Rice stocks in Japan reached minimum since beginning of century due to tourists & low yields

By Alimat Aliyeva

Rice stocks in Japan have fallen to a minimum in recent decades due to the tourist boom and heat wave, which caused low yields, and against the background of shortages, the price of cereals reached a 30-year high, Azernews reports.

The article indicates that, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan, in June, rice stocks in the private sector fell to 1.56 million tons, which is 20 percent less compared to the same period last year. This is the lowest figure since 1999, when the authorities first began collecting comparable data

The agency explains such a sharp decrease in rice stocks by the heat in 2023, which negatively affected the harvest: last year's September in Japan turned out to be the hottest in the last 125 years. In addition, among the reasons that caused the shortage, the ministry calls the lack of water, as well as the demand for the product from tourists coming to the country.

Over the past year, rice consumption in Japan has increased to seven million tons, which is 100,000 tons more than a year earlier. During the same period, the number of tourists has increased significantly: in the first half of 2024, 17.78 million guests have already visited Japan, which is 1 million more than in pre-pandemic times.

The ministry estimated that tourists who ate rice twice a day contributed to an increase in demand by 51 thousand tons, which is 2.7 times more than the previous year.

Amid the shortage, the trading price of rice has reached a 30-year high, wholesalers are running out of stocks, and some supermarkets have decided to raise prices even more and limit purchases, the newspaper notes. It is expected that the situation will continue until September, when this year's harvest rice will become available.

Despite the price pressure, there are no plans to use government reserves of 910,000 tons, writes the national Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. These stocks were created when a poor harvest due to the unseasonably cool summer of 1993 caused a critical shortage of rice in the country.