U.S. farmers plan to increase the amount of land devoted to growing short-grain rice used in Japanese cuisine this year amid worries here about domestic supply following last year's earthquake-tsunami and nuclear disasters, according to recent U.S. government data.
Farmers expected to plant a total of 20,638 hectares of rice as of March 31, up 16 percent from the year before for the second straight yearly rise, a prospective plantings report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows.
The increase suggests U.S. farmers intend to respond to growing moves by Japanese traders to secure rice on the back of recent price increases at home after the March 2011 disasters that devastated parts of the Tohoku region and contaminated large tracts of farmland with radiation.