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The land of the rising sun is experiencing a period of crisis due to rice shortages as panic buying fueled by recent natural disasters and fears fueled by social media hyper-activates.
On supermarket shelves, rice is disappearing. An essential product in Japanese culture that, the government assures us, will continue to have sufficient stocks. However, consumers do not seem to have been reassured by such a statement, heading to grocery stores to buy the product en masse.
Supermarkets are even putting up posters asking customers to limit their rice purchases to one bag per person, while the Internet is flooded with images of empty shelves.
Japanese society is thus plunged into deep concern over such a paradigm, as a direct effect of climate change, the increase in international tourists and last year’s poor harvests. Local media have already dubbed it the ‘Reiwa rice crisis’.
The Japanese, who are often urged to stockpile dry goods for emergencies, recently faced a series of natural disasters, including a 7.1 magnitude earthquake, typhoon warnings and even a possible “mega-earthquake”. Some alerts directly advised households to secure rice stocks, which led to an avalanche on supermarket shelves.
However, the authorities have tried to reassure the situation. ‘Rice has grown well in 2024. In some places, the harvest will start a week earlier than usual, so shipments should also start earlier,’ said Agriculture Minister Tetsushi Sakamoto. ‘We should be patient until the new rice arrives,’ Yokado added.
