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The story
On the 9th, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries announced that the government’s selling price for imported wheat, effective from October, will rise 12% compared to the April–September 2026 period, to ¥70,020 per ton (weighted average of five brands). The main drivers are said to be rising international prices and a weaker yen, and this could add pressure to raise prices on wheat-based foods like bread and noodles. On the thread, some pointed to the stalled Ukraine peace talks pushing up international prices, as well as the mechanism by which the government props up import wheat prices using tax money, while others linked it to the shift away from rice or noted that bread prices stayed flat during past price-cut phases — leaving reactions to the hike divided.
On the 9th, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries announced that the government’s selling price for imported wheat from October will be ¥70,020 per ton (weighted average of five brands), a 12% increase from the April–September 2026 period.
Nikkei
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
Isn't pasta made overseas safe? This is about domestic wheat.
Wheat prices are up like 40% on the global market, so it's worse overseas than in Japan, isn't it?
Seriously, I bet that's exactly it.
Oh, they wanna go there? Fine then — I'll refuse to buy rice out of pure spite. First, let's tear down the rice industry. All-out war it is!
"Retaliatory price hike"… imported wheat is only cheap because of government subsidies. If trading companies were just buying it outright, it'd never be anywhere near rice prices. Japan gets subsidies from the government for both oil and wheat — that's the only reason we can buy at today's prices. Cargo ships are also taking longer routes now. With fuel and labor costs both soaring, selling at the same old price just means the strain gets dumped somewhere else. Is that really okay?
Still way cheaper than rice, and cooking rice is a hassle and takes forever.
Wrong. Prices rose because it's looking more likely the Ukraine-Russia peace talks will hit a dead end. On top of that, some idiot (Japan) showed up to buy while deliberately tanking their own currency, so of course they got charged a premium. China, after all, is happily buying up huge quantities. When someone with no money shows up, of course they get taken for a ride.
Back in 2022 the yen was around 110-140 to the dollar, you know.
Yesterday's news said rice farmer closures this year are at a record pace, but it was a clickbait headline — turned out to be just 32 cases nationwide.
That garbage article about "32 closures from January to August" was something else. I wonder how many rice farms are even left in Japan.
Even after the Ukraine war, the government's import wheat selling price kept dropping, but Yamazaki Bread kept raising prices anyway. So what else is new.
Poor people have no choice but to eat it anyway.
Before that — do we even need to eat it at all? There are plenty of other things that can serve as a staple. We should've learned that from the rice price hikes.
We're not in the employment ice age anymore working for 800 yen an hour, so 5ch users these days aren't exactly hurting for cash.
Steamed potatoes topped with shiokara (salted fermented seafood) are delicious.
Wheat is already dependent on imports to begin with, though.
So scrapping the tariffs should be fine then, right?
Background and Key Points of This Story
Imported wheat isn’t bought by private trading companies but purchased in bulk by the government, under a “state trading” system that revises the government selling price twice a year (April and October) to reflect recent international prices and exchange rates. This is a holdover from the postwar food control system, meant to supply the domestic milling and baking industries with wheat at stable prices. This time’s 12% increase results from international prices staying elevated amid uncertainty over the situation in Ukraine, combined with a weaker yen — it isn’t simply a matter of tight supply and demand. It’s also worth noting that a higher selling price doesn’t necessarily translate into an equivalent rise in retail prices — in fact, there have been past cases where retail prices for bread and similar goods stayed flat even as the selling price dropped — and it’s easy to overlook that cost structures involve factors beyond wheat itself, like labor and logistics costs.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Government wheat selling price raised 12%, reflecting high international prices and a weak yen — could increase pressure to raise prices on bread and noodles.”
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