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July 12, 2026
 

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FOOD

A customer picks up a bag of government-stockpiled rice sold at a convenience store in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Jun 24, 2025
Price of rice in Japan falls below ¥4,000 per 5 kilograms
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba had aimed to push down rice prices to the ¥3,000-¥4,000 range by as early as mid-June.
Tsutomu Uchida has experimented with various cultivation techniques since he started growing avocados in Shizuoka Prefecture in October 2020.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Jun 22, 2025
As Japan warms, avocados emerge as an unlikely savior for farmers
In traditional mikan strongholds like Shizuoka, farmers are growing increasingly concerned about future production and seeing opportunities with avocados.
Palestinians carry sacks of flour collected from an aid distribution point in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on Tuesday.
WORLD
Jun 20, 2025
As death toll rises, Gazans make life-risking journeys to seek food
Like thousands of other Palestinians in Gaza, Hind Al-Nawajha makes a long, dangerous journey every day to try to get food for her family, hoping she makes it back alive.
Reports about fraudulent online rice shops to consumer affairs centers around the country spiked to 335 cases in April and May alone.
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2025
Reports of online rice scams surging in Japan
Reports about fraudulent online rice shops to consumer affairs centers around the country spiked to 335 cases in April and May alone, as much as is normally seen in a year.
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Thursday.
JAPAN
Jun 12, 2025
Japan to move up auctions for imported rice
This year’s first auction for rice as a staple food will take place on June 27 instead of the usual September, agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Thursday.
Bags of rice from the government's stockpile are sold at a Don Quijote store in Tokyo's Ota Ward on June 1.
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2025
Applications open for latest batch of stockpiled rice
Retailers who previously bought stockpiled rice under no-bid contracts can reapply, but only for amounts they can sell by August.
People carry relief supplies from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private U.S.-backed aid group that has bypassed the longstanding U.N.-led system in the territory, as displaced Palestinians return from an aid distribution center in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 10, 2025
Palestinians’ dangerous ordeal to reach Israeli-approved aid
Gunfire and a desperate crowd of hungry people make reaching aid points a life-threatening ordeal that may ultimately be an exercise in futility.
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks in a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 10, 2025
Japan to release extra 200,000 tons of stockpiled rice as prices fall
The average price of a 5-kilogram bag of rice at supermarkets in the week through June 1 was ¥4,223, down ¥37 from the previous week.
Japan faces soaring rice prices, a powerful farming cooperative resistant to change, declining farmer numbers, falling rice consumption and conflicting government policies that hinder effective reform of the sector.
COMMENTARY
Jun 10, 2025
How ‘vintage’ rice is shaking up Japanese politics
Rice is where consumers have drawn the line. The staple rose by 98% in the past year, adding almost half a percentage point to headline inflation.
Many curry shops are going bankrupt in Japan as prices of mainstay ingredients have gone up due to a rice shortage, adverse weather and a weak yen.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 6, 2025
Soaring rice prices take a bite out of Japan’s beloved curry shops
A total of 13 shops with more than ¥10 million in debt filed for bankruptcy in the year ended March — a record high for a second consecutive year.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (left) and agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi attend the first ministerial meeting on stable rice supply, held at the Prime Minister's Office on Thursday.
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2025
Ishiba seeks probe on high prices at first rice meeting
A key issue in future discussions at the ministerial council will be how to optimize rice distribution.
Lawson plans to sell 1-kilogram and 2-kg bags of rice it bought from the government's stockpile at ¥360 ($2.50) and ¥700 respectively.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 4, 2025
Aging rice? Lawson prefers to call it ‘vintage.’
As convenience stores prepare to sell government stockpiled rice from older harvests to consumers, Lawson says it will offer rice balls made of “vintage rice.”
Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 4, 2025
Komeito to propose sales tax cut on food, Yomiuri reports
A Komeito official confirmed the report, saying the tax cut idea will be among proposals in the campaign pledge due on Friday.
The average price of rice sold at some 1,000 supermarkets across Japan in the week through May 25 stood at ¥4,260 ($29.80) per 5 kilograms, down ¥25 from the previous week.
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2025
Retail prices for rice across Japan make first dip in three weeks
The average price in the week through May 25 stood at ¥4,260 ($29.80) per 5 kilograms, down by ¥25 from the previous week.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks at an Upper House Budget Committee meeting on Monday as agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi looks on.
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2025
Japan to set up minister-level meeting to address rice supplies
The government released a further 300,000 metric tons of stockpiled rice last week in a bid to bring down prices.
Rice from government stockpiles is sold at a store in Sendai on Saturday.
JAPAN
May 31, 2025
41% of Japanese rice farmers expect price drop in 2026
A share of 72.3% of farmers, however, expect prices for 2025 rice to be higher than for 2024 rice.
Iris Ohyama began sales of government-stockpiled rice at a home center location in Chiba Prefecture on Saturday morning.
JAPAN
May 31, 2025
Japanese customers brave the rain to line up for cheap stockpiled rice
Lines formed in the early hours of Saturday morning at an outlet in Chiba Prefecture as people clamored to purchase 5 kilogram bags of rice for ¥2,000.
A rice shop owner listens to an online briefing by the farm ministry on the no-bid contract method of purchase for small retailers looking to buy stockpiled rice from the government, on Thursday in Tokyo.
JAPAN
May 30, 2025
Farm ministry starts accepting applications for older rice from small buyers
Smaller retailers and rice shops can buy rice stockpiled from the 2021 harvest from the government via no-bid contracts.
Stockpiled rice arrives Thursday at a rice-milling factory operated by a subsidiary of household appliance company Iris Ohyama in the town of Watari, Miyagi Prefecture.
JAPAN / Politics
May 30, 2025
Some retailers hesitant to buy stockpiled rice on quality concerns
Smaller shops in Japan are worried that older batches might not taste as good, which could cause customers to take their business elsewhere.
A government white paper on agriculture attributed the recent rice price hikes partly to some producers boosting direct sales to consumers and sales to nonconventional buyers.
JAPAN
May 30, 2025
Government blames rice price surges on procurement route changes
Rice prices at retailers soared because wholesalers had to buy at relatively high prices to supplement shortfalls, a white paper concluded.
China’s demand for Soviet-style apartments shows limits to revival
Apartments built during a Soviet Union-inspired construction drive in the 1970s and 1980s tend to suffer from poor insulation and outdated plumbing, but they are seeing a revival in interest due to their attractive locations.
Japanese scientists identify neural mechanism that may explain why we dislike people
The aggressive mouse (left) used in the experiment and a mouse defending itself
Japanese payment processor’s collapse hits banks and restaurants
Zentoshin served around 200,000 shops, many of which rely on early payments to maintain cash flow, raising concerns over their financial stability following the disruption.
Over 70% of accommodations in Japan say they are understaffed amid tourism influx
The number of foreign visitors to Japan reached a high of 42.68 million in 2025.
Lenders seek $700 million after Japanese payments firm’s collapse
The financial failure of Osaka-based Zentoshin has left 63 creditors with claims totaling ¥115.16 billion, according to Tokyo Shoko Research.
Japan’s largest exhibition of women photographers rights a wrong in cultural history
Miwa Yanagi’s “Elevator Girl House” series skewers the superficiality of gender roles through staged images.
Over 70% of accommodations in Japan say they are understaffed amid tourism influx
The number of foreign visitors to Japan reached a high of 42.68 million in 2025.
‘Princess Mononoke’ comes alive in Super Kabuki staging
The “Princess Mononoke” adaptation was created under Shochiku’s Super Kabuki initiative, a modern form of kabuki with more technology in staging and open to pop culture collaborations.
The beating heart inside ‘Human Vapor’
Different forms of love and connection form the emotional backbone of Netflix’s “Human Vapor,” says actor Shun Oguri, who plays troubled detective Kenji Okamoto.
Japan bets on character IP to drive global growth
Born on social media platforms in 2022, Opanchu Usagi has become a major hit, especially among Generation Z.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
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