TOKYO: Japan’s government held its most successful sale of foreign rice in 31 months on Wednesday as high domestic prices push restaurants to seek cheaper alternatives. Wholesalers bought 10,416 tons of imported rice that day at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ first auction of the commodity in fiscal 2016. This comes to 35% of the 30,000 tons on offer. Both the amount changing hands and the share of the total sold are the highest since February 2014.
Medium-grain polished rice from the U.S., a leader among imported varieties destined for Japanese tables, accounted for 4,866 tons of the haul. California, where the grain is produced, is experiencing a bumper crop. The rice went for around 168 yen ($1.65) per kilogram, tax included — 10 yen cheaper than at the last auction in March, thanks to an uptick in supply and lower global prices.
Food-grade rice produced in Japan is becoming more expensive as farmers give more land over to rice used as animal feed. This year’s crop will likely come to 7.35 million tons, or 90,000 tons less than in 2015, according to the agriculture ministry. The National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations, known as Zen-Noh, on Wednesday set the wholesale price on a common dinner-table variety at 16,000 yen per 60kg, or 500 yen higher than for last year’s crop.
A number of eateries substituted imported rice for domestic when the latter’s price surged in 2012. When domestic prices subsided, those food-use imports all but disappeared. Now, the imported crop looks to hit tables once again. Wholesalers report greater interest in foreign rice by restaurant chains. Garden, the parent of a company running a casual rice-bowl chain, has said it has little choice but to consider using imported rice amid high domestic prices. Japan imports 770,000 tons of rice each year under a minimum-access quota system. Up to 100,000 tons of that is sold for direct consumption, while the rest is used in applications such as processed foods and snacks.
