, where levels in Tokyo were as low as 80 tonnes in January / February 2006. Perhaps it's possible that Tokyo won't see any of the whale meat from JARPA II in 2007, as was the case in 2006?

3) Incoming stocks graph update. As I noted above, for some reason, there was a relatively high amount of incoming stock for November (about 100 tonnes more than one might have expected). The regional stockpile figures don't provide any hints as to where the incoming stock came from (outgoing stock volume cancelled out incoming volume in every case). As the incoming supply doesn't appear to have been concentrated in any single location, perhaps the reason for the figure is related to a large amount of by-catch during the month? Or was it possibly incoming by-products from the tail end of the JARPN II coastal research?


4) Outgoing stocks graph update. After October's result against the trend, November's result is back on trend, and given the scale of the increase on 2005, above the trend.

5) Finally, the cumulative 12-month graph. For the 12 months to the end of November, incoming stock was 512 tonnes higher than outgoing stock (down from 741 tonnes last month), or in other words, outgoing stock for the 12 months was 94.2% of incoming stock volume (up on 91.5% in the previous month). In plain terms, the total outgoing stock for the 12 months to the end of November was 8,377 tonnes, versus a total of 8,889 tonnes incoming.



I'm maintaining a full set of raw figures in English based on the official ministry figures at FAQ #5 of my Whaling FAQ (scroll to the bottom).

Labels: stockpile figures, whale meat market, 鯨肉の在庫, 鯨肉の消費