The farm ministry’s top bureaucrat apologized to Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers on Friday for mistakenly saying that Japan had enough rice after miscalculating supply and demand forecasts — errors that contributed to a nationwide shortage and soaring prices over the past year.
The lawmakers argue that the errors have eroded public trust in the government and should have been caught earlier.
“We have been operating under the assumption that Japan had enough rice. However, we now know that a gap in supply and demand has occurred as a result of our faulty forecast. We would like to offer our apologies to you here today,” said Vice Minister Tsuyoshi Watanabe at an LDP policy panel.
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