Japanese rice exports hit an all-time high in spite of tight domestic supplies. Japanese rice exports NHK 24,469 tonnes from January to July, up 23% from the same period last year, Tuesday, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said Thursday. Meanwhile, after a rice drought in August, Nippon Rice went on the market in September. Japanese media have reported that the price of 2024 new rice in the country’s main rice producing areas has jumped by 20-40 per cent from last year. ?saka-fu officials on the 2 sept repeated calls for the central government to release rice reserves as soon as possible to ease supply constraints, but the central government officials refused. Experts interviewed by the Global Times said there were complex considerations behind the official refusal to release the rice, but with the new rice on the market, Japan could gradually resolve its rice shortage.
No Rice in August, price increase in September
Global Times staff in Japan recently saw in several supermarkets that counters such as bottled water and toilet paper, which had been sold out after the earthquake and typhoon, had already been restored to their original state. Only the empty shelves of rice remained conspicuous. At the Motomachi supermarket in Yokohama, the rice shelves used to be filled with several types of boxed instant rice. In the bird-like home shopping center, if you are lucky, you will catch the 20 or so bags of rice on the shelves in the morning, one bag per person. A few days ago, a reporter saw someone put the last four bags of rice into a shopping cart and then call relatives and friends to help pay the bill.
On August 27th a supermarket in Osaka put up notices saying there was no firm date for the arrival of rice.
Since July, there have been reports of rice shortages or even shortages in the Japanese news, but at that time only for some brands of rice. By August, Japan entered the”Rice shortage.”. Japanese authorities have blamed the rice shortage on extreme weather, increased tourism and hoarding.
Finally, in September, new rice came on the market, but the price rose sharply. The Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, reported that the price of new rice, a staple of the 2024, had risen by 20-40 per cent from last year. Recently, JA Group in Hokkaido and Akita Prefecture decided to pay high prices for farmers’ rice. This is mainly because of rising production costs, but also reflects the current extremely tight supply situation.
The Hand of the Japanese government
In this context, on August 26th Hirofumi Yoshimura, ?saka-fu’s governor, called on the Japanese government to release government rice reserves, saying there was “No need to let rice sleep in warehouses”. Sakamoto said at a press Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on August 30 that the new rice will be listed soon and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will not release the rice in reserve to avoid affecting the rice circulation. On September 2nd Yoshimura repeated his appeal, which was again rejected.
The rice in reserve refers to the rice that the Japanese government buys and stores every year. The total amount of rice that the Japanese government has in reserve is about 1 million tons. According to Japanese media reports, Japan has used rice reserves in the past precedent. When the 2011 earthquake and 2016 Kumamoto earthquake struck, Japan released its rice reserves.
“The Japanese government has a card in its hand, and the shortage of rice has not reached the critical point of the government, so there is no opening of the granary,” Zhang Yulai, a professor and deputy dean of the Institute of Japanese Studies at Nankai University, told the global times, the Japanese government did not release rice reserves, first and foremost with its traditional rice strict protection policy closely related. In order to protect domestic rice, the country imposed a “Minimum entry level” system on rice imports, and only gradually relaxed the Brown rice (brown rice) import quota after 1995. Even so, the country’s Food self-sufficiency ratio problems are getting worse, with heat-based Food self-sufficiency ratio falling from 73% in 1965 to 38% of 2023. Although less than 40% of the Food self-sufficiency ratio is made in Japan, the country mostly relies on domestic rice production, which is about 7M tonnes a year.
Zhang argues that by not Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Rice, they are also protecting the interests of Japanese farmers and trying to protect their food self-sufficiency. Since April 2022, domestic prices in Japan have started to rise due to factors such as soaring import prices and a sharp weakening of the yen. Relevant Japanese interest groups believe that imported inflation has led to an increase in grain prices, it is now Japan’s turn to domestic rice rose by 20-40% is also normal, which has also benefited the Japanese farmer community.
Japan’s Kyodo News Agency reported on Aug. 30 that the Consumer price index for the 23rd District of Tokyo rose 2.4 percent to 107.9 in August from a year earlier. Zhang said the government had maintained its 2 per cent inflation target and was happy to keep the trend under control in spite of rising rice prices.
Export in case of shortage
Against this backdrop, the Japanese government still has the courage to insist on rice exports. According to NHK, rice exports reached more than 24,000 tonnes between January and July, the highest level since records began in 2014. Mainly exported to the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and other countries and regions of overseas Japanese restaurants.
Asked why Sakamoto was still exporting rice when it was in short supply at home, the company said it had exported 37,000 tonnes of rice last year, compared with 1.56 m tonnes of domestic stocks at the end of June, therefore, the domestic rice market will not cause too much impact.
How will the rice crisis in Japan be resolved? Zhang Yulai told the global times that rice imports from Japan are likely to increase in the future. The last rice shortage in Japan was in 1993. Japan set up a rice reserve system after a sharp drop in rice production due to weather, when many countries, including China, exported rice to Japan to help ease the crisis. In fact, while Japan is protecting domestic rice, it is also importing some rice. Some Japanese fast food restaurants, domestic feed products and so on mostly use imported rice. In addition, Zhang said, the yen has strengthened against the dollar since July and August, and a stronger yen has helped lower the cost of imported agricultural products.
Zhang Yulai said that Japanese authorities need to release stocks of rice to the market every year, storage of new rice, a combination of means, will moderate the tight supply of Japanese rice situation.