The results of a rare, closely viewed auction in Japan that ended this week will be released. But there were no paintings or antique cars at the auction block.
The government sells 165,000 tons of rice – equal to about two billion bowls – of its emergency stock to make up for more than 200,000 tons of which some Japanese news media say they have 'disappeared'.
But there is more to the story.
Japan does not have enough rice, a pillar of his diet. A shortage forced supermarkets to implement purchase limits, and rising prices have driven restaurants to increase the prices of daily food. Things have become so terrible that the government is ticking its emergency stock for the first time in an attempt to lower prices.
“Something really unthinkable is happening, so we have to bring the current abnormal situation back to normal,” Taku Eto, the Minister of Agriculture, last month to reporters, referring to the crisis and the three -day auction that ended on Wednesday.
How did this happen?
Rice started to be scarce in Japan last summer. Experts have attributed this to a confluence of factors, including record summer heat in 2023 that harm the harvest and natural disaster warnings that caused panic purchases.
Japan also strictly limits rice production to keep prices high and to support domestic rice growers, which means that small disruptions for the supply chain can have disproportionately large effects.
A bag of 11 pound rice now costs almost 4,000 yen ($ 27), double the price a year earlier. As prices began to rise last year, the authorities warned of buying panic, and said that the fall of the Japanese autumn falls would supplement shares and lower prices.
Only one of those two predictions came true. Although the harvest brought more rice than the crop of the previous year, the Japanese distributors had less to sell in 2024.
“Nobody knows,” said Shuji Hisano, a professor at the Graduate School of Economics at Kyoto University.
But experts inside and outside the government think they have a fairly good idea.
It has become more difficult to follow rice distribution in Japan, because policy changes growers have given more ways to sell rice without going through traditional great distributors, said Professor Hisano. That trend, plus strict limits for rice production, means that even small fluctuations in supply and demand can cause speculative buying and storage.
Speculants most likely rice because they think prices will rise, said Masayuki Ogawa, a university lecturer agricultural economy at Utsunomiya University.
“Some companies and individuals have started dealing with rice like a money game,” he said.
Will this auction help?
We will discover it in the coming weeks and months.
The government's decision to sell part of its strategic driving reserves at an auction was historic. In the past, the stock has been reserved for strengthening supplies in the case of natural disasters or failures of crops. This is the first time it is used to tackle distribution problems.
The government has set aside 231,000 tons to be released to match the national deficit. That figure represents more than a fifth of the total emergency stocks of Japan, which is stored at more than 300 locations.
Distributors offer on the first 165,000 tons in the auction, and the results – announced on Friday – will show how much tons has been sold. The government has said that the rice will flow to wholesalers and supermarkets, and that the remaining 66,000 tons later will be auctioned if necessary.
For a nation that runs in rice – the average Japanese person who used about 110 pounds per year from 2022, compared to 27 pounds per year for the average American – the uncertainty about rice stocks is disturbing.
“Rice is an integral part of the life of the Japanese people,” said Takao Iizuka, 62, from his shop in Tokyo. “I think because there are concerns about whether or not Rice is available, the Japanese are now worried.”
Mr. Iizuka sells Rice RAW to the bag and cooked in the form of rice balls with pickled plums, salmon and other fillings. Last month he was forced to increase the price of his $ 1 rice balls by around 20 percent to keep track of the rising prices of their main ingredient.
Now he is worried, he has worked in the store for the first time in the three decades, about whether he can find enough rice to go through the next harvest. One of his suppliers told him in January that they already had more rice the year.
“This is the first time I felt this feeling of fear,” he said.
