By Akihiro Okada

8:00 JST, July 19, 2025

The “Rice Crisis of the Reiwa Era” is shaking Japanese society to its core due to skyrocketing rice prices.

With the House of Councillors election scheduled for July 20, rice policy has become one of the main issues. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has instructed relevant ministers to promote policies that stabilize rice prices and enable producers to increase production with confidence.

Shinjiro Koizumi, appointed agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister in May, has been implementing new policies to lower rice prices, including releasing rice reserves through discretionary contracts.

The reason for the rice crisis is that rice is not just a staple food for the Japanese people, but a deeply rooted part of their history, society, culture and spirituality.

Tadayo Watabe, a former Kyoto University professor who died last year at the age of 100, famously described the Japanese as “people with a deep desire to eat rice every day.”

Rice cultivation in Japan began approximately 3,000 years ago.

It was only in the 1960s that Japanese people were able to eat rice daily without worrying about shortages – just about 60 years ago.

The importance of rice in Japan is illustrated by a scene in the movie “Seven Samurai.”

Hundreds of years ago, farmers suffering from bandit raids endure a diet of bitter grains so they can save rice to give to the samurai Kambei (Takashi Shimura), whom they ask to defend their village. Resolving to do so, Kambei holds up a bowl of white rice and declares, “I will not waste your offering of rice.”

These words resonate deeply in the Japanese heart, conveying the value of rice and the weight of Kambei’s resolve.

Eating one’s fill of rice is a theme that appears in numerous works, including novels, movies, and period dramas.

Rice is not merely a food.

During the Edo period, people used rice as a form of currency, and they paid taxes with rice.

Even today, rice........

© The Japan News