A sign at a supermarket in Osaka’s Abeno district on Tuesday said it was unclear when new shipments of rice would be delivered.
20:00 JST, August 28, 2024
There is still a shortage of rice in supermarkets and other outlets across the country, partly due to lower quality following last year’s extremely hot summer weather and the increase in foreign tourists.
The government is urging consumers to take their purchasing decisions calmly as the shortages are expected to be resolved when this year’s rice crops hit the market in September.
1 bag per family
A notice in a Tokyo supermarket Tuesday morning said that rice was limited to one bag per household. “We ask customers to cooperate with this restriction on purchases so that as many people as possible can buy rice. [rice]”, the statement said.
However, the shelves were already empty.
A supermarket in Abeno Ward, Osaka, bought 30 bags of rice each containing five kilograms on Tuesday morning. They sold out within 30 minutes.
Ito-Yokado Co. is currently restricting purchases at all of its stores. Aeon Co. is not applying the same limits across its entire chain, as supply-demand conditions vary across the country, but some Aeon Group supermarkets are restricting purchases.
“Inventories are definitely decreasing,” said an official at a major retail company.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the private sector had an inventory of 1.56 million tons of rice at the end of June, 410,000 tons less than a year earlier. This was the lowest figure since 1999, when comparable data became available.
Preparing for a disaster
The shortage of rice is partly due to the extremely hot weather last year. The very high temperatures continued as the rice cobs began to appear, causing the rice grains to become cloudy or broken, resulting in poor quality. The amount sent to the market therefore decreased.
According to the ministry, 60.9% of the rice grains harvested in 2023 were first-class by the end of March, down almost 20 percentage points from a year earlier.
Prices of many foodstuffs have continued to rise, but rice prices have been rising slowly and demand for eating out has increased due to a rapid increase in foreign tourists after the easing of the COVID-19 crisis. This has also contributed to the shortage.
Large quantities of rice have also been stored in preparation for future disasters.
August is usually the period between seasons, before new crops of rice come onto the market, causing stocks to fall to their lowest level of the year.
On August 8, a temporary warning was issued about a possible megaquake along the Nankai Trough, and one typhoon after another has been approaching Japan recently. Many households have increased their rice stocks as a result.
Rice prices have risen as supply has decreased. The average wholesale price of all rice brands harvested in 2023 was ¥15,865 per 60 kilograms in June, the highest level in the past 10 years.
The wholesale price remained high at ¥15,626 in July, up 13% year-on-year.
New harvests
There are signs, however, that relief is near. Early harvests of rice, including grains from Miyazaki Prefecture, have started in some supermarkets.
In September, new harvests from prefectures such as Chiba and Ibaraki will hit the market. It is expected that about 40% of the annual shipments will start circulating in the month.
“The rice to be harvested in 2024 has grown well. There are production sites where harvesting will start about a week earlier than usual, so shipments are also expected to start earlier,” Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tetsushi Sakamoto said at a news conference after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Sakamoto indicated that rice supply is expected to gradually recover and also revealed that he had asked five major rice wholesalers on Monday to collect and sell the rice smoothly.
But even if the supply-demand ratio improves, it is uncertain whether rice prices will fall quickly.
A rice wholesaler in the Kyushu region reported that wholesale prices for the 2024 crops are more than 50% higher than last year’s.
“Prices will certainly remain higher,” the wholesaler said.
