Article originally in the Financial Times. Other articles .
It only lasted a few minutes after opening, while the agricultural cooperative in Atami, the seaside town southwest of Tokyo, completely sold out supplies of subsidized Japanese rice. “This rice will only last a few weeks,” said 46-year-old Judzhiro Osaki, one of the dozens of people who stood in a row for a three-kilometer pocket just a few dollars cheaper than rice of the same quality in the supermarket. “It is ridiculous that Japan is in this situation.”
Rice on the historic maximum
Prime Minister Šiger Išiba, which is already unpopular after almost twice the domestic raising of rice prices in 2024, will be elected to the Upper Chamber of Parliament in July. Analysts assume that they will depend on public concern about the inflation and prices of rice.
The average price of a 60-kilometer bag of rice collected in 2024 reached a historic maximum of more than $ 26,400 ($ 184). Japan has not yet missed supplies, but it is still recovering from a weak crop in 2023, which came at a time when a long period of deflation in Japan and retail willingness increased increased prices.
Some people accumulated supplies and wholesalers deliberately detained rice in their warehouses. For the first time outside the natural disaster, the government used its strategic rice reserves. When some of them got on sale last weekend, huge, several -hour advice was created in supermarkets across the country.
The išiba establishes a special government committee that will discuss the urgent reform of rice policy. At the same time, he dismissed the Minister of Agriculture and appointed Šindžiró Koizumi, the charismatic and ambitious son of former Prime Minister Prime Minister Koizumi to resolve the crisis.
The government discouraged farmers
The long -term efforts of Japan to protect domestic farmers from outside competition and restriction of rice imports from abroad means that the solution will not be easy, said the Director of the Canon Institute of Global Studies and Japanese Rice expert Kazuhito Jamashita.
For decades, the government has focused on supporting rice prices to calm the critical voices of the rural population, but the rising prices have been affected by millions of families in cities, and inflation has thus became a more serious political problem.
Criticized is the government’s soil exemption program, which tried to raise rice prices by motivating farmers not to grow it. This policy ended in 2018.
“If Japan went to subsidies, as is the case in other countries, everything would have changed. Farmers could afford to accumulate more agricultural land, reduce their costs due to savings from the scope and produce more rice. Japan could be a world exporter of the highest quality rice if his policy did not fall in the opposite direction.”
Agriculture needs reform
Although the number of working Japanese farmers fell from 4.4 percent of the total population in 1976 to less than a percentage, they are still a strong lobby. “The decline in the number of farmers has actually facilitated the achievement of a single political consensus,” said Kunio Nisikawa, a rice expert from the University of Ibaraki.
“The Japanese electoral system means that a relatively large number of seats in parliament is assigned to rural areas, which strengthens the political influence of farmers.” He added that the declining number of farmers will ultimately facilitate the discussion of the extensive reform of agricultural policy.
“Even in the short -term horizon, because this rice crisis has become a topic of discussion for the whole nation, including consumers, I expect the reform of agricultural policy to progress now,” he said.
Given the extent of the price increase, the government may feel more pressure to calm consumers, said Tobias Harris, analyst at Japan Foresight. “However, it is clear that Išiba and Koizumi will have to find some way to calm the manufacturers in front of the campaign to the Upper Chamber of Parliament.”
The relief will only be temporary
The use of rice reserves can bring some relief, but analysts expect it to be only temporary. The chain effect of lack and rising prizes is to create a huge competition among teams shoppers of rice, which control approximately 40 percent of the Japanese market, wholesalers and other large subscribers such as national restaurant chains and food manufacturers.
Many teams turned directly to farmers and offered them prices that were around 26,000 yen for 60-kilometer bag. According to analysts, teams cannot now sell rice much cheaper without loss.
Meanwhile, in supermarkets across the country, the prices of Japanese grain are record high, the racks are empty or half -empty and in many stores there are inscriptions that indicate that customers who do not have money are looking for cheaper carbohydrate sources in bread and noodles.
In the city of Atami, an older couple left the trade in agricultural products with empty hands. The cheaper rice sold out until they got forward. “We asked them when there would be another sale,” the husband said. “They said they didn’t know.”
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