Japan to release extra 200,000 tons of stockpiled rice as prices fall

Japan Times

a day ago

Japan will release an additional 200,000 metric tons of stockpiled rice harvested in 2021 and 2020 through no-bid contracts to all retailers and rice shops, the farm ministry said Tuesday, as the grain's price fell for the second consecutive week.
Major retailers, midsize and small supermarkets, and rice shops with their own rice millers are eligible to apply for 120,000 tons of rice harvested in 2021, including 20,000 tons of rice left unsold from the previous sale, from Wednesday. When those are sold out, the ministry will start selling 100,000 tons of rice from the 2020 harvest.
It will be the first time stockpiled rice produced in 2020 will hit stores.
'Right now, nationwide convenience stores and supermarkets are selling them (the rice) at considerable speed,' farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi said in a regular news conference Tuesday. 'As the rice becomes available at an increasing number of stores, it has been sold out at some of them, so I'd like to release additional stockpiled rice.'
The retail price for the 2021 rice is expected to be around ¥1,800 ($12.43) per 5-kilogram bag while the 2020 rice is expected to cost ¥1,700. There will be no limit to the amount of rice retailers can purchase.
The average price of a 5 kg bag at supermarkets in the week through June 1 was ¥4,223, down ¥37 from the previous week –– the second consecutive weekly decline, according to agriculture ministry data released Monday.
The figure didn't include data from stockpiled rice sold through the no-bidding contracts, which went for around ¥2,000 per bag.
Still, Koizumi voiced discontent at the slow pace at which prices are falling.
'It didn't even go down ¥100 in two weeks,' Koizumi said, adding that he will implement strategies to lower prices to the ¥3,000-range target as soon as possible.
So far, the farm ministry has released or plans to release 810,000 tons of rice in total through auctions and no-bid contracts, reducing the remaining stockpile to about 100,000 tons –– a fraction of the 1 million tons the government has in any given year to use in times of emergency, such as natural disasters or extremely poor harvests.
Koizumi downplayed concerns over the reduced amount, citing the government's release of 40,000 tons in response to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and 90 tons for the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake –– both well under the current stock.
If the stockpile does run out, Koizumi said Japan may import foreign rice for the first time since 1993, when a severe rice shortage hit the nation due to an unusually cold summer.
As prices cooled, public support for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Cabinet rose to 39% in June, up from 33% in May, according to an NHK poll released Monday, while 74% approved of the government's release of stockpiled rice through the no-bid contracts.