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SAKURA, Tochigi -- New rice is arriving on supermarket and rice shop shelves across Japan as the harvest continues. But with last year's rice still lingering in the market, prices have fallen sharply -- a welcome development for consumers, but a complicated one for rice farmers.

Even as he surveys richly ripened, golden ears of rice, Nobuyuki Okada, a 41-year-old rice farmer in Sakura, Tochigi Prefecture, does not look pleased.

"Last year, wholesalers were fighting over rice before it had even been produced. This year's prices are expected to fall sharply. I can't put my energy into the harvest," he said.

Okada has 20 hectares of paddies where he grows Koshihikari for staple food use, "Niji no Kirameki," known for high yields, and "Tochigi no Hoshi," a variety resistant to high temperatures. He also grows glutinous rice and rice used to make sake. He planned to harvest about 60 metric tons from late September to early October, and he expects his 2026 rice crop to total about 100 tons.

Okada has been a rice farmer for 16 years. At first, he asked the nationwide Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA) to buy his rice, but for about the past 10 years he has sold it without going through JA, instead dealing directly with private rice wholesalers, rice stores and other businesses.

When farmers deliver rice to the local JA branch, they must prepare their own trucks and transport it to a designated location. Private wholesalers, by contrast, collect the rice by truck as long as it has been packed into bags.

During the severe rice shortage of 2024 and 2025, known as the "Reiwa rice crisis," Okada was swamped by private wholesalers seeking stock. Last year, he shipped rice for as much as 35,000 yen (approx. $220) per 60 kilograms in some cases, about twice the usual price.

This year, however, the picture has changed completely. Around June, after rice planting was finished, several wholesalers with whom he had done business unilaterally told him, "We can't buy rice this year."

"When rice was in short supply, I cooperated by introducing wholesalers who were struggling to farmers I knew," Okada said. Now they have completely changed their attitude. The trust he had built with private wholesalers and local rice stores had effectively been betrayed.

The average price of a 5-kilogram bag of rice at about 1,000 supermarkets nationwide between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4 was 2,860 yen (about $18), down 66 yen from the previous week. It was the eighth consecutive weekly decline and the fourth straight week that the average stayed in the 2,000-yen range.

The lingering effects of the Reiwa rice crisis are rattling farmers and markets across the country.

A wholesaler in the Chubu region said, "Rice inventories are more than twice as large as usual. From now on, new rice will be the main product, so we have no choice but to give up on making a profit from the 2025 rice we bought at high prices."

In parts of the market, a "reversal phenomenon" is occurring, with the retail price of 2025 rice higher than that of 2026 rice despite the former being older. There appears to be a move to reduce, even slightly, losses on 2025 rice purchased at high rates.

Anticipating this year's rice surplus, Okada reluctantly turned to the local JA branch. In April, he signed an advance contract to have the branch purchase the bulk of about 40 tons of Koshihikari.

The "advance payment" by JA to farmers when it collects new rice was in the 30,000-yen range per 60 kilograms for the 2025 crop, but this year it is about half that. Taking into account costs such as transporting the rice from the paddies to JA, losses are unavoidable even through the cooperative.

Okada is not alone. He says many nearby farmers are stuck with new rice for which they have no buyers, and he often hears people say, "Maybe I should quit farming."

Okada also harbors a deep distrust of the government's rice policy, which he sees as constantly shifting.

"The government set out a policy of increasing rice production, so I cooperated, but this year I will end up suffering a major loss. Farmers make large capital investments in tractors and other equipment. I want the administration to be more consistent and more oriented toward farmers," he said.

Source : msn