December 25, 2024 | 00:53 GMT +7

  • Click to copy
Thursday- 13:47, 08/08/2024

Japan’s rice stocks drop to lowest level in decades amid tourist boom and poor crop yields

(VAN) Japan’s agriculture ministry blames shortage on tourists’ vast demand for rice and low crop yields last year.
Japanese rice inventories have fallen to the lowest levels since 1999. Photograph: MIXA/Getty Images

Japanese rice inventories have fallen to the lowest levels since 1999. Photograph: MIXA/Getty Images

Japan’s rice stockpile has fallen to the lowest level this century, with a tourism boom part of the cause, government officials say.

Private-sector inventories of rice fell to 1.56m tons in June, down 20% from a year earlier and the lowest since 1999, when comparable data was first gathered, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. It attributed the decrease to the high temperatures that hit crops in 2023 as well as demand from inbound visitors. Last year Japan recorded its hottest September since records began 125 years ago.

“The chief reasons behind the record-low inventory is a decline in production last year due to high temperatures combined with water shortages, and the relative cheapness of rice prices compared to prices of other crops such as wheat,” farm ministry official Hiroshi Itakura told Agence France-Presse.

“The increase in demand by foreign tourists has also contributed,” Itakura said, and added that “we are not in a situation of facing shortages of rice”.

The trading price for rice has hit a 30-year high, wholesalers are running low on stock and some supermarkets have decided to further raise prices and limit purchases, according to Japanese news reports. The situation is expected to continue until September, when rice from this year’s harvest will become available.

As diets in Japan become more westernised, demand for rice has fallen. Amid the country’s demographic crisis, lower rice prices have discouraged younger people from becoming farmers of the cereal, resulting in increasingly elderly growers and abandoned rice paddies giving way to nature and nearby wildlife, the Mainichi reports.

However, demand for rice rose to 7m tons between June 2023 and last month, up 100,000 tons from a year earlier and the first rise in 10 years. During the same period, foreign tourists more than doubled compared with a year earlier. Japan welcomed 17.78 million tourists in the first half of 2024, a million more than pre-pandemic levels, figures showed earlier this month.

Assuming foreign tourists ate two meals with rice a day, the ministry estimated their demand for rice amounted to 51,000 tons, up 2.7 times from a year earlier.

Despite the price pressure, there are no plans to tap the government’s stockpile of 910,000 tons, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. The emergency stores were first created when a bad harvest from an unseasonably cool summer in 1993 caused critical rice shortages.

H.D

(The Guardian)

How to repair the planet? One answer might be hiding in plain sight

How to repair the planet? One answer might be hiding in plain sight

(VAN) We tend to look at environmental problems in isolation. A holistic approach would be more effective, a new report says.

Georgia farmers still grappling with $5.5 billion in Hurricane Helene storm losses

Georgia farmers still grappling with $5.5 billion in Hurricane Helene storm losses

(VAN) Twisted equipment and snapped tree limbs still litter Chris Hopkins’ Georgia farm more than two months after Hurricane Helene made its deadly march across the South.

US poultry sector prepares for mass deportations

US poultry sector prepares for mass deportations

(VAN) The US poultry processing industry has long relied on illegal workers, but huge adjustments are going to have to be made after President-elect Donald Trump takes power on 20 January 2025.

The future is dry: Why soil is the sexiest climate solution

The future is dry: Why soil is the sexiest climate solution

(VAN) Drought is projected to affect 75% of the world's population by 2050. Take that in.

Environmentalists call for a revision of poultry welfare standards

Environmentalists call for a revision of poultry welfare standards

(VAN) Voice of Animals, a Russian NGO, has prepared amendments to the draft veterinary regulation in the poultry industry, which is scheduled to come into force on 1 August 2025.

Hunger in the Arab region reaches a new height as challenges intensify

Hunger in the Arab region reaches a new height as challenges intensify

(VAN) From the FAO Regional Office for the Near East and North Africa.

A year of change for the UK poultry industry

A year of change for the UK poultry industry

(VAN) A year of change for both the UK’s broiler and egg sectors is highlighted in this year’s Andersons annual Outlook report.

Read more