Japan pushes rice as solution to food fears

TOKYO (Reuters) - In the face of the soaring rice prices sparking protests and riots around the world, Japan's advice to its people is simple: eat more rice.

That seemingly topsy-turvy message is evidence of the near-complete isolation of the rice market in a country that grows more than it needs and protects farmers from cheap imports.

While international prices have almost trebled this year, Japan's domestic rice prices are steady, though still more than three times the price of Thai rice.

Raising rice consumption would help boost the percentage of Japan's food produced at home. That figure has dwindled to 39 percent, the lowest among the major industrialized countries, reviving the government's food security fears.

"Since we don't know when food supplies from abroad might dry up, it is important to produce a certain amount domestically," said Hiroyuki Suematsu, director of a new division set up at the agriculture ministry this month to promote Japanese produce.

"The main reason why Japan's self-sufficiency rate has fallen is that people eat much less rice," Suematsu added. "In the past they ate an average of 120 kg (265 pounds) a year, but it's now only 60 kg."

A switch from wheat to rice could eventually weigh on international grain prices, because Japan is the world's fourth biggest wheat importer, with plans to import nearly 5 million metric tons this fiscal year.

WHEAT SUBSTITUTE

Since many consumers would be reluctant to give up noodles or bread, the agriculture ministry is considering subsidizing farmers and millers to produce flour from rice as a substitute for wheat, an agriculture ministry official said.

Though still more expensive than wheat flour, it could prove a hit with some consumers.

"Japan is a rice country," said 72-year-old housewife Noriko Nakano, who was shopping in the upmarket Tokyo area of Ebisu. "The ideal is to eat food from your own country."

Despite its limited and mostly mountainous terrain, Japan has 2.7 million hectares of rice paddies, enough to produce far more than it currently harvests. The government limits planting to about 60 percent of that to keep prices high and small-scale rice farmers solvent.

Prices are such that the export market is minimal for Japanese rice, seen in Asia as a luxury food.

The agriculture ministry acknowledges a return to the days of eating mostly domestic produce is unlikely, instead aiming to hit a self-sufficiency rate of 45 percent in a decade.

Economists say even that may be a struggle.

"I think the biggest challenge even with new government efforts will be simply to maintain the level they're at already," said Malcolm Cook, East Asia specialist at Australia's Lowy Institute, pointing out that the farming population is aging rapidly. A 2005 census showed nearly half over 60.

"Part of the reason they're pursuing a free trade agreement with Thailand but also Australia is to secure more confident access to our own food resources," Cook added.

Kyoichiro Yuasa, who has farmed radishes, leeks, beans and turnips in Chiba on the outskirts of eastern Tokyo for 30 years, agrees.

"Until farming becomes the kind of business where farmers' children actively want to take over from their parents, I think it will be difficult to raise self-sufficiency," he said.

"Most people today think it's better to make a living some other way if you can."

PUBLIC UNAWARE

The new agriculture ministry department's 1.7 billion yen budget ($16.3 million) is mainly earmarked for advertisements in fashionable magazines, pointing out the merits of a traditional Japanese diet, including likely health benefits such as weight loss.

Some analysts say it is about time Japanese consumers were educated about the origins of what's on their plates.

"I was amazed to find out that many people don't realize the cheap food they eat in pubs and buy in delicatessens doesn't come from Japan," Yasuhiko Nakamura, a visiting professor at Tokyo University of Agriculture said in a recent lecture.

"The menus in these places simply wouldn't be possible without cheap imports from China."

He proposes feeding domestically raised cattle on grass, rather than increasingly expensive imported feed, as one way to lessen dependence on foreign sources of food.

But persuading the Japanese to exchange their cosmopolitan diet for a simpler one will not be easy, he said.

"Even in the most remote regions of Japan you will find Italian and Korean restaurants," he noted.

"People will only stop eating these things when the ingredients are no longer available."

(Additional reporting by Risa Maeda)