Japan’s Rice Prices Double, Yet Farmers Shun the Crop
Foodthink Says
But is Japan really short on rice? In fact, Japan’s rice production has been in surplus since the 1960s. Rice has become the only major agricultural commodity this nation can still produce for itself, despite its overall food self-sufficiency rate plummeting to 38%. This isn’t due to high yields, but rather the steady post-war decline in domestic consumption. While the Japanese still revere rice as a staple, decades of modernisation under American economic, cultural, and diplomatic influence have westernised their diets and diversified their main courses.
Rarely discussed are the deeper issues lurking behind this latest price surge, or how rice—a source of national pride and one of the most vital symbols of Japanese culture—has slowly reached this juncture.
I. So, What Exactly Has Happened?
The price hikes and supply shortages that began last summer trace back to Japan’s 2023 heatwave. The extreme temperatures caused chalkiness in the grains, reducing the yield of edible rice. From August onwards, fear of shortages sparked panic buying, with supermarkets and other retailers seeing rice purchases surge to 1.5 times their usual volume.
Beyond climate-driven crop shortfalls, the Japanese government also pointed to a surge in inbound tourism. The influx of visitors drove up rice consumption, tightening supplies further.
At the time, the government’s stance was that the problem would resolve itself once the new harvest arrived in October. However, rather than easing back to normal levels, prices continued to climb. By November 2024, rice prices remained 60% higher than the previous year.
According to June figures, the average price for 5kg of rice stood at 3,920 yen, dipping below 4,000 yen (approx. RMB 200) for the first time in roughly three and a half months. Although this achieves Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s stated goal, prices for certain branded varieties have defied the trend and actually risen.
Price data published by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in June indicates that in Tokyo’s 23 special wards, 5kg of Koshihikari rice costs 5,072 yen including tax – up by 102 yen from May. This marks the fourteenth consecutive month of price increases. Year-on-year, prices have surged by 2,511 yen, more than doubling.
II. Is Japan short of rice?
Ding Wei, who lives in Kobe, notes that rice remains available in supermarkets near her home, albeit at more than double the 2023 price. Fortunately, her own diet relies on a more varied range of staples, so her daily consumption of rice is minimal. Nevertheless, the price surge could place a significant strain on households of four or five.
Zhang Manqing from Kyoto University’s Centre for Field Science Education and Research echoes this observation. She has seen no signs of scarcity; supermarket shelves are restocked daily, though prices have climbed sharply. She points out that between 2015 and 2020, rice in Japan cost around ¥2,000 for a 5 kg bag. Today, that same quantity fetches between ¥4,000 and ¥5,000—a rise of two to two-and-a-half times.
Beneath the soaring prices and apparent supply shortages lies a longstanding feature of Japanese agricultural policy: a deliberate effort to curb supply in order to prop up rice prices. This inevitably brings us to Japan’s ‘production-adjustment’ policy.
In 1955, Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate stood at 88 per cent. Yet as the 1960s dawned, a complex interplay of geopolitics, international trade and socio-economic development pushed Japan further from its agrarian roots. The nation’s policies, mainstream attitudes and traditional farming ethos gradually diverged. This shift was not unique to Japan; South Korea and Taiwan underwent similar transformations, their economies, politics and cultures heavily shaped by American influence. All three regions pivoted towards export-oriented manufacturing while importing vast quantities of wheat, maize and other staples from the United States. From this point onward, agriculture and rural communities began to drift to the margins of society.
Accelerated industrialisation drew millions from the countryside into cities to fill labour shortages, fundamentally altering dietary patterns. The adoption of Western eating habits was even widely regarded as a hallmark of national modernisation.
On the one hand, Japan’s economy and trade became deeply intertwined with those of the United States. On the other, American food diplomacy actively encouraged Japanese consumers to favour US produce. The US flooded the Japanese market with wheat, meat, and soybeans and maize intended for animal feed. During this era, Japanese dietary standards gradually aligned with the American model, which prioritised animal protein as a measure of nutritional adequacy. Eating habits shifted accordingly, gravitating towards Western staples like meat, eggs, dairy, bread and pasta, while rice consumption naturally declined.
The figures tell a clear story. By the 1960s, Japan’s overall food self-sufficiency rate had plummeted to below 50 per cent. Rice, however, remained entirely domestically produced, maintaining a 100 per cent self-sufficiency rate. Conversely, imports accounted for more than 90 per cent of other crops such as soybeans and grains. In 1962, per capita rice consumption stood at 118.3 kilograms—roughly equivalent to 5.4 bowls of rice daily. From that point forward, demand for rice steadily waned as consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products rose. By 2020, per capita rice intake had fallen to just 50.8 kilograms.
By the 1970s, as Japanese consumers no longer required such large quantities of rice, the country began to adjust its agricultural structure and policies. To prevent price collapses and financial losses for smallholder farmers caused by oversupply, Japan introduced the “production reduction policy”. This scheme controlled the area devoted to rice cultivation and subsidised farmers to switch to large-scale cash crops, stabilising rice prices while securing farmers’ incomes.
Under the pressure of the “production reduction policy”, Japan’s rice output declined significantly. Production fell from over 13 million tonnes in the late 1960s to 8.5 million tonnes in 2010, and dropped further to 7.76 million tonnes by 2020. Yet even with lower yields, domestic supply remained sufficient. In 2020, for instance, average per capita rice consumption stood at 50.8 kg, roughly equivalent to 2.3 bowls of rice per person each day. Wheat-based staples such as bread and pasta had steadily encroached on rice’s traditional place at the table.
III. The Policy Shadow Cast Over the Rice Paddies
Hampered by climate change, output dipped to 6.61 million tonnes in 2023, before edging up to 6.83 million tonnes in 2024. From a high of 13 million tonnes in the 1960s to half that figure today, production has undoubtedly fallen. But has price stability followed? Have rice farmers’ incomes found security?
To Chinese eyes, Japanese rice may seem prohibitively expensive, yet the purchasing price paid to Japanese growers has long been kept comparatively low. In recent years, the production cost for 60 kg of rice in Japan has run to about 15,000 yen (approximately 750 yuan), while the purchasing price stands at a mere 12,000 yen (around 600 yuan). The government must still top up a 3,000 yen subsidy simply to cover the farmers’ losses.
As Zhang Manqing notes, prior to the recent ‘Reiwa Rice Turmoil’, the Japanese academic consensus held that an average price of 2,000 yen for 5 kg of rice was depressingly low, leaving farmers with little profit. Today, however, that same 5 kg costs between 4,000 and 5,000 yen—a price many consumers find hard to swallow. She suggests that stabilising prices around 3,000 yen would likely strike the fairest balance for both growers and buyers.
IV. Who Sets the Price?
Beyond agricultural services, it also offers financial products, standing as one of Japan’s largest regional financial institutions. Furthermore, because the association maintains close ties with the overwhelming majority of farming households, it wields considerable political clout, capable of not only steering agricultural policy but even swaying election outcomes. In reality, today’s rice prices in Japan are set by the association itself.
Views on the agricultural cooperatives vary considerably among farmers. Some larger operations welcome them for the convenience they offer, providing support from seed supply all the way to market. For farmers without their own distribution networks, relying on the cooperatives is often the only option.
Farmers who entrust their produce to the cooperatives must pay a commission of between 15 per cent and 20 per cent. For smallholders, this cost is often prohibitive. Furthermore, the cooperatives apply stringent purchasing criteria, meaning it is far from easy to secure a premium price.
Zhang Manqing told Foodthink that the cooperatives enforce what she describes as overly rigid procurement rules, grading produce not only on flavour but with obsessive attention to cosmetic standards. Taking cucumbers as an example, they must fall within precise length tolerances; falling even slightly outside these specifications results in a ‘Grade 2′ classification and a reduced price. Curved specimens are often deemed unfit for fresh sale altogether, relegated instead to pickling operations at rock-bottom rates. While consumers often marvel at the pristine fruit and vegetables in Japanese supermarkets, the reality is that meeting such exacting cosmetic standards is incredibly demanding for growers.
Consequently, a growing number of farmers are seeking alternative distribution channels in an effort to break free from the cooperatives’ market dominance.
A number of smallholders are now pursuing a premium approach, supplying niche supermarkets with smaller batches of high-quality crops, or experimenting with direct-to-consumer models. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) represents another emerging pathway. When travelling through the Japanese countryside, visitors frequently encounter farmhouse rice from local producers. During this recent ‘rice shortage’, the output and pricing of such direct-market varieties remained relatively insulated from wider market volatility.
V.Rural Decline: What Lies Ahead for Agriculture?
Declining birth rates and an ageing population affect every sector of Japanese society, but the impact is particularly acute in agriculture. In 2020, 70% of farmers were aged 65 or over, while only 11% were 49 or younger. By 2023, the average age of a Japanese farmer had risen to 68.7 years.
As the average age continues to climb and more farmers retire, the shortage of agricultural labour intensifies. This skewed demographic profile poses a formidable challenge to domestic production.
According to a 2020 survey published by the Policy Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, over 70% of farm operators had yet to identify a successor for the next five years. Among those aged 70 and above who are likely to step down soon, fewer than 30% have a confirmed successor in place. The lack of successors is particularly pronounced in fruit, rice, and open-field vegetable farming, where approximately 70% of operators have found no one to take over. These figures underscore an increasingly dire succession crisis threatening the future of Japanese agriculture.
In Japan, farming is widely regarded as a “hard, dirty and dull” occupation. Young people feel the returns do not justify the labour and capital invested; given the same time and effort, urban jobs offer substantially higher pay, so they prefer city employment to tending the land. Older generations of farmers are likewise reluctant to pass the trade on to their children.
According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, full-time rice farmers who rely solely on the crop to sustain their household income see an average annual profit of between ¥2.5 and ¥3 million (roughly 125,000–150,000 yuan). This is hardly a high income by Japanese standards.
To take an extreme example: in 2022, following a sharp collapse in rice prices, the average annual income for all rice farmers in Japan plummeted to just ¥10,000. Divided by total working hours, this worked out to roughly ¥10 an hour. That year, “rice farmers earning ¥10 an hour” topped Japanese search trends. While this figure is merely an estimate—derived by dividing the 2022 average income by annual working hours—and does not capture the full picture, it starkly illustrates the severe impact of rice prices on farmers’ earnings. As recently as March this year, demonstrations erupted in several Japanese cities, with farmers demanding a pay raise above that “¥10 an hour” benchmark.
By 2023, rice prices had recovered, lifting the average hourly wage for all rice farmers to ¥63 (approx. 3.15 yuan), while full-time farmers (those whose primary occupation is agriculture) earned around ¥1,000 an hour (approx. 50 yuan). At first glance, this hourly rate seems substantial, yet it merely aligns with Japan’s minimum wage. Moreover, this figure is calculated based on the earnings of full-time farmers running large-scale operations; smallholders still fall short of this level.
Between sluggish rice prices, an ageing rural population, and a lack of young people willing to take up farming, more than 10,000 hectares of paddy fields are abandoned every year.
According to data published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 2022, Japan’s total cultivated land area stands at 4.325 million hectares, a drop of 24,000 hectares (0.6%) from the previous year. Paddy fields specifically cover 2.352 million hectares, down by 14,000 hectares.
An ageing demographic also contributes to farmland abandonment in another way. Zhang Manqing told Foodthink that as rural populations shrink, wild animals from the forests descend more frequently to raid villages and damage crops. Citing safety concerns, farmers are often the first to abandon terraced fields on mountainsides or plots bordering forested areas. Given that around 70% of Japan is mountainous, and many of these mountain terraces are used for rice cultivation, dropping mountain farming directly cuts into national yields.
Once rural populations fall below a critical threshold, the social infrastructure of village communities begins to collapse. Essential services such as hospitals, schools, and public transport grind to a halt. During a public lecture, Professor Emeritus Eiji Yamaji of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Agriculture noted that, driven by outmigration and an ageing demographic, roughly 7,000 settlements have vanished across Japan over the past thirty years.
Should this trend persist, rice shortages could become an annual fixture. When that day comes, the consequences will extend far beyond soaring prices; Japan risks losing its farmers and its countryside altogether.
Japan is set to begin its new rice harvest in September this year. Will prices continue their upward trajectory? Will this year’s farmers actually see the benefits of higher rice prices? We will continue to monitor the situation closely.
Editor: Tianle