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The story
It’s been reported that the selling price of new-crop Koshihikari rice in Niigata Prefecture has fallen by roughly ¥2,000 from last year amid what’s described as a historic “rice glut,” leaving farmers in dire straits with “we lose money if we grow it.” While some see it as a relief for household budgets, the thread saw criticism of the agriculture ministry for misreading supply and demand, disagreement over the timing and volume of the stockpiled-rice releases, and comments pointing to an accelerating shift away from rice — underscoring how both farmers and consumers end up unhappy whether prices rise or fall.
“We Lose Money If We Grow It” — Rice Farmers in Crisis as Prices Plunge; New-Crop Koshihikari Selling Price Down ¥2,000 From Last Year Amid Record “Rice Glut” — Though a Relief for Household Budgets — Niigata
Tue, 9/22, 6:00 AM JST
BSN Niigata Broadcasting
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Apparently one wheat farmer got a ¥30 million subsidy lol
The fact that they couldn't do that is exactly why guys like Suzuki and the agriculture ministry were incompetent.
Exactly. And here I thought the agriculture ministry actually had a handle on the flow of rice. This is a country that basically used to run on a rice standard — it's the backbone of our food supply and economy. Guess once you make it to elite bureaucrat, all you think about is how to slack off lol
Beggar-thy-neighbor policy lmaooo
Didn't you know? He couldn't make a living off manga alone, so he took up rice farming too. "Rice is my friend — nothing to be scared of," I guess (a riff on his famous manga line "the ball is my friend")
The company's name is "Ozora," so it's 100% definitely him (Ozora Tsubasa is the manga's main character — that gives it away)
Last year's rice is expensive, so the price has flipped relative to the new crop.
Get out of rice while you can!!
Just eat sweet potatoes like it's wartime.
I'm staying on good terms with rice farmers now so I don't starve down the road.
If it ever comes to starving, you'd need to be on "marry off your daughter to them" levels of close, or they still won't share any with you.
And then the big rice wholesalers rake in a fortune importing it all over again.
Blame the guys who were quietly pocketing cash thanks to the new invoice tax system lol
Why do you assume they only handle wholesale?
During the rice shortage, retailers were importing directly without even going through wholesalers, remember?
Hint: pretty much every other imported food has gone up in price too.
The shift away from rice is accelerating too.
Feels like the shift away from rice was already underway, and the price spike was the final nail in the coffin.
Getting back to pre-COVID prices just isn't happening.
Domestic natto too —
they shrank each pack down to 40g
and jacked the price up a lot on top of that.
¥150–200 for a 3-pack, tax included.
Natto's basically a luxury food now.
Guess I'll just eat domestic soybean kinako powder instead.
Even if it was meant to bring prices down, the timing was way too late and the volume way too much.
That's because Eto and JA were deliberately dragging their feet.
And it tasted bad on top of that.
Bought 2kg of stockpiled rice, cooked up two go of it (about 300g), and fed the rest to my chickens.
Even the chickens looked unimpressed eating it.
Rice isn't worth buying at all unless it's under ¥1,500 for 5kg.
Enough already — go eat pasta for the rest of your life.
Background and Key Points of This Story
This sharp price drop comes as a reaction to 2025’s record-poor harvest and speculative hoarding, which had pushed prices up to a socially disruptive “over ¥5,000 for 5kg” and turned into a major issue. The government tried to rein in prices by releasing stockpiled rice, but the thread was split over whether the agriculture ministry or JA bears more blame for the volume and timing of that release — criticism that “the Ishiba/Koizumi administration’s release came too late” ran alongside criticism that “JA treated the stockpiled rice as ordinary rice and was slow to put it on the market.” Since rice prices hinge on multiple factors — weather, speculation, distribution inventories — it’s easy to mistakenly pin either the spike or the crash on a single culprit. Worth keeping in mind too: farmers’ “we lose money if we grow it” predicament is a structural problem born of persistently high material and fuel costs colliding with falling sale prices — the flip side of the “relief for household budgets” story on the consumer end.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Niigata] “We Lose Money If We Grow It” — Rice Farmers in Crisis as Prices Plunge; New-Crop Koshihikari Selling Price Down ¥2,000 From Last Year Amid Record “Rice Glut”.”
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