4 days ago
Farm ministry apologizes over erroneous rice supply and demand forecasts
The farm ministry's top bureaucrat apologized to Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers on Friday for mistakenly saying that Japan had enough rice after miscalculating supply and demand forecasts — errors that contributed to a nationwide shortage and soaring prices over the past year.
The lawmakers argue that the errors have eroded public trust in the government and should have been caught earlier.
'We have been operating under the assumption that Japan had enough rice. However, we now know that a gap in supply and demand has occurred as a result of our faulty forecast. We would like to offer our apologies to you here today,' said Vice Minister Tsuyoshi Watanabe at an LDP policy panel.
The farm ministry's forecasts for rice demand was off by 370,000 metric tons for rice produced between July 2024 and June 2025, and by 230,000 tons for the harvest between July 2023 and June 2024.
Watanabe's remarks came after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba acknowledged on Tuesday that the sharp rise in rice prices over the past year was the result of insufficient domestic production and the government's failure to accurately forecast demand.
Ishiba said that Japan will boost its rice harvest in a reversal of a long-standing policy of limiting production — a measure that has been in place since around 1969 in response to chronic oversupply.
Lower House lawmaker Yasushi Kaneko, head of the LDP's agriculture policy committee, gives opening remarks at a meeting on Aug. 8 at party headquarters. |
Himari Semans
The farm ministry plans to increase production by consolidating and enlarging crop sizes using artificial intelligence, robots, drones and other 'smart farming' technologies.
It will also forecast supply and demand 'with a margin of safety' and assess the current situation to make supply chains more transparent.
Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi also apologized to the public on Friday to take partial responsibility for causing the rice shortage.
'I admit that the rice shortage was undeniably caused in part by the farm ministry. That being said, we need to improve the way we forecast supply and demand,' Koizumi said.
At the LDP meeting, lawmakers vented their concerns over the ministry's sudden admission — a complete reversal of the government's earlier explanation, which had blamed the rice shortage on supply chain disruptions.
'Why did it take so long for (the ministry) to figure this out?' Lower House lawmaker Kaoru Fukuda, a former bureaucrat at the ministry, said.
Others pointed out that the ministry's overdue realization undermines public confidence.
Some LDP lawmakers were frustrated with the lack of communication between the government and the ruling party.
'The government announced (the decision to boost rice production) before listening to our opinions. The facts are being delivered in misleading ways and causing confusion. We get together in these meetings as the receiving end of complaints. This happens too often,' said Lower House lawmaker Jun Tsushima.
