Rice is the backbone of the Japanese diet, but amid a severe shortage of the staple and soaring prices, the Japanese government has started auctioning off its emergency stockpile for the first time.
The debut auction last month saw 142,000 tons of grain up for offer at a cost of 21,217 yen (about £113) per 60kg, reported Business Insider.
Rice farming in Japan follows a "complex system", said First Post, with limits on production designed to keep prices high enough to support farmers and a multi-step distribution chain in which even a "slight hiccup" can cause a serious disruption.
In 2023, extreme heat severely impacted the rice harvest, leading to shortages in the supermarkets that first began last summer and show no signs of abating. As of last month a 5kg bag of rice cost an average of 4,077 yen (£22) – double what it was a year before.
About 180,000 tons more rice was collected in last year's harvest compared to 2023, but in December distributors said they were down by 210,000 tons – fuelling conspiracy theories that speculators are hoarding rice to make bigger profits. In February, Agriculture Minister Taku Eto claimed "there's a quantity that's been stacked away and hidden somewhere".
The uncertainty is "disquieting", said The New York Times. One shopkeeper was told in January that his distributor had already run out of rice for the year. "Rice is an integral part of Japanese people’s lives," he told the site. "Japanese people are worried right now." | 
