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October 06, 2025
 

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AGRICULTURE

An aerial view shows the contrast between the green zone and the desert landscape of the Kubuqi Desert, in Ordos, in China's northern Inner Mongolia region.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 3, 2025
China's 'Great Green Wall' brings hope but also hardship
While the project has been credited with "greening" over 90 million hectares, it risks erasing the traditional nomadic practices of ethnic Mongolians.
Haruo Tsukamoto, a rank-and-file member of the Liberal Democratic Party and a rice farmer in Ibaraki Prefecture, questions if the party still stands for people like him.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 2, 2025
The party that ruled Japan for decades is in danger of crumbling
Long-time supporters are questioning if the Liberal Democratic Party still stands for them even as populist and far-right challengers make inroads.
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi said his ministry did not intend to grant a cultivation license for a prized grape variety without consulting producers.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 26, 2025
LDP leadership contender Koizumi seeks to quash criticism over prized grapes
Koizumi said his farm ministry did not intend to grant an overseas cultivation license for Shine Muscat grapes without consulting producers.
Hidehisa Shinohara sells new rice harvested this year at his rice milling shop in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Sep 25, 2025
Japan rice prices turn higher despite arrival of new crop
The average price at supermarkets across Japan stood at ¥4,275 per 5 kilograms, up for three consecutive weeks.
A flowering canola crop grows in the Canadian prairies, with smoky air from forest fires to the north obscuring the morning sun, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / FOCUS
Sep 23, 2025
The unexpected upside of Canada's wildfires 
Canada is the world's largest producer of canola, growing 21 million acres in a band along the country's vast northern forests.
A wheat harvest in Ukraine
ENVIRONMENT
Sep 20, 2025
NASA scientist starts food crisis hotline with tech giant funding
The aim is to use images from space that are then sifted and interpreted by AI models to predict potential crises early.
A farmer harvests rice with a combine harvester in a paddy field in Otawara, Tochigi Prefecture, last month.
JAPAN
Sep 19, 2025
Rice demand for year through June estimated to be up to 7.1 million tons
2025's staple rice production is forecast at between 7.28 million and 7.45 million tons, surpassing the initial estimate of 6.69 million tons for 2024.
Rice farmer Toru Wakui in his rice paddies in Ogata, Akita Prefecture, in August
JAPAN / FOCUS
Sep 17, 2025
For Japan's rice growers, postwar policy shifts yet to deliver stable future
Amid renewed tightness in supply and a spike in prices, officials have been urging farmers to plant more, marking yet another reversal in Japan's 80 years of agricultural policy.
Residents stand on an embankment as they wait to be rescued from a flooded area, following monsoon rains and rising water levels of the Chenab River, in Jalalpur Pirwala, Punjab province, Pakistan, on Monday.
BUSINESS / Markets
Sep 9, 2025
Flood-hit India and Pakistan face rising prices for rice amid crop losses
India and Pakistan exclusively grow aromatic basmati rice, which sells for nearly twice the price of regular varieties and is imported by Britain, the Middle East, and the U.S.
A worker sprays Holstein-Friesian cows from Australia with water at a dairy farm managed by Laras Ati milk cooperative in Kuningan, West Java province, Indonesia, on June 25.
BUSINESS / Economy
Sep 9, 2025
Indonesia presses businesses, their licenses at stake, to import a million cows
Program aims to provide free meals to 83 million children and expectant mothers, calling for the dairy cows to be imported over five years at a cost of nearly $3 billion.
As of August 2024, the number of confirmed chagusaba farmers had fallen to 302, just over half the 582 reported in 2015, according to the Shizuoka Chagusaba Farming Method Promotion Council.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Sep 7, 2025
Shizuoka farmers fight to preserve sustainable tea method that’s steeped in tradition
The chagusaba method is sustainable, makes tea taste better and helps with biodiversity. But it’s also labor-intensive and the number of practitioners is dwindling.
A factory worker makes soybean-based food products in Hefei, Anhui province, China, in 2020. If China doesn’t take U.S. beans, it can just buy from Brazil or Argentina, said a manager at a major Chinese crusher.
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 27, 2025
China’s soy crushers may be facing a winter without U.S. beans
American farmers say the tariff stalemate between Washington and Beijing leaves them headed toward a financial precipice, but data suggests Chinese buyers are standing pat.
Shinjiro Koizumi, flanked by Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama, greets rice farmers during a discussion in the city of Kirishima, Kagoshima Prefecture, on Monday.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2025
Farm minister promises 'necessary measures' to counter extreme weather events
Shinjiro Koizumi underlines the government's plan for creating agricultural infrastructure that is more resistant to disasters and climate change.
For Suzunobu, a small rice specialty shop in Tokyo's Meguro Ward, distribution delays have resulted in it struggling to sell stockpiled rice secured from the government, owner Toyozo Nishijima said.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 26, 2025
Rice woes weigh down Koizumi's first three months as farm minister
Early forecasts have also indicated that the relatively poor rice harvest this year will drive the price of the staple back up.
A screwworm in Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico, on July 4
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 25, 2025
Human screwworm case in U.S. traced to person who traveled from Guatemala
Screwworms can be devastating in cattle and wildlife, and rarely infest humans, though an infestation in either an animal or a person can be fatal.
The agriculture ministry believes it is difficult to sell all of the stockpiled rice by the original deadline set at the end of this month due to slow deliveries to retailers.
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2025
Government extends deadline for stockpiled rice sales
While a new deadline will not be set, the ministry will ask businesses concerned to make sure the rice sells out within a month of delivery.
Villagers pan for gold in Bombana district of Indonesia's Southeast Sulawesi province in 2009.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 19, 2025
Indonesia grapples with small-scale illegal gold mining
Local authorities face the challenge of encouraging villagers to keep to less-destructive ways of making money, such as sustainable agriculture.
Rice retailed for an average ¥3,737 per 5-kilogram bag at about 1,000 supermarkets nationwide from Aug. 4 to 10, up ¥195 from the previous week and around 1.4 times the value a year earlier, according to the agriculture ministry.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 19, 2025
Rice prices climbed in early August as stockpile release slowed, data shows
Retail prices averaged ¥3,737 per 5-kilogram bag from Aug. 4 to 10, up ¥195 from the previous week and around 1.4 times the price a year earlier.
Actors in period costume pose on a re-creation of a Tudor wine fountain at Hampton Court Palace in Surrey, England, in April 2010. England’s recent wine boom is hitting limits due to scale, costs and competition.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2025
England’s sparkling wine is losing its fizz
It really doesn’t help having higher taxes now measured on alcohol content. The going is only getting tougher for fledgling startups.
A farmer removes weeds from a soybean farm in Nashik, India, on July 28.
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 12, 2025
India's ethanol drive imperils its push for edible oil self-sufficiency
New Delhi is working to make more ethanol to meet its target of blending 20% of it with gasoline, but the process produces a protein-rich byproduct flooding the animal feed market.
Takaichi poised to become Japan's first female PM after winning LDP poll
Sanae Takaichi, the newly elected leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, holds a news conference after the LDP presidential election in Tokyo on Saturday.
A Japanese ski resort town is roiled by a debate over immigration
A Swedish snowboard instructor works at the Niseko ski resort area on Hokkaido, in Kutchan, in December 2022
Retro-wrapped trains mark 100th anniversary of Tokyo's Yamanote Line
Trains decorated to resemble the 103 (left) and 205 series of trains that formerly ran on the Yamanote Line, in Tokyo on Saturday.
How Takaichi won the LDP’s leadership race
Sanae Takaichi, the newly elected leader of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, poses in the party leader's office after the LDP leadership election in Tokyo on Saturday.
North Korea says 'special assets' deployed against South
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during the Defense Development 2025 military exhibition event ahead of the 80th founding anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, in Pyongyang in this picture released Sunday.
Takaichi, the LDP’s first female president, is far from an ‘overnight success’
Newly-elected Liberal Democratic Party chief Sanae Takaichi greets her fellow LDP members on Saturday at party headquarters.
How a family-run landscaper turned the Osaka Expo green
The team at Ryokukou Garden consists primarily of a single family, including Toshiki Tanisaki (second from right), who led the company's efforts at the Osaka Expo, Chikako Tanisaki (fifth from right), who performs daily maintanence at the expo, and Takeshi Tanisaki (fourth from right), who added a nursery to the family farm more than 50 years ago.
Eat your balloons: The culinary theater of Grant Achatz comes to Tokyo
Avant-garde chef Grant Achatz and his team from Alinea are in Tokyo for a three-week residency.
Japan’s first foreign wine investor plants its roots in Hokkaido
Intrigued by Japanese wines, Burgundy winemaker Etienne de Montille decided to explore Hokkaido's wine scene, eventually setting up his outpost in Hakodate in 2017.
Tea ceremony experts see matcha boom as a big opportunity
Atsuko Mori, founder and director of Kyoto-based tea salon Camellia Tea Ceremony, prepares matcha during a tea ceremony in Kyoto.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?
By Alex K.T. Martin

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