As the festive season fast approaches, Japanese are slowly facing a shortage of butter in the country. Even the grocery stores are limiting the customers of purchasing just two packages of butter each due to shortage.
The government has earlier announced that it would import butter on emergency basis so as to ease the shortage of butter. The shortage of butter is caused due to various reasons including ageing farmers, stressed out cows, rising costs and price and trade restrictions. But the official reason for the shortage was the more than expected hot weather during summer in the northern island of Hokkaido.
Things are becoming tougher every day while handling the shortages as the Christmas Eve rush increases. The butter shelves in the stores are seen empty and are filled with cheese and other spreads instead. The cows are overworked and the farmers are finding it difficult to maintain them due to shortage of forage to feed them.
Day by day the Japanese dairy industry is declining more for the reason that many of the farmers are retiring without heirs willing to take over. Even the prices to maintain and feed the cattle is soaring everyday which lead to a cut in profits.
