Learn About Japan > Work and Workplaces in Japan > Agriculture > Food Self-Sufficiency in Rice
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Agriculture
- Land Reform in Postwar Japan
- Why Japan's Land Reform Succeeded
- Wet Rice Agriculture
- Transplanting Rice Seedlings
- Early Mechanization of Agriculture
- Reorganization of Farm Land
- Innovations in Fruit and Vegetable Farming
- Rice Rationing and Subsidies
- Japan’s Shrinking Farm Population
- Farm Household Size and the Problem of Succession
- Who Farms in Japanese Farm Households?
- San-Chan Nōgyō
- The Changing Japanese Diet
- Dairy Farming in Japan
- What Dairy Products Do Japanese Eat?
- Beef Cattle in Japan
- The Changing Income of Farm Households
- Raising Silkworms in Japan
- Food Self-Sufficiency in Japan
- Food Self-Sufficiency in Rice
- Organic Farming in Japan
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During the poor rice crop of 1993, supplies of rice were urgently imported from California.
Photo from Mainichi Shimbun.
Food Self-Sufficiency in Rice
Even in rice, the most symbolically significant item of food self-sufficiency, Japan has become a bit less self-sufficient. A very bad harvest in 1993 forced Japan to import rice on a large scale for the first time. Most of the imported rice was used for processed products, including sake and vinegar. Japanese consumers resisted foreign rice at the dinner table, believing that it had an inferior taste. Special charcoal was sold in stores to be cooked along with the rice to remove the supposed bad taste.
Domestic rice production rebounded in 1994, but by the end of the1990s Japan was importing about five percent of its rice from other countries. Japanese consumers still prefer to use only high quality Japanese rice for their meals.
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Special Terms:
self-sufficiency
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processed products
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