Prices of cooking rice for use in the restaurant and food-service industry have been rising. An agricultural policy that has made rice farmers dependent on subsidies meant to safeguard them has brought about a loss of flexibility in production, thus failing to meet the needs of consumers sufficiently.
Restaurant chain operators have raised their prices one after another, while supermarket operators have in succession effectively raised their prices of rice balls by reducing the amount of rice used to make them. These developments have come about as the prices of cooking rice for business use have risen by more than 10 percent from a year earlier. The prime factor for price increases is that rice production has not caught up with demand.
The use of cooking rice for business purpose has been growing, in particular, in the food-service industry and take-out bento businesses, thanks to increases in the number of dual-income households and single-person households.
On the other hand, rice production has been curbed because of the impact of the government's agricultural policy.
The government has abolished the state's rice production adjustment policy -- an acreage reduction system -- starting with the rice to be produced in 2018. Prior to the abolishment, the government raised the subsidies for feed rice, so that rice farmers would not produce cooking rice in excess.
Such cases have become conspicuous involving hitherto major producers of cooking rice for business use -- such as small-scale, part-time farmers -- shifting into feed rice production, accelerating the shortage of cooking rice for the restaurant and food-service industry.
The abolishment of the acreage reduction system is aimed at encouraging originality and ingenuity among rice growers in an unrestrained environment. The income-support measures have given rise to a crop of farmers who fall back on subsidies too easily, thus distorting the primary purpose of the system.
Defeating the purpose
With the cultivation of feed rice, farmland with low profitability has been maintained. This also runs counter to the thinking of rejuvenating Japanese agriculture.
It has also been pointed out that highly motivated farmers tend to shun growing cooking rice for business use, whose selling prices are lower than those of branded rice.
Large-scale farmers, in particular, have increased their tendency to focus on the production of branded rice, which they can sell at high prices, a factor contributing to the short supply of cooking rice for business use.
The food-service industry, among others, is in need of rice which is reasonably priced but of high quality. In order to develop an environment in which farmers actively produce cooking rice for business use, their cooperation with industry and others will be vital.
Among restaurant chain operators, there are those that could make contracts with specific farmers for production over multiple years. Those farmers who grow branded rice would also be able to rely on a stable source of income if they switch some of the rice they grow to cooking rice for business use under a long-term contract.
As Japanese rice is also highly popular in foreign countries, the government is aiming at having the rice-growing sector develop into an export-oriented industry. How to secure the market for Japanese rice both at home and abroad will be put to the test.
Distributors such as agricultural cooperatives should put their strength into improving their intermediary functions linking producers and consumers.
Rice suitable for business use that is relatively cheap and tasty includes such popular varieties as "Haenuki" produced in Yamagata Prefecture and "Asahi no Yume" grown in Gunma Prefecture.
It is hoped that research institutes, including agricultural research stations, accelerate the development of such varieties of rice whose yield per unit is high so that farmers are able to make an adequate amount of profit.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 28, 2018)
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