Spiralling prices force ministers to allow rice imports

It's cheap, filling and a time-honoured way for office workers to calm their hunger pangs.

- Justin McCurry

Lunchtime diners at fast-food restaurants in central Tokyo are here for one thing: gyudon - thinly sliced beef and onions on rice. The topping is rich and moreish, but it's the stickiness of the plump japonica grains beneath that make this one of Japan's best-loved comfort foods.

Rice cultivation in Japan stretches back thousands of years, but the Japanese staple is in trouble, buffeted by soaring prices, a fumbled political response, and the spectre of competition from "inferior" foreign imports.

Successive governments have protected farmers by tightly controlling supply, ensuring that all but a tiny quantity of rice sold in stores and restaurants is homegrown. Protectionism keeps prices high - an arrangement that has suited farmers and which consumers have come to tolerate - but it is also affecting supply. Japan may import 60% of its food, but rice should always be the exception, so the thinking goes.

But the political and cultural insulation of Japan's beloved grain is falling apart, amid a doubling in prices and anger among consumers who say their interests always come second to those of farmers - traditionally strong supporters of the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP).

Stockpiles, already depleted by record-breaking temperatures that affected the 2023 crop,