★New rice is priced at 4,000 yen for 5 kg, while California rice is priced at 1,609 yen… With rice prices remaining high, consumers are forced to make the difficult “shift to foreign rice,” while farmers are also “seeing no increase in income at all,” creating a vicious cycle.The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is said to be “the government agency responsible for supplying safe and secure food to the public.” Certainly few people would disagree. In that case, “the price of rice will rise sharply and will not come down at all. However, as rising production costs are one of the causes, we do not intend to do anything in particular.” What do you think of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ policy? In August of this year, rice disappeared from store shelves. This is the “Reiwa rice riots” that are still fresh in our memories. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries explained, “Once the new rice becomes available, rice will be back on store shelves.” That wasn’t wrong, but consumers were left lamenting the high prices. “Last autumn, five kilograms of rice was selling for between 2,000 and 2,500 yen in Tokyo. However, in September of this year, the price rose to 3,500 yen and has not fallen at all since then. Preliminary figures for real wages for September were released on November 7th, showing that they were negative for the second consecutive month and unable to keep up with rising prices. When it comes to popular brands of new rice, the price can even go as high as 4,000 yen for 5 kilograms. There aren’t many high-income families who can easily afford this.” The bad news for consumers continues. On November 19, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries announced the “relative transaction price,” which indicates the price at which rice is bought and sold between rice shipping organizations and wholesalers. The average price for all brands in October was 23,820 yen per 60 kg of brown rice, which is said to be a rare high price in recent years. The government lied, saying “rice will become cheaper” “The highest annual average price ever recorded was in 1993. Due to a severe crop failure, this year became known as the “Heisei Rice Riots.” If you are over 40 years old, you may remember the emergency import of Thai rice. At that time there was a physical shortage of rice, so the high prices are understandable. However, even though rice is available now, it is expensive. It’s only natural that there are consumers who don’t understand.” (Same reporter) Sankei Shimbun published an article in their morning edition on November 20th titled “Rice trading remains at high level in October, surpassing 1993 ‘rice riots’, government predictions failing.” It was reported that the government’s prediction that “prices will fall once new rice becomes available” turned out to be wrong. Because it is a national newspaper, they used the polite expression “wrong,” but if you know the background to this, it is no wonder that people say the government and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries lied to the public. (Link below) *Previous thread.
Only people with backgrounds in agriculture, forestry and fisheries should be allowed to join the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Same goes for the Minister. Stop these city rich kids trying to run the place like they’re superior.
Isn’t it strange that rice produced in California, where rents have risen so much due to big tech that it’s rumored that even someone earning 10 million yen a year can become homeless, is cheaper?
We wondered where the evil magistrate Sakamoto had fled to, but it turns out he had been promoted to a senior official in the Liberal Democratic Party.
Curse yourselves for letting the nightmare weak-yen party, the Liberal Democratic Party, win!! I miss the heavenly days of the Democratic Party, when the yen was strong and everything was cheap…
I live in Adachi Ward, and starting next Wednesday my local supermarket will be offering a 30% rebate via QR code rebate, so I’ll be stocking up on rice.
I’m in the countryside of Chiba, and even on sale it was always 3000 yen for 5 kg, but last week it was on sale for 2700 yen, so I think the price will gradually go down. Supply has caught up with demand and there’s a lot of stock, so by next month it will go down in the city too.
In the end, agricultural cooperatives won’t take advantage of the situation and sell things cheaply by raising prices. But it’s a lie that farmers don’t make a profit. Farmers are making profits, but they’re stupid so they just borrow over-spec farm equipment from the agricultural cooperative and buy it. It’s like how even though a Corolla is more than enough, everyone is flocking to buy a GTR or an LS500 for some reason.
If the increase in prices isn’t returned to the farmers who produce the produce, then it becomes profit for greedy middlemen. After the Gerimpiik festival, where middlemen took 95% of the profits, people have probably become numb to the idea that a doubling in prices is a bad thing.
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