Japan’s rice policy is at a crossroads as prices of the country’s staple food stay around record highs, squeezing households.
“We’ll change course and boost production,” then-Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in August 2025, declaring a change in the government’s rice policy, under which production adjustment had been maintained.
But this was quickly reversed by his successor, Sanae Takaichi, who took office as prime minister in October. Her policy is to keep production in line with demand.