Japan releases rice from emergency stockpile, but just for food

Japan will release another 200,000 tonnes of rice from its reserves to counter serious shortages and doubling prices. But will this impact sake producers? Japanese agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi said on Tuesday that the government would release more rice from its emergency stockpile. The government will sell 100,000 tonnes from the 2021 crop year first, before releasing a further 100,000 from the 2020 rice harvest. It is the first time that the government has decided to release 2020 rice. State stockpiles sat at 910,000 tonnes early this year before the government began releasing stocks through auctions in March and April. The government usually stores around 1m tonnes of of rice in preparation for emergencies such as disasters or crop failures, buying 200,000 tonnes annually from farmers over a five year period. Following this latest round, the emergency stockpile will sit at just 100,000 tonnes, sparking fears over what could happen in a crisis. Japan's agriculture ministry will sell the rice to retailers of all sizes and local rice sellers with sufficient milling capacity, according to Koizumi. But the minister said nothing of sake producers in his announcement yesterday (10 June), with his focus firmly on table rice consumers. "We want to continue responding without slowing down so that the stockpiled rice can reach consumers quickly and at a low cost," Koizumi said during a press conference.

Explained: the sake rice shortage problem

Consumers have been dealing with rice shortages since last summer, with the price of table rice doubling in a year. In recent weeks consumers have formed long queues to buy the 5kg bags of stockpiled rice priced at 2,000 yen (£10.21) since they became available in stores in the past week and a half. The price hikes have shifted more growers who traditionally grew sake rice towards table rice production. Sake rice has long been traded at a higher price, but the balance has shifted over the past year as a result of the shortages. Fears of a sake rice shortage are now mounting. Last week, minister Koizumi told reporters in Tokyo that the government was mulling releasing stockpiled rice for processing into products such as sake and miso. "Rice is not just for staple food," Koizumi told reporters at the agriculture ministry in Tokyo, according to Nippon.com. However, nothing was said of sake and miso producers in yesterday's announcement. Japan's agriculture ministry has said, however, that it will conduct a hearing with sake industry officials to decide the timing and quantity of rice released. For now, sake producers remain concerned about rice for use as an ingredient. "The purchase price of sake rice harvested in 2025 will be more than 30% higher than [sake] rice harvested in 2024, which is an unprecedented increase," Keiki Hane, president of Toyama-based Fumigiku Sake Brewery, has said. "Sake rice accounts for nearly 60% of raw material costs. Our efforts can't do much to overcome the situation," Hane said. Fumigiku Sake Brewery has said that it plans to pass some of these higher costs on to consumers, raising the prices of its products by at least 3%-5% this autumn.