Japanese government creates rice shortage so bad they have to release strategic stockpiles. And still refuses to allow rice imports.

For the curious: Japan has extremely strict laws regarding rice imports, to protect local rice farmers. They also took the US’ Great Depression route, and paid farmers to stop growing rice. The government was concerned that plentiful rice harvests, (combined with dropping consumption, from younger people increasingly moving towards less traditional foods), would tank the price of rice. But then harvests weren’t great, there was a panic-buying streak last year which emptied existing supplies, the war in Ukraine led to rising wheat costs, (pushing those younger people back towards eating rice instead of bread), and a surge in tourism led to increased rice consumption from all the dining out.

To be clear, this isn’t a natural rice shortage; This is the Japanese government refusing to relax the rules on imports, even while people struggle to afford food. There are plenty of countries that have a lot of excess rice, but Japanese stores aren’t allowed to sell that foreign rice, because it would hurt the Japanese rice farmers who were paid to not grow rice.