Market Data 
- Japan is releasing rice from its national emergency stockpile for the first time to combat shortages.
- High temperatures reducing rice production and stockpiling are thought to be behind the problem.
- Rice prices in Japan have almost doubled in the past 12 months.
The Japanese government is releasing rice from its emergency reserve for the first time to address a supermarket shortage and soaring prices.
Japan’s agriculture ministry held an auction last week in a bid to stabilize the market.
It announced on Friday it had selected bidders for almost 142,000 tons of rice from the government reserve, local media reported. Bidders are paying 21,217 yen (about $143) per 60 kilograms and the extra supplies are expected to start reaching stores later this month.
Releasing such a large amount of rice would improve the “supply-demand balance,” agriculture minister Taku Eto told a press conference.
He said the ministry would carry out another auction later this month.
Rice supplies in Japan started to decline last summer, sending prices sharply higher. Experts have blamed the problem on high temperatures in 2023 damaging crops, and stockpiling over fears of an earthquake — and expectations that prices would keep rising.
Despite the intervention, the agriculture ministry said a 5-kilogram bag of rice cost an average of 4,077 yen (about $27) at some 1,000 stores in the week ending March 9.
That’s almost double the price this time last year and marks the 10th consecutive weekly increase.
Core consumer price index data released by Japan’s internal affairs ministry at the end of January showed that the price of rice rose nearly 71% year-on-year in Tokyo’s 23 wards.
The 231,000 tons of rice authorized to be released from the stockpile represents about 20% of the total, The New York Times reported.
