Import of 15,000-tons of unnecessary rice will deal heavy blow to Japanese farmers

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Import of 15,000-tons of unnecessary rice will deal heavy blow to Japanese farmers

The agriculture ministry has announced that it will hold this fiscal year's first bid on September 1 for 15,000 tons of minimum access (MA) rice for consumption as a staple food.

The bid will come at the start of the rice harvest season.

Importing such a massive amount of cheap foreign rice, including newly harvested rice, will force domestic rice prices down, dealing a heavy blow to Japanese family farmers.

In fiscal 2008, the government bought the upper limit of 770,000-tons of MA rice, instead of domestic produce, to stockpile in case of emergencies. This massive import of rice resulted in an oversupply of rice in the market and drove the price of rice way down.

Yokoyama Shozo of the Japan Family Farmers Movement (Nouminren) Farm-Fresh Network said, "How unconscionable it is for the government to buy unnecessary foreign rice at a time when the Japanese rice market is experiencing a price collapse! We demand that the government stop importing MA rice, which has nothing to do with any international obligation in the first place."

"All that the government should do now is purchase 140,000 tons of domestic rice to fill up the shortfall out of 1,000,000 tons of rice needed as reserve in case of emergencies. Then, it should divert the old reserve rice to industrial use or animal feed so that it can buy another 200,000 tons of domestic rice. The government would then recover the price of rice and stabilize rice supply and demand," said Yokoyama.

- Akahata, August 28, 2009