日本：油價飆升殃及學生午餐
Japanese school dinners hit by rising oil prices: report
A Japanese school boy eating steamed rice.
Soaring oil prices are having an impact on an unlikely place -- on school dinners in Japan.
A school in Yokohama near Tokyo has decided to cancel school dinners for two days in January on account of the recent spike in oil prices, media reports and an official said.
Ekoda elementary school had allotted an annual 40,000 yen (365 dollars) per student for lunches, but was going over budget, an education board official said.
In order to remedy the situation, school dinners and afternoon classes would be cancelled for two days in January, she said.
According to Kyodo News, the school told to parents that the record oil prices were driving up the costs of food.
Oil briefly rose above 99 US dollars per barrel for the first time on Wednesday as the greenback's fall drove demand for dollar-denominated crude.
Japan has virtually no energy resources of its own and is heavily reliant on imported produce, with its food self-sufficiency rate slipping below 40 percent last year for the first time in more than a decade.
The official said Ekoda was already serving more lunches than most other schools.
在日本，油價飛漲正在你想不到的地方產生影響，那就是學校的伙食供應。
據媒體報道及一名官員介紹，由於近期油價飆升，位於東京附近橫濱市的一所學校決定明年一月份取消兩天的伙食供應。
日本教育部的官員介紹說，立荏子田小學每名學生一年的午餐經費是4萬日元（365美元），但現在已經快超預算了。
針對這一狀況，學校決定取消一月份兩天的伙食供應並停課兩個下午。
據《朝日新聞》報道，校方已向學生家長們做出瞭解釋，稱決定採用此舉主要是因爲油價空前上漲造成食品成本也隨之上漲。
由於美元下跌造成以美元計價的原油需求量增大，原油價格於本週三首次突破每桶99美元。
日本資源匱乏，大量資源依靠進口。去年，日本的食品自給率十多年來首次跌至40%以下。
這位官員介紹，其實，立荏子田小學爲學生提供的午餐數量比其它大多數學校都要多。
on account of :由於
food self-sufficiency rate:食品自給率
