In Japan, where politicians usually favor caution over confrontation, Shinjiro Koizumi is proving to be an exception.

Dressed in a sharp navy suit and crisp white shirt, the 44-year-old son of a former prime minister showed up in the rice-growing heartland of Yamagata this month with a message few farmers wanted to hear: The price of rice must come down.

"If I hadn’t made the decision to release government stockpiled rice at ¥2,000 ($14), rice would still cost about ¥4,000,” Koizumi told a crowd of hundreds of farmers, shoppers and agricultural association officials.

"Some say higher prices would have been good for farmers, but is that really so? If consumers stop eating rice because it’s expensive, is that really in the interest of rice farmers?”

Only two months into his role as agriculture minister, Koizumi has become the face of a risky political bet by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. With inflation eating into household budgets and approval ratings sinking, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is counting on Koizumi’s reformist drive — and his famous surname — to win back frustrated urban voters in an election for Japan’s Upper House on Sunday.

But that strategy is testing the loyalty of one of the party’s most dependable voter blocs: Japan’s aging, shrinking and increasingly disillusioned rural population. If they abandon the LDP, and Ishiba’s ruling coalition loses its majority in the Upper House, it would mark the first time a ruling party has lost direct control of both chambers in more than three decades.

That would pile pressure on Ishiba to step down and make policymaking even more difficult for an administration already struggling to manage U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, rising defense and social spending, and mounting pressure to lower the sales tax — a confluence of factors helping to push benchmark bond yields to the highest level since 2008.

"In rural areas, many people traditionally support the LDP, but an increasing number are now frustrated with Koizumi’s approach” and the sudden shift in policy, said Masayuki Ogawa, assistant professor at Utsunomiya University. "A portion of them may vote for other parties in the hope of seeing change.”

Among the groups likely to siphon votes from the LDP is Sanseito, a small right-leaning party that is latching on to the idea of offering full support for rice farmers.

Koizumi, son of the maverick former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, casts himself as an everyman with a passion for both surfing and shaking up the political status quo. He’s long been seen as a future leader and was the early favorite in last year’s LDP leadership race, before Ishiba’s surprise win.

For Japanese there are few issues more emotive than the price of rice, a staple of the Japanese diet for centuries. It has also become a geopolitical flash point: Trump slammed Japan for not buying American rice during a domestic shortage, calling the country "spoiled” and raising across-the-board tariffs to 25% despite seven visits to Washington by Japan’s top trade negotiator.

Koizumi has wasted no time jumping into the agricultural fray, upending years of farming policy since taking the position in May. He sidestepped a network of cooperatives and wholesalers that have traditionally set prices and secured stable profits for farmers, choosing instead to sell government rice reserves directly to retailers. He’s also pushed for large-scale farming and asked local farm unions to give up advance payments — policies aimed at streamlining a bloated system, but ones that have sparked unease and anger in the countryside.

In Tochigi, a single-seat district that has backed the LDP for the past decade, Koizumi’s policies have struck a nerve. Some farmers are now openly reconsidering their support for the ruling party.

Among them is Mariko Inoue. Standing in the yard of her 30-hectare rice farm, surrounded by red and white tractors, a pair of orange harvesters and a drone used to spray herbicide, she didn’t hide her frustration.

"Koizumi is so blatantly focused on the consumer,” she said. "He’s speaking for the consumers rather than protecting the farmers. It makes me wonder why he even calls himself the agriculture minister.”

For Inoue and her husband Keijiro, the recent rise in rice prices felt like a godsend after years of toiling in an industry with long hours and low pay.

"It felt like there was finally hope. It felt like maybe, just maybe, we could continue farming rice,” she said over the gurgle of a nearby river that provides water for her paddy fields. "But then Koizumi intervened in the market, and it really felt like he pulled the rug out from under us.”

"Now I’d make more money working the cash register at a convenience store,” she said.

Reform roadmap

It’s still too early to tell whether Koizumi has a real roadmap for reform, not just for agriculture but across other sectors of Japan’s economy. For now, his approach represents a calculated gamble that rebuilding support in urban areas outweighs the risk of alienating rural voters.

The LDP’s political calculus is being reshaped by Japan’s shifting demographics. The country’s once-powerful farm population is rapidly dwindling. In 1960, about 12 million people — 29% of the labor market — worked in agriculture. That number dwindled to 1.8 million farmers, or 2.7% of the working population in 2023. The number of rice farmers is currently about 550,000, with an average age of 72. Government estimates suggest it will halve again in five years.

The LDP has in the past worked with Japan Agriculture Cooperatives, or JA, to channel subsidies to farmers and manage supply, ensuring steady profits across the chain. To prop up rice prices, the government even paid farmers to switch to other crops. That system began to come under pressure in the mid-1990s, when international trade agreements forced Japan to open up its agriculture sector.

The JA still has deep ties to the LDP today, backing its candidates in elections in a bid to influence policy. But many farmers are feeling increasingly left behind.

Keijiro Inoue said the LDP’s agriculture policy feels like a double standard. The government doesn’t help when rice prices are low for farmers, yet they rush to prioritize consumer needs when prices rise. "I guess we can’t ever win,” he said.

That sentiment was echoed by Hidei Sugaya, who comes from a farming family and now has to supplement his rice income by selling solar power from panels installed on his land.

"The price of fertilizers, pesticides, machinery — everything was going up, but the cost of rice was going down and it felt like there was no future in farming,” he said. When prices began to rise, he felt a glimmer of hope. Then Koizumi stepped in.

Sugaya, who has long supported the LDP, said he didn’t plan on voting for them this time. "I just wonder if they really care about agriculture policy anymore,” he said.

The frustration in the countryside stands in contrast to views in Japan’s urban centers, where voters are more focused on the sting of rising food prices.

Haruka Kudo, 27, who works in central Tokyo, was still undecided about her vote but said one issue stood out. "Things are so expensive, and we’re not seeing our wages rise either,’’ she said on a Friday evening in one of the city’s busiest business districts.

Among the items whose prices are going up, she singled out rice.

Rice prices

Koizumi succeeded in cutting the price of a 5-kilogram bag of rice to about ¥3,500 from around ¥4,300. His strategy of bypassing traditional channels was a clear break from his predecessor, Taku Eto, who tried to stabilize prices by gradually releasing government stockpiles through existing networks. The approach had little effect, and Eto’s offhand comment that he never bought rice because supporters gave it to him for free only hastened his exit.

Party leaders saw in Koizumi an opportunity to get faster results, drive reform and connect with younger, urban voters.

Initially, his appointment appeared to boost the ruling coalition’s prospects of keeping control of the upper house. But the lack of progress in trade talks with the Trump administration appears to have chipped away at that bump in support. If the coalition meets Ishiba’s modest goal of limiting losses to 16 seats, Koizumi could still claim some credit, paving the way for another leadership bid in the future.

A weaker showing, however, would likely put the blame on Ishiba — and could start the clock on his premiership. That might also set the stage for Koizumi to aim for the party’s helm, but a trouncing at the polls after gambling on Koizumi may tarnish his rising star.

During last year’s LDP presidential election, Koizumi had campaigned on accelerating reform and ending what he called a tendency to discuss things for "20 years.” He promoted startups and new industries like ride-sharing, and even floated changes to Japan’s rigid employment protections, an idea that drew sharp criticism and likely cost him the race.

For some, the episode revealed political naivety. For others, it showed the kind of bold leadership the LDP desperately needs.

There are clear echoes of his father, Junichiro Koizumi, who took over the party in the early 2000s and served as prime minister for six years. The elder Koizumi introduced sweeping market reforms and famously privatized the postal system. During his time as premier, he trimmed the Agriculture Ministry’s budget by around 17%.

He knew how to connect with voters. During a visit to Graceland with President George W. Bush, the silver-maned Koizumi slipped on Elvis shades, played air guitar and sang Love Me Tender — a moment that helped cement his legacy in the public imagination.

Like his father, Shinjiro prefers to connect directly with the public rather than build up factional power within the party. His Instagram feed features snapshots of beef bowls and humble lunches at the ministry cafeteria, meant to reinforce his image as a relatable Tokyo local. "I eat microwave rice packs too,” he once said on camera.

Not everyone buys it.

Under the scorching July sun in Tochigi, rice farmer Mie Amagai wiped sweat from her brow as she rode her tractor across the field, pausing every few meters to check whether the sprouts had taken root.

"It’s impossible for him to understand us farmers. We were born into completely different environments,” she said. "He’s probably never even touched soil.”

Her skepticism underscores a broader challenge for Japan’s political parties — not just the LDP, but also the Constitutional Democratic Party, the Democratic Party for the People, and Sanseito — as shifting demographics erode the influence of once-reliable voting blocs.

"With organized votes shrinking across the board, the key now is how parties can capture the growing pool of unaffiliated, unorganized voters,” said Yu Uchiyama, professor of political science at the University of Tokyo.

"The party now faces a choice — whether it stays rooted in old-style regulated politics, pivots more toward a nonpartisan approach or tries to balance both,” said Uchiyama. "That tension will shape what kind of party the LDP becomes going forward.”