In Japanese politics, rice is the 'third rail'

In the United States, Social Security is often referred to as the "third rail," meaning you touch it at your peril. In Japan, the "third rail" is rice. You disturb the supply of Japanese-grown ultrahigh-quality rice at a reasonable price at your peril.

People around the world often do not understand that. For many, rice is rice. The U.S. government certainly does not get it.

But in Japan, every region has its rice varieties and brands that are promoted and treasured for their subtle taste and texture differences. The Japanese have no trouble identifying which region produced the rice and its grade with just one bite.

Japan should hold far more global rice tasting competitions, similar to wine tasting. The highest-class restaurants and Japanese inns feature the highest quality rice that is grown in their area. It is part of the Japanese travel experience to sample the cuisine in every region and rice is an integral part of it.

Rice cultivation in Japan dates back to the Yayoi Period, approximately 2,500 years ago. It is part of the nation’s most ancient religious rituals. Every Shinto shrine in Japan today has prominent displays of local residents' offerings, including large bags of locally produced rice and casks of sake made from that rice.

When the Japanese discuss food security, they are primarily referring to rice. There is flexibility when it comes to imports of wheat, corn and beef, but Japanese-grown rice will be protected, whatever the cost. If we need to import more foreign-grown rice to resolve the tariff dispute with the U.S. over cars, we will utilize it in food processing and distribute it as Japanese aid to foreign countries.

But the reality is that Japan faces severe challenges in its rice production ecosystem. Far too many farmers are above 65 with no successors. Far too many rice-growing farms are suboptimal in terms of the acreage available to support the cost of investing in highly automated AI-based production technologies.

The Japanese government has been locked in a conundrum for decades: Maintain the price of rice grown in Japan at a government-set level that allows farmers to survive economically, but not to prosper. A policy then emerged to pay farmers to reduce the area planted with rice and leave it fallow or to switch to other crops. The system was rigid and lacked the flexibility to adapt to climate change or years with excessive rainfall, drought or extended high temperatures.

The policy relied on massive warehouses of stored rice stock. However, using that to maintain stable market prices while keeping farmers financially sound requires political leadership, which Japan currently lacks. Today, Japan faces the consequences of that policy failure, marked by both empty grocery store shelves for rice and skyrocketing prices.

With incredibly high rice prices becoming a significant voter issue ahead of the upcoming Upper House election, the Ishiba administration is engaged in a desperate attempt to stave off a third and final election defeat on July 20, which would force the cabinet to resign en masse.

Who do they turn to? The Koizumi family. In the early 2000s, the prime minister, to great fanfare from abroad, Junichiro Koizumi, decided to privatize what was then a world-class postal system. The post offices, together with on-site banking and insurance, provided excellent service and also served as a social lifeline to isolated rural communities in Japan. He broke it into multiple pieces and then walked away. The service deterioration started almost immediately. Recently, the postal system has reached a nadir, with a five-year ban being imposed on the use of its national truck fleet to move mail due to safety violations involving alcohol testing of its drivers.

Now, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has tasked farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi to find quick solutions to the rice system. While good-intentioned, like his father, he could inadvertently destroy the Japanese rice-growing culture, which has existed for more than 2,500 years.

The major issues for rice farmers have been the same ones for quite some time. While the overall population is declining steadily, the average age of Japanese rice farmers now exceeds the normal retirement age and is increasing steadily.

For decades, government policy was to intentionally reduce the amount of acreage under rice cultivation, despite the climate's impact on production. Under trade pressures, Japan imports over 750,000 metric tons of rice rather than investing in growing more of its own.

The average acreage under cultivation by each farmer is too small to support investment in large-scale automation. Farmers are paid to not produce more rice.

The Agricultural Ministry has historically attempted to achieve two contradictory objectives — maintaining a low consumer price of rice while keeping rice farmers barely afloat financially. And a third goal has been added: food security, which complicates the already bad calculus.

Instead of paying farmers not to grow rice, we should be paying them to consolidate smaller plots from retiring farmers into larger ones and then provide financial and hands-on advanced technology so they can confidently invest in large-scale automation. We should conduct R&D to create new high-quality Japanese rice varieties that can thrive in the higher temperatures now experienced throughout Japan, especially in the highest-quality rice-growing regions.

Food security means that the warehouses of rice inventory need to be strictly maintained to ensure it is not spoiled and tapped into when required, but immediately replenished.

Keep the amateurs out to make a name for themselves away from rice. Japan's third rail will take them if they inadvertently damage our food security.