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Lower Rice Prices for Japan? You Wish.

October 24, 2007
By Ken Worsley


A few days ago, the Yomiuri told us that Japan’s rice prices are at risk of falling this winter due to oversupply and lack of demand. According to the public utility Kome Kakaku Center (Rice Planning Center), the average price for all brands of rice at the organization’s October 10 auction was 7.9% lower than last year.

If the prospect of paying less for your rice has you worried, there might be no need to fret. According to today’s Nikkei, the Ministry of Agriculture is considering buying about 230,000 tons of rice to add to its Strategic Rice Reserves (I made up that term; the Nikkei uses the decidedly unsexy “rice stockpiles” in its article).

Until now, the government has avoided purposely buying enough rice to cause artificial price changes. That policy just might be changing, however, as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has some people in the countryside it needs to keep happy. And apparently, some people in the cities it needs to keep paying through the nose.

Pasta looks like it’s going to stay cheap.

Filed Under Agriculture, Finance, Japan, Politics, Supply & Demand 

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Comments

3 Responses to “Lower Rice Prices for Japan? You Wish.”

  1. Garrett on October 24th, 2007 3:17 pm

    “Rice stockpiles”= artifical price inflation and protectionism

    “Strategic Rice Reserves”= Freedom. Defending our country against the threat of terrorism

    You should be hired as a consultant.

    I like to go to Kakuyasu and “guarantee our country’s future happiness by securing an ample liquid grain and malt supply.”

    On Sunday, I bought a case of Nest. I call this my “Japan First” policy.

    After valiantly defending the employment of brewers in Ibaraki, I broke a glass, thus denying it to the terrorists.

  2. Ken Worsley on October 24th, 2007 3:29 pm

    Garrett - I’m sure at some point in history, rice balls were slung at the Satsuma clan, to keep them west of the gate. Rice is thus the emperor’s weapon.

    I wonder how far off we are from the branding of “Terror Pasta” and “Terror Bread.”

    Maybe Nakatani can come out and say only terrorists don’t eat rice every day. Twice a day. Three times a day. Start revoking passports if rice consumption in a given household is too low. Make a note in the Honseki: eats pasta, bread.

    The the AGSDF (Agricultural Self-Defense Forces) can start supplying US ships with rice. But not if the rice is going to Iraq. That would be wrong and we’d have to spend weeks discussing it in the Diet.

  3. Garrett on October 24th, 2007 11:26 pm

    Good idea, Ken, but what if the sneaky Chinese snuck their indistinguishable, yet inferior koshi-hikari into the hold with the real deal, thus tarnishing Japan’s reputation by proximity to a cheap staple?

    Disaster.

    Basically, even though even Japanese rice farmers can’t tell their crop from its counterparts from China, Thailand, and California, anyone who tries to pay less for rice is a Communist/Islamofascist Jpan-bashing traitor who hates freddom and democracy. Bread-eaters should slather their bestial breakfast with foul human rights butter and choke on its high fat content and vitamins. Wheat is cheaper, requires less irrigation, and has big fat grains, thus it is for the workshy supporters of terrorism.

    Maghreb Arabs, who practice Islam and speak Arabic - just like Osama bin LAden - eat couscous, which is related to pasta. ‘Nuff said.

    I hereby call for a boycott on Suntory, producer of Malt’s Beer, which uses no rice, which is destroying the countryside.

    Because there is a can of Malt’s in my fridge, I shall also boycott myself, which will have the immediate benefit of stopping the degeneration of this thread.

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