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The story
A Nikkei report claiming that “2025-harvest rice stocks have piled up, and wholesale prices have fallen to half of last autumn’s level” became a hot topic on 5ch. In the thread, users vented resentment at the rice wholesalers who made a killing during last year’s price spike, and pointed out that demand which shifted to noodles and bread won’t easily come back. At the same time, some worried that if prices fall too far, farmers will simply give up growing rice altogether.
Nikkei (Nikkei Digital Edition)
@nikkei
Rice price slide shows no sign of stopping, now half of last autumn’s level — 2025-harvest stockpiles pile up
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
This is basically Michael Burry going all-in shorting the market
Though it is about ¥1,000 cheaper than at the peak
Though they brought it on themselves
If there's no rice, something else will do — it's that simple
Pay back what you raked in last year
If they hadn't gotten so greedy and had capped it around 30% higher, none of this would've happened
If it gets too cheap and farmers quit growing rice, consumers lose out in the long run too
The going rate for 5kg is already down to the low ¥2,000s
Blended rice (mixed with cheaper imported or older stock) goes for ¥1,700
Why did they ever think that high price was reasonable?
"It's the staple food lol It's the soul of the Japanese people lol It's expensive but you've gotta buy it anyway lol, my fellow citizens lol"
That was basically their whole simple-minded scheme
Even with that agriculture-lobby farm minister frantically buying back the reserve stockpile to try to keep the price hike going, there's nothing they can do about this now
Brutal that the milling plants got overwhelmed and shipments got delayed
That's basically what finished it off
Funny how it's Suzuki (the current agriculture minister) who ends up stabilizing things at a low price
They've got no choice but to make it dirt cheap and get people thinking "rice really is good value" again
Other foods keep shrinking in portion size (shrinkflation), so with prices dropping this much, rice actually looks like good value now
Looking at it again, the cost-effectiveness of putting rice on the table is honestly terrible
It only works because it's cheap — if it's expensive, the public's answer is simply not to eat it
Right now rice is literally the only thing that's gotten cheaper
Chicken, meat, and eggs have all gone up
This is straight-up The Big Short
There hasn't actually been a real rice shortage since 2000 in the first place
The 2025 harvest doesn't actually come in until fall 2025, you know
If you mean that shop that got covered in the news
https://business.nikkei.com/atcl/seminar/19/00030/102300712/
They closed in March 2025 and reopened in October, so that doesn't contradict the current rice glut at all
Background and Key Points
Japan’s 2024–25 “reiwa rice crisis” saw retail prices for a 5kg bag roughly double to nearly ¥4,000 after a poor 2023 harvest, panic buying, and tight wholesale supply. The government responded unusually aggressively: then-agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi released around 400,000 tons of the state’s emergency reserve rice — stockpiles normally held back for disasters — to force prices down, a break with the norm of holding reserves untouched. Rice in Japan is still treated as a quasi-sacred staple, historically protected by agricultural cooperatives (JA) and tariff barriers, which is why price swings here generate more outrage than for other foods. The “2025 harvest” refers to rice planted in spring and harvested in autumn 2025 (Reiwa 7), now arriving to find demand permanently dented by consumers who switched to bread and noodles during the price spike and never switched back.
The thread’s real fault line isn’t wholesalers-versus-consumers, it’s whether this crash is deserved punishment for price gouging or a reckless overcorrection: some posters want wholesalers to eat losses as payback, while others (post 53/58) worry that if prices fall below the roughly ¥3,000/5kg breakeven point, farmers will simply exit rice cultivation, hurting everyone later.
What’s likely misunderstood outside Japan: the “shortage” was never a production shortfall — Japan has produced enough rice for domestic consumption every year since 2000 — but a distribution and hoarding problem, meaning this “glut” is really just corrected inventory, not a bumper crop.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Sad News] Rice Wholesalers Furious: “Nothing Left But to Sell at a Loss” — Prices Head to Half of Last Year’s.”
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