In the United States, the availability of eggs has promoted national debate – the role aimed at the economy and the government. In Japan, there is equivalent: rice.
In the last year, Japan has had more than 200,000 tonnes. Rice prices have reduced, and supermarkets had to reduce the amounts that buyers can buy. The situation became so terrifying that the government had to touch his emergency rice reserves.
It is naught to reduce how many people who grow by the government that pays the shortage of Japan. The policy for more than half a century consumes a million dollars a year in public spending.
Farmers nervous with government regulations protested on Sunday. In the central Tokyo Park under the cherry flowers, more than 4,000 farmers, wearing straw hats and solar caps, they met with signs that declare “rice life” and “we do rice but we can’t do it.” Twenty-thirty tractors were driven on skyscraper pages in the capital.
Japan’s ability to manage their rice problem can have significant consequences in the country’s political and economic landscape in the next few months.
Last month, fresh food inflation rose by 19 percent, driven by 81 percent increase in rice price. The cost of food and other staples has weighed in Japanese and economy, as homes have reduced expenditure.
Japanese bad food deficiencies also occur in front of an election in the upper UPAIN – expected in July – Shigeru Ishiba’s first first class interrogation. His predecessor resigned last August, looking at the rating of public acceptance caused by the cost of basic goods.
The deficiency of rice arises from a mixture of factors, including the hot summer, in 2023, affected by the harvest and the tourism caused by rice.
However, experts say the root is in the decades that effectively reduced the growing soil rice. Since the 1970s, Japan has subsidized farmers to reduce rice production. The goal, officials say that farmers are protecting the tickets, maintaining high prices.
Sunday Protest farmers said Policy does not work.
In 2022, the average earnings of rice farmers were about $ 23,000, according to statistics From the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture. This level of income is not enough to attract young farmers, the industry quickly aggraes and reduces thousands of thousands of thousands each year.
“If things continue to do so, our farms will disappear. The products we produce will disappear,” Yoshihide Kanno, 75, rice in the Preffeople of Tokyo, and one of the leaders of the demonstration. “Before that happens, we need to change the wrong Japanese agricultural policies.”
Over the last five decades, Mr. Kanno said, as they ignore the third of rice in his town. “Why should we reduce production when scarcity and fields are available?” Mr. Kanno asked. “If my son and grandchildren continue in agriculture, it must be a long-term vision.”
Japan has continued to comply with a rice production policy, compared to the prices and the European Union, with systems that are as many as farmers to produce as many products, while subsidizing price-related losses.
Accepting similar policies in Japan is accepting about $ 2.65 million per year, compared to 2.32 trillion dollars that encourage farmers, according to Nobuhiro Suzuki, is a professor at the University of Tokyoki specializing in the agricultural economy.
While a little more expensive, the production-focused policy would increase rice supply, while improving Japanese food safety, while the price of consumers, Mr. Suzuki said. By allowing farmers to grow without restrictions, the industry would make the entry back more attractive for new generations of staff, he said.
Why rice production restriction policies have dominated. Mr. Suzuki believes that it is a stem from a wider trend within Japanese government, justifying the marginal increase in agricultural expenditure. As Suggesting Pork barrel policy level can be a factor.
A spokesperson for the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture said: “As with anything else,” it promotes a level of rice lining the government with demand projections.
Historically, Japanese discussions have made political changes in agricultural policy. In 2007, it is a key factor in the shortest party in the Liberal Party. The power that almost continually maintained in 1955 was almost constantly maintained – it was the opposition aspects of the drop in the production of rice.
For now, it is clear until the basic reform of agricultural policy, the lack of rice, said Suzuki Lord, Professor at the University of Tokyo. This means going to the summer election: “The anger of farmers and citizens will continue to rise.”
2025-03-30 09:19:00
