Japanese shoppers scramble for cheap, government-issued rice | REUTERS
it’s a shocking site in Japan long lines of desperate shoppers forming to buy the most everyday of staples rice that was the situation at locations around the country this week as consumers scrambled to get their hands on cheap governmentissued stocks the rice started hitting shelves over the weekend after ministers began selling grains from emergency stockpiles direct to retailers that saw people waiting for hours outside major stores including Eon and Itto Yokado it all comes after rice prices doubled over the past year partly due to high temperatures hitting harvests this shopper says she is counting on the government to help she told Reuters she had all but run out of rice and was switching to bread and noodles now the government rice is available at about $14 for 5 kg or about half regular store prices farm Minister Shinjiro Koisumi said action was also needed to protect domestic production if these high prices continue to go unchecked the shelves will be filled with imported rice i would like to reiterate that we are releasing our stockpiled rice in order to prevent this from happening poisumi said the government stood ready to release its entire stockpile if necessary but it remains to be seen how the emergency release will affect regular retail prices now this year’s harvest is at least expected to be better imports of rice have also increased but remain tiny with Japan imposing steep tariffs to protect domestic growers
Japan’s farm minister said the government stood ready to offer more stockpiled rice as consumers formed long queues to snatch up cheap, emergency-use grain made available through some retailers since the weekend.
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