The dramatic rise in rice prices across Japan since August 2024 reveals a troubling paradox. A staple so central to Japanese identity that the word ‘gohan’ means both ‘meal’ and ‘rice’ — a grain that ...

The price of rice in Japan has doubled in the last year. NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with University of Pittsburgh scholar Kay Shimizu about what's behind the shortage in the homeland of sushi. Remember ...

TOKYO — Rice is essential to Japanese culture, tradition and politics. People take pride in the oval-shaped sticky Japonica grain, which is still a staple even though total consumption has fallen over ...

Taku Eto’s comment, which many Japanese saw as out of touch with the difficult economic realities they face, came at a seminar Sunday in Saga prefecture. Politically, the gaffe could be further ...

In response to soaring supermarket rice prices, the Japanese government released 210,000 tonnes of rice from its emergency reserves in February 2025, despite an abundance of rice production in the ...

For decades, Japan's tight protection of its rice market — a symbol of cultural pride, postwar resilience and self-sufficiency — blocked broader trade deals. Last month, rice was once again a sticking ...

TOKYO (AP) — Rice is essential to Japanese culture, tradition and politics. People take pride in the oval-shaped sticky Japonica grain, which is still a staple even though total consumption has fallen ...

Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba delivers a policy speech marking the start of the year's parliamentary session in Tokyo, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) TOKYO (AFP) — The ...

NAGOYA, Japan >> Aichi prefecture is striving to increase rice production amid high rice prices across Japan. But the prefecture faces a formidable threat from pests, whose damage is intensified by ...

Record high temperatures in Japan could curb the country’s rice production, threatening to create shortages of the staple grain and fresh price spikes as public resentment mounts over cost of living.

TOKYO (AP) — Rice is essential to Japanese culture, tradition and politics. People take pride in the oval-shaped sticky Japonica grain, which is still a staple even though total consumption has fallen ...