Emergency reserves, high prices, rationing. How did Japan's rice crisis get this far?

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 over the decades.

But since last summer, prices have soared as supplies have fallen short of demand. The government has long paid farmers to cut back on rice acreage, and change to other crops to keep rice prices relatively high.

To cope with shortfalls this year, the government has released rice reserves. But the grain has been slow to reach supermarket shelves. Anger over that was part of the reason the agriculture minister quit this week.

Consumers are frustrated and wondering where’s the rice?

Agriculture Minister Taku Eto resigned Wednesday after he raised an uproar by saying he “never had to buy rice,” because his supporters give it to him as gifts.

The remark was seen as utterly out of touch with the realities of ordinary people struggling to make ends meet and to afford rice to eat. Eto apologized, but he was obliged to step down as damage control by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, whose minority government faces a big challenge in a crucial national election in July.

Eto's successor is former environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi, who has taken part in reforming Japan's powerful agriculture lobby. He's been tasked with investigating and resolving the rice problem.

Rice started disappearing from supermarket shelves, and prices surged to twice normal levels since last summer, when a warning about a possible “megaquake” triggered panic buying.

The top “Koshihikari” brand now sells for nearly 5,000 yen ($35) per 5 kilograms (11 pounds). Rice stocks at Japan Agricultural Cooperatives and other commercial wholesalers have been 400,000 tons short of last year's levels, hitting a record low 1.53 million tons as of June, farm ministry data show.

The sense of urgency over shortages has risen now that rice crops have just been planted, with harvests several months away.

Ishiba has pledged to bring the average rice price down to about 3,000 yen ($20) per 5 kilograms (11 pounds).

“We don't know why we haven’t been able to push prices lower," Ishiba said during parliamentary questioning Wednesday when asked how exactly his government will resolve the problem. “We first will figure out exactly how much rice there is and where it is."

He acknowledged current measures aren't working and blamed "structural problems” of the government's rice policy.

Experts say last summer's panic buying just worsened longstanding problems. A sharp rise in tourism and an increase in dining out have raised demand.

Some people started eating more rice after prices of bread and noodles rose when the Russia-Ukraine war pushed wheat prices higher. And the 2023 harvest was relatively poor because of hot weather and pests.

Japan’s rice supply chain is complicated. Most farmers still sell their rice in the traditional system run by Japan Agricultural Cooperatives, or JA, a powerful interest group with close ties to the governing Liberal Democratic Party.

But a growing share is sold through other businesses and online, making it hard to track supplies and prices, said Masayuki Kanamori, an executive of the National Federation of Agricultural Co-operative Associations, a JA umbrella organization.

The shortage caught JA by surprise, Kanamori said.

“Looking back, the current rice shortage was unforeseeable,” he said. "We are puzzled.”

The Agriculture Ministry is under fire for delaying releases of emergency rice reserves, which normally are kept for disasters, and for misjudging the demand-supply balance. So far, only 10% of the released rice stocks have reached the market, raising suspicions about what's happening.

Koizumi on Thursday announced plans to switch to voluntary government contracts for rice to better control prices and to lift a cap on the next sale.

One problem may be a lack of enough milling capacity to turn the stocks of brown rice kept in reserves into the pure white rice that Japanese prefer. But others have accused some wholesalers of hoarding rice to keep prices higher.

So far, the government has done little to investigate and resisted releasing reserves, fearing prices would fall, Kazuhito Yamashita, research director at the Canon Institute for Global Studies.

Japan could have avoided the problem by allowing more rice to be planted and exporting more if there were surpluses, he said.

“Acreage cutbacks are contrary to food security, a ruinous policy," Yamashita said. He said that the policy benefits JA by keeping small farmers afloat.

Meanwhile, farmers coping with rising costs say prices aren't too high.

Ultimately, Japan will need to figure out a long-term strategy since the average age of its farmers is 69, and the farming population has fallen by half over the past two decades to 1.1 million in 2024.

Hiromi Akaba, who lives in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, said that she had no choice but to buy rice at the current high prices. But she added: “If this continues, we will stop eating rice. This could lead to a shift away from rice consumption.”

Many stores are limiting customers to one bag of rice per visit.

Whatever the cause of the shortages, retailers must put rice on the shelves, so some are switching to imports, which usually aren't popular with finnicky Japanese shoppers.

Major supermarket chain operator Aeon Co. plans to sell U.S. grown Japonica “Calrose” rice at 600 outlets in major cities beginning next month. A 4-kilogram (nearly 9-pound) bag of Calrose will sell for 2,894 yen ($20). Aeon is buying 1.4 tons to tide it over until the autumn harvest, Aeon corporate communications official Hirokazu Satou said.

In the past, Aeon has sold Calrose blended with Japanese rice, and this will be the first time that it's selling bags of 100% Calrose, with suggestions like turning it into fried rice. The idea is to keep people eating rice, said Satou, who said he's worried they might just stop.

“We are worried that the ongoing rice shortages and soaring prices may accelerate that trend ... and we don't want it to happen,” he said.

Pedestrians are reflected in the window of a restaurant advertising for rice in Tokyo, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)

An employee prepares a bowl of rice at a restaurant in Tokyo, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)

Former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, center, is surrounded by reporters at the prime minister's office in Tokyo Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)

Large bags of several varieties of rice are sold at a supermarket in Hyuga, Miyazaki prefecture, southwestern Japan, on May 19, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)

Japan's Agriculture Minister Taku Eto, center, arrives at the prime minister's office in Tokyo Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)

A rice field in Mito, Japan, where farmers are being encouraged to grow more of the staple crop to make up for shortages on store shelves, on Wednesday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Elaine Kurtenbach)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Semiofficial news agencies in Iran published a chart Thursday suggesting the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard put sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz during the war, in a message that may be intended to pressure the U.S. as uncertainty hangs over a days-old two-week ceasefire and further negotiations are set to begin in Pakistan.

The charts were released by the ISNA news agency, as well as Tasnim, which is believed to be close to the Guard, and showed a large circle marked “danger zone” in Farsi over the Traffic Separation Scheme, which was the route ships used to take through the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil and natural gas traded once passed.

The chart suggested ships travel further north through waters closer to Iran’s mainland near Larak Island, a route that some ships were observed taking during the war.

The charts were dated from Feb. 28 until Thursday, April 9, and it was unclear if the Guard had cleared any mining on the route since then.

U.S. President Donald Trump posted a statement insisting that his surge of warships and troops will remain around Iran “until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with.”

Trump’s comments on his Truth Social platform appeared to be a way to pressure Iran.

“If for any reason it is not, which is highly unlikely, then the ‘Shootin’ Starts,’ bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before,” Trump wrote.

He also insisted Iran would not be able to build nuclear weapons and “the Strait of Hormuz WILL BE OPEN & SAFE.”

The U.S. and Iran both claimed victory after reaching the ceasefire agreement, and world leaders expressed relief. But more drones and missiles hit Iran and Gulf Arab countries after the deal was announced.

At the same time, Israel intensified its attacks on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, hitting commercial and residential areas in Beirut. At least 182 people were killed Wednesday in the deadliest day of fighting there.

The violence threatened to scuttle what U.S. Vice President JD Vance called a “fragile” deal.

Iran's parliament speaker said Wednesday that planned talks were “unreasonable” because Washington had broken three of Tehran’s 10 conditions for an end to the fighting. In a social media post, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf objected to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, an alleged drone incursion into Iranian airspace after the ceasefire took effect and U.S. refusal to accept any Iranian enrichment capabilities in a final agreement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted that an end to the war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump said the truce did not cover Lebanon. When the deal was announced, the prime minister of Pakistan, which served as a mediator, said in a social media post that it applied to “everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere.”

A New York-based think tank warned the ceasefire “hovers on the verge of collapse.”

The Soufan Center said Israel's strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday added to the risk the deal would fall apart.

“Even if Lebanon was formally outside the deal, the scale of Israel’s strikes was likely to be viewed as escalatory, nonetheless,” it wrote in an analysis published Thursday. “Israel’s strikes can be understood both as an effort to drive a wedge between Iran and its proxies and as a response to being allegedly sidelined in the original ceasefire discussions.”

Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece.

A rescue worker extinguishes burning cars at the site of an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Smoke rises following several Israeli airstrikes in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Ali, 4, holds a toy horse next to the tent his family uses as a shelter after fleeing Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Government supporters gather ahead of the funeral procession for Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, head of intelligence for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

FILE - Two police officers walk in front of an anti-U.S. billboard depicting American aircraft being caught by Iranian armed forces in a fishing net beneath the words in Farsi, "The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed, The entire Persian Gulf is our hunting ground," in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)