The Grain of Truth: In Japan, Political Fortunes Go With Rice

In Japan, rice is no joking matter.  

Eaten from morning until night, paired with beef or as part of sushi, made into sweets or alcohol, the grain is the single most important food item in the country, so much so that Japanese even has six words to describe it.  

It’s so valued that it is even offered to the spirits at religious ceremonies. 

But now, Japan has a rice problem.  

Due to a poor harvest and distribution issues, prices have doubled in the past year – when it can be found on the shelves at all. The situation has gotten so dire that the Japanese, famously picky about their national staple, are consuming old rice, resorting to polishing brown rice, and have even started to buy foreign rice. 

So it was no surprise, then, that when Japan’s Farm Minister Taku Etō of the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) recently said he had no issue getting rice, voters reacted with outrage.  

“I have never bought rice, to be honest,” he said, according to Japanese daily, Asahi Shimbun. “Because my supporters give me a lot of rice. I have so much rice in my pantry that I could sell it.” 

The uproar was so widespread, with calls for the minister to be replaced for being a “moron” and “out of touch” that it prompted the prime minister to react.  

“It is extremely problematic for him to make such a statement in response to the fact that rice is expensive and consumers are very angry and anxious about it,” said Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, adding that as the person who appointed Etō, he was “very sorry.” 

Last week, Etō resigned.  

That was unsurprising, analysts say, because the country is preparing for elections for the upper house of the legislature in July, even as the government’s approval ratings are falling fast, partly because of rice.  

A recent poll by the Kyodo news agency found that consumers blame the Ishiba administration for inflation, with approval ratings for the government languishing around 27 percent, the lowest since he took office in October and a dip of more than five percentage points in the past month.  

Ishiba was already under pressure after the LDP and its junior coalition partner lost their lower house majority last autumn. Significant losses in the election could cost him the prime minister’s job. 

As a result, the government has been racing to resolve the rice crisis by releasing emergency stockpiles of rice from its reserves to bring prices down – a measure usually reserved for natural disasters and other catastrophes. It has started to bypass wholesalers and distributors whom it suspects of hoarding.  

It also began buying rice from South Korea for the first time in 25 years, forcing consumers who disdain the taste and quality of foreign rice to compromise.  

But prices remain high – and are climbing – with polls showing voters don’t believe the government has done enough.  

Still, the bad news keeps on coming. This week, data showed that Japan’s economy, the fifth largest in the world, shrank for the first time in a year and by more than expected due to the impact of new US tariffs – 25 percent on most goods, but almost 50 percent on steel and automobiles. The Trump administration wants Japan to import more US agricultural products, especially rice, which it says is shielded by protectionist policies, Time reported. 

Fears of a recession have added to concern that the tariffs could hurt Japan’s hard-earned economic recovery by weighing on exports and forcing companies to pull back on investment, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Still, the government says it won’t bow down to the US and make a bad trade deal, Asia Times reported. “Unlike the UK, Japan is in no hurry to reach a disadvantageous or incomplete trade deal with US President Donald Trump, particularly with elections coming up in July,” the newspaper wrote.  

Part of the reason for shunning US negotiations, it added, is that “America’s renewed assault on Japan’s rice farmers is too sensitive to tolerate.”