Rice farmers are seizing on their chance to boost sales for their high-quality product amid a fall in domestic demand and expected liberalization of trade rules.
Kazuya Terasawa, 66, plans to export about 10 percent of this year's output from his paddies in Niigata. The city on the Sea of Japan sits in one of the nation's major rice growing areas.
"More cheap foreign rice will surely enter the domestic market, especially for use in restaurants and in meals to go, blending with domestic rice," Terasawa said.