JOETSU, Japan (Reuters) -For more than half a century, the Japanese government has encouraged its rice farmers to grow less of the crop so that prices of the national staple grain remained relatively ...

Shinjiro Koizumi, agriculture minister of Japan, eats a rice ball during his visit to a rice farm in Sugito, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. Credit - Soichiro Koriyama—Getty ...

In response to soaring supermarket rice prices, the Japanese government released 210,000 tonnes of rice from its emergency reserves in February 2025, despite an abundance of rice production in the ...

TOKYO (AP) -- Rice is essential to Japanese culture, tradition and politics. People take pride in the oval-shaped sticky Japonica grain, which is still a staple even though total consumption has ...

Remember when the price of eggs became a major issue in American politics? Well, in Japan, something similar is happening with rice. The price of this staple doubled in the last year, and that's one ...

Japan’s farm minister Taku Eto stepped down on Wednesday, domestic media reported, following public outrage over his comments on getting free rice. Eto said Sunday that he has never had to buy rice as ...

Donald Trump threatened Japan with higher tariffs after accusing it of refusing to buy American rice, despite data showing otherwise. “They won’t take our RICE and yet they have a massive rice ...

Japan’s farm minister Taku Eto stepped down on Wednesday, domestic media reported, following public outrage over his comments on getting free rice. Eto said Sunday that he has never had to buy rice as ...

The average price of rice sold at supermarkets across Japan has risen to a level just shy of the record high reached in ...

Whether it’s posting pictures of him eating gyudon (beef bowl) between meetings or holding rice balls at campaign stops, Shinjiro Koizumi has worked hard to portray himself as a regular Tokyoite. The ...

Japan to implement new agricultural policy for rice from 2027 Rice shortage leads to historic price spike and exposes limitations of old policy Trump pressures Japan on closed rice market as tariff ...