After reading and article based mainly on the risk of seafood contamination due to the crisis at Japan’s atomic plant leaking radioactive particles into the ocean surrounding Japan, I began to consider how this would affect the global fishing and seafood economy. Obviously Japan’s seafood sales have and will continue to drop for sometime because of the crisis, but Japan is also a major seafood supplier to other nations. If the supply of fish from Japan is dropping but the demand of seafood restaurants stays the same, “the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has played down the risks of seafood contamination,” then other fisheries will have the opportunity to, sadly, make profit from the disaster. Not only will the price for fish rise but buyers will want to buy fish from fisheries that are not near the disaster, increasing business and therefore increasing profit for those fisheries. Considering there is no way to instantly produce a fish to sell, it will take some time for fisheries to catch up to the demand for fish but since Japan does not seem to be gaining much progress, these other companies will have time to increase their amount of fish raised and then sold. This is a great example of how competition can be a factor of demand, when a competitor’s product is labeled unsuitable the demand for the other companies product will rise. Also, it is an example of elasticity. Fish are not elastic, but in this scenario it is still smart for fisheries to plan ahead for the long run and raise more fish even though it will take some time.
I know it is said in the article that we will buy fish from fisheries that aren’t near the disaster but my only question is who exactly will we buy fish from? Because like it is said in the article, we get most of our fish from Japan and since their crisis is outrageous who will step up and take Japan’s spot. I totally agree with this article when they say we will have a much larger demand for fish and that the price for fish will also rise because some people like to eat healthy and most people who eat healthy eat fish. In the long run Japan should be able to get back on the market and sell fish again but not until the demand for their fish goes up. Until Japan gets back up on the market, in my opinion, fish will not be the same or taste as good.
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