{"id":164829,"date":"2025-03-30T11:15:29","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T11:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/agriculture\/in-tokyo-rice-farmers-protest-misguided-rules-fueling-shortages\/"},"modified":"2025-03-30T11:15:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T11:15:29","slug":"in-tokyo-rice-farmers-protest-misguided-rules-fueling-shortages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=164829","title":{"rendered":"In Tokyo, Rice Farmers Protest \u2018Misguided\u2019 Rules Fueling Shortages"},"content":{"rendered":"


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In the United States, the affordability of eggs<\/a> has prompted a national discussion \u2014 underscoring anxieties<\/a> about the economy and the government\u2019s role in addressing them. In Japan, there\u2019s an equivalent: rice.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, Japan has grappled with a more than 200,000-ton shortage<\/a> of its staple grain. Rice prices have skyrocketed, and supermarkets have been forced to restrict amounts that shoppers can buy. The situation became so dire that the government had to tap<\/a> its emergency rice reserves.<\/p>\n

The twist is that even as Japan deals with shortages, the government is paying farmers to limit how much they grow. The policy, in place for more than half a century, consumes billions of dollars a year in public spending.<\/p>\n

Farmers exasperated with the government regulations protested on Sunday. Under cherry blossoms in a park in central Tokyo, more than 4,000 farmers, wearing straw hats and sun caps, gathered with signs declaring \u201cRice is life\u201d and \u201cWe make rice but can\u2019t make a living.\u201d Thirty of them drove tractors through the skyscraper-lined streets of the capital city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n