In the wheat market, Nissin Flour Milling, the industry leader, has been buying up smaller firms and is taking an axe to its cost base before import controls are dismantled.

ECONOMIST: Japan��s food industry

Hence the giant companies that straddle the food industry concentrate on the heady work of marketing, leaving the messy mechanics of flour and water to humbler firms.

ECONOMIST: Outsourcing: Separate and lift | The

As plant genetics research advances, however, industry scientists hope that it will be possible to breed cottonseed that produces superior flour, high-quality lint, and oil, so that almost every ingredient in a birthday cake can be produced with the leftovers from Nelson's cotton production.

NPR: Texas Cotton: 'Farmer Profits at Every Step'

They are so confident about their work that they believe the fungus technique could lead to small-scale industry in towns across Africa, where the spores could be grown on sorghum and rice flour.

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