Reviewing Rice Price Surge and Rebuilding Supply Policies

For rice, Japan’s staple food, production fell below demand and private inventories declined during the summer 2024 gap between crop seasons. The announcement of temporary information on the Nankai Trough earthquake and increased purchasing associated with earthquakes and typhoons intensified the sense of shortage, and supply concerns spread in 2025.

The retail price in May 2025 was about twice the price in the same month of the previous year and remained flat even after September 2025, when the new crop began to circulate in earnest. The relative transaction price for the 2024 crop rose 64.4% from the previous crop, while that for the 2025 crop was up 44.2% from the previous crop as of February 2026.

The background included production and demand forecasts based on an expected downward trend in demand due to population decline, while actual demand grew because of inbound demand, declining milling yields, and increased household purchases. From 2023/24 onward, production fell short of demand, and the drawdown of private inventories, competition among collectors, new procurement, and high-priced procurement in the spot market pushed prices higher.

Consumers faced higher retail prices and a sense of shortage, changing their rice purchasing behavior. Increased household purchases pushed up demand and affected price formation through tighter supply and demand for domestically produced rice. Wholesalers and retailers, as well as prepared-food and food-service businesses, needed to diversify procurement routes and make high-priced spot purchases, making sales at stable prices more difficult.

If increased imports continue, demand for domestically produced staple rice and other products may decline, affecting domestic production. Conversely, expanding demand for rice flour, exports, and sake-brewing rice could diversify producers’ planting decisions and broaden opportunities to support Japan’s production base and related industries.

Policy management requires tracking demand, production, and inventories on both a brown-rice and milled-rice basis, along with information disclosure reflecting diversified distribution and rapid reserve operations. As the number of farmers declines, shifting toward a structure in which fewer farmers undertake more production is directly linked to food security and the maintenance of regional agriculture.

In June 2025, the government convened the Ministerial Meeting on Realizing a Stable Rice Supply and Related Matters, and in August of the same year it reviewed the causes of and responses to the price surge. In three general competitive tenders held twice in March 2025 and once in April, it sold about 310,000 tonnes of government reserve rice to rice collectors, but as of early May only about 10% had reached retailers and prepared-food and food-service businesses. Discretionary contracts therefore began on May 26, with eligibility expanded on May 30, June 11, and June 20, and about 280,000 tonnes were sold. About 50,000 tonnes were sold for processing ingredients from August 1.

For minimum access rice, the government manages a duty-free import quota of 770,000 brown-rice tonnes per year and advanced the purchase tender for general minimum access rice for fiscal 2025 to June of that year. For SBS imports, capped at 100,000 tonnes per year, it also advanced the first request-for-estimates process to June of that year. The policy positions import opportunities as a supply measure in preparation for declining government reserve inventories.

In an emergency distribution survey, producer shipments to collectors such as agricultural cooperatives for the 2024 crop decreased by 340,000 tonnes from the previous crop, while direct sales by producers and similar channels increased by 488,000 tonnes. The survey of purchases, sales, and inventories by all notified businesses under the Food Control Law had a response rate of only about 20%, so a follow-up survey of unreported businesses handling at least 300 tonnes annually began in September 2025.

Beginning with the 2025 crop, statistical surveys will publish a crop yield index comparing yields with the average yield over three of the most recent five years, replacing the crop situation index comparing yields with the normal yield over the past 30 years. The sieve width for staple-rice harvested quantities was also revised from 1.70 mm to 1.80–1.90 mm based on producer usage, and the shares of chalky immature grains, discolored grains, and cracked grains will also be published. Based on the producer-use sieve width, harvested quantity for the 2025 crop was 7.181 million tonnes, up 10.2% from the previous crop; staple-rice planted area was 1.367 million ha, up 8.6%; and yield per 10a was 526 kg, up 1.3%. Data collection will be piloted for the 2025 and 2026 crops, with full introduction targeted from the 2027 crop.

The supply-demand outlook was revised to reflect population trends, recent per-capita consumption, inbound demand, and milling yield as ranges, with validation based on milling volume and actual yield rates. The outlook published in March 2026 projected private inventories at the end of June 2026 at 2.21–2.34 million tonnes on a brown-rice basis and 1.97–2.08 million tonnes on a milled-rice basis. Demand in 2026/27 was projected at 6.96–7.11 million tonnes on a brown-rice basis, total supply at 9.32–9.45 million tonnes, and private inventories at the end of June 2027 at 2.21–2.49 million tonnes.

To establish prices that account for reasonable costs under the Food System Law, the Cost Indicator Preparation Committee began deliberations in December 2025, and an image of the rice cost indicator was published in March 2026. Productivity measures include enlarging farmland plots, reorganizing and rationalizing jointly used facilities, direct seeding, second cropping, shifting to heat-tolerant and high-yield varieties, joint distribution, and direct transactions under long-term contracts.

Demand for rice flour reached 56,000 tonnes in fiscal 2024, an increase of 20,000 tonnes from fiscal 2020. Exports of rice, packaged cooked rice, processed rice products, rice flour, and rice flour products totaled about 48,000 tonnes in 2025, about 2.3 times the level five years earlier. The Basic Plan targets exports of 353,000 tonnes in 2030 and promotes Japanese food, the development of trade channels and supply chains, overseas expansion, and the formation of large-scale export-producing regions.

The government is considering revisions to the Food Control Law that would expand the businesses required to file notifications and establish a system for regular reporting of inventory quantities and other information. It is also considering expanding the purpose of reserves to include supply shortages caused by increased demand and creating a private reserve system to supplement government reserves. In addition, it plans to abolish provisions for production adjustment based on an assumed decline in demand and explicitly promote producers’ efforts to respond to demand, demand expansion through government-led exports, and demand-responsive production. From fiscal 2027, paddy field policy is to be fundamentally revised toward productivity improvement support for each crop. For sake-brewing rice, the government will also support information exchange between producers and sake-brewing associations and producers working to improve productivity.