Japan’s Rice Prices Double — Yet Farmers No Longer Want to Grow It
Foodthink Says
But does Japan really lack rice? In fact, rice production has been in surplus since the 1960s. Rice has become the only major agricultural product that Japan — whose food self-sufficiency rate has slid all the way down to 38% — can produce for itself. This is not a credit to high rice yields, but rather the result of rice consumption steadily declining since the war. Although the Japanese treasure rice like a prized possession, modernisation — shaped by American influence in economics, culture and diplomacy — long ago Westernised their diet and diversified their staple choices.
How rice, a food the Japanese take pride in and one of the most important symbols of Japanese culture, has come to the point it is at today — the deeper issues behind this surge in rice prices — has seldom been addressed.
I. What Has Happened?
Rice prices in Japan began climbing last summer, and supply thinned. The trigger was the high temperatures in 2023, which caused chalkiness in the grains and reduced the yield of edible rice. By August, many consumers, fearful of running out, started panic-buying, pushing supermarket rice purchases to 1.5 times their usual volume.
Beyond the reduced harvest caused by climate change, the Japanese government also attributed the price rise to a surge in inbound tourists, whose consumption of rice drove demand even higher and tightened supply further.
At the time, the government’s verdict was that the problem would sort itself out once the new-crop rice hit the market in October. Yet after the new-crop rice arrived, prices did not retreat to normal levels. They kept climbing instead. In November 2024, rice prices were still 60% higher than for the same period the previous year.
The Statistics Bureau’s June price data show that in the 23 special wards of Tokyo, a 5 kg bag of Koshihikari rice, including tax, cost 5,072 yen — 102 yen more than in May. This marked the 14th consecutive month of price increases, with the cost up 2,511 yen from a year earlier — more than a doubling.
II. Does Japan Really Lack Rice?
Ding Wei, who lives in Kobe, has noticed that the supermarket near her home has always stocked rice — though at more than double the 2023 price. Fortunately, her staple diet is varied and her daily rice needs are modest, but she acknowledges that rising prices could be a real strain on a family of four or five.
Zhang Manqing from Kyoto University’s Field Science Education and Research Center also reported that she had not observed any actual rice shortage — supermarkets restock every day — though the price increases have been steep. She gave an example: between 2015 and 2020, rice in Japan cost roughly 2,000 yen per 5 kg. At present, prices sit between 4,000 and 5,000 yen — an increase of two to two-and-a-half times.
Behind the soaring rice prices and supply shortages lies a long-standing agricultural policy in Japan that suppresses supply in order to prioritise price stability — one cannot avoid mentioning the “rice acreage reduction policy”.
Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate reached 88% in 1955. From the 1960s onwards, under the combined influence of geopolitics, international trade and social development, Japan’s agrarianism — both as a philosophy and as a body of policy — drifted steadily from the social mainstream. Not only Japan: South Korea and Taiwan saw their economies, politics and cultures powerfully shaped by the United States during this period, beginning to shift toward export-oriented manufacturing while importing vast quantities of wheat, maize and other food crops from America. Agriculture and the countryside were marginalised from this point on.
As industrialisation accelerated, the demand for labour drew vast numbers of people from the countryside into the cities, and dietary patterns began to shift. The Westernisation of eating habits has traditionally been regarded as one marker of national modernisation.
On one hand, Japan’s economy and trade were deeply tethered to the United States; in turn, America’s food diplomacy strategy pushed Japanese consumers towards American produce. The United States exported large quantities of wheat to Japan, along with meat and soybeans and maize for animal feed. During this period, the Japanese began to accept the American standard of judging nutritional intake by animal protein, and dietary habits gravitated towards a Western diet centred on meat, eggs and dairy, bread and pasta, correspondingly reducing rice consumption.
Looking at the data, Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate fell sharply in the 1960s, dropping below 50%, yet rice self-sufficiency remained at 100%. Beyond rice, soybeans and other cereals all relied on imports, with external dependency exceeding 90% in each case. In 1962, per-capita rice consumption in Japan stood at 118.3 kg — the equivalent of about 5.4 bowls of rice per person per day. Since then, Japanese demand for rice has been declining while consumption of meat, eggs and dairy has risen. By 2020, per-capita rice consumption had dropped to 50.8 kg.
By the 1970s, the Japanese no longer needed quite so much rice, and Japan began adjusting its agricultural structure and policies. To prevent a fall in prices caused by surplus production — a risk that would cause small farmers losses — the government introduced the “rice acreage reduction programme”. It controlled the area planted to rice, subsidised farmers to switch to large-scale cash crops, maintained stable rice prices and safeguarded farm incomes.
Under the strict constraints of the acreage reduction programme, Japan’s rice output fell markedly. Production dropped from over 13 million tonnes in the late 1960s to 8.5 million tonnes by 2010, and further to 7.76 million tonnes by 2020. Even so, Japan’s rice supply was still sufficient for domestic consumption. In 2020, per capita rice consumption stood at 50.8 kg — roughly 2.3 bowls a day per person. Wheat-based staples such as bread and pasta had taken rice’s place on the table.
III. Policy Shadows Cast on the Rice Paddies
In 2023, the impact of climate change pushed output down to 6.61 million tonnes. In 2024, it recovered slightly to 6.83 million tonnes. From the 1960s peak of 13 million tonnes, production has halved — but has price stability been achieved? Are rice farmers’ incomes secure?
From a Chinese perspective, Japanese rice may seem expensive, but in reality the farm-gate purchase price has long been on the low side. In recent years, the cost of producing 60 kg of rice in Japan has been around 15,000 yen (approximately RMB 750), yet the purchase price is only 12,000 yen (approximately RMB 600). The government must still contribute a 3,000 yen subsidy to make up the farmer’s loss.
Zhang Manqing notes that before the Reiwa Rice Riots, academic consensus in Japan held that an average price of 2,000 yen for 5 kg was too low — farmers earned very little — yet at the current 4,000–5,000 yen for 5 kg, consumers struggle to bear the cost either. She believes that a price hovering around 3,000 yen would be a fair compromise for both farmers and consumers.
IV. Who Sets the Price?
Beyond agricultural services, JA also provides financial services and is one of Japan’s largest regional financial institutions. At the same time, because it encompasses the overwhelming majority of farming households, it wields considerable political influence — able not only to sway agricultural policy but even to affect election outcomes. In practice, today’s Japanese rice prices are set by JA.
Different farmers hold mixed views on JA. Some larger-scale farmers find it convenient, since JA provides support across the entire chain from seed to sale. In particular, farmers without their own sales channels have little choice but to rely on JA.
However, entrusting JA with sales requires paying a commission of 15–20%. For many smallholders, this is difficult to absorb. Moreover, JA’s purchasing conditions are stringent, and securing a high purchase price is far from easy.
Zhang Manqing told Foodthink that JA enforces many exasperatingly rigid rules on procurement — it prices not only on taste and quality but also strictly on appearance. Take cucumbers, for example: they must meet JA’s exact specifications — not one millimetre shorter or longer will do — and anything outside the spec is graded “second class”, fetching a lower purchase price. A crooked cucumber may not even qualify for “grading” at all, destined instead for pickling at the lowest possible price. People often marvel at the beautifully presented fruit and vegetables in Japanese supermarkets, but in truth, achieving those standards is extraordinarily demanding for a grower.
Consequently, a growing number of farmers are seeking alternative sales channels, trying to break free from JA’s monopoly.
Some smallholders have turned to a boutique approach, supplying small volumes of premium-quality produce to select supermarkets, or attempting to connect directly with consumers. CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) is one such model. Travelling through rural Japan, visitors frequently encounter farm-direct rice from various regions — these small-batch rices have been comparatively insulated from the broader market disruptions during this rice crisis.
V. Rural Decline — Where Does Agriculture Go from Here?
Declining birth rates and an ageing population are challenges felt across all sectors of Japanese society, but agriculture is hit particularly hard. In 2020, 70% of farmers were aged 65 or over; just 11% were aged 49 or under. By 2023, the average age of a Japanese farmer had reached 68.7.
As the average age climbs ever higher and more farmers retire, the labour shortage deepens. This skewed age structure poses a severe challenge to agricultural production.
According to a census published in 2020 by the Japan Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Policy Research, over 70% of farm operating entities had “no confirmed successor” for the coming five years. Among those operated by a principal aged 70 or over who would shortly need to hand over, fewer than 30% had “a confirmed successor”. In fruit cultivation, rice farming and open-field vegetable growing, the proportion with “no successor identified” stood at around 70% — all pointing to an increasingly urgent crisis of succession in agriculture.
In Japan, agriculture is often described as “tough, dirty and dull” work. Young people feel that the input and return are out of proportion — for the same time and effort, a city job pays better, so they would rather commute to an office than till a paddy. The older generation of farmers themselves have little desire to see their children continue farming.
According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, full-time rice farmers who rely solely on rice to sustain their household income earn an annual profit averaging between 2.5 million and 3 million yen (approximately RMB 125,000–150,000). By Japanese standards, this is not a high income.
Consider an extreme case: in 2022, rice prices crashed, and the average income of all rice farmers fell to just 10,000 yen. Divided by hours worked, that equates to roughly 10 yen per hour. That year, “Rice farmers earn 10 yen an hour” became a trending topic in Japan. The figure was derived by dividing rice farmers’ average annual income by their total working hours; while it cannot capture the full reality, it starkly illustrates how heavily rice prices bear on farm incomes. This past March, farmer demonstrations demanding a raise to the “10-yen-an-hour” wage benchmark sprang up in several Japanese cities.
By 2023, as rice prices recovered, the average hourly wage for all rice farmers rose to 63 yen (approximately RMB 3.15), and that of full-time farmers (those for whom agriculture is their primary occupation) reached around 1,000 yen (approximately RMB 50). That hourly figure may look generous at first glance, but it is roughly on par with Japan’s minimum wage — and it is calculated from the income of full-time farmers operating large-scale farms. Smallholders’ earnings do not yet reach this level.
Various factors — sluggish rice prices, rural ageing, and the absence of successors in farming — also account for the loss of more than 10,000 hectares of paddy fields every year.
Data published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 2022 showed that Japan’s total arable land stood at 4.325 million hectares, a decrease of 24,000 hectares (0.6%) on the previous year; paddy field area came to 2.352 million hectares, down 14,000 hectares year on year.
Ageing bears on farmland abandonment in yet another way. Zhang Manqing told Foodthink that as rural populations shrink, wild animals from the mountains descend more frequently to raid villages and destroy crops. For reasons of safety, farmers tend to be the first to give up terraced paddies on hillsides or plots bordering forested slopes. Since 70% of Japan’s terrain is mountainous, and many upland terraces grow rice, relinquishing the hills directly cuts rice output.
Once a rural settlement’s population falls below a certain threshold, its basic living functions collapse, and services such as hospitals, schools and transport also grind to a halt. In an open lecture, Professor Eiji Yamaji, honorary professor at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tokyo, once remarked that depopulation and ageing had seen some 7,000 settlements vanish across Japan over the past thirty years.
If this trajectory continues, rice shortages may well recur year after year, and by then it may not simply be prices that soar — the Japanese public will have lost their farmers and their countryside as well.
Come September, Japan will welcome yet another rice harvest. Will prices climb again? Can farmers expect to benefit from the surge this year? We will continue to follow the story.
Editor: Tianle