日米関税合意に見える米と『日本＝米』の幻想Rice Challenges in US Japan Tariff Agreement
The perception of “Japan = Rice” appears to have become strongly established both domestically and internationally. This essentially places paddy-field rice agriculture as the foundational assumption of Japan. For instance, even in recent negotiations with the United States regarding tariff issues, matters surrounding rice have been directly reflected in agreements reached by the Japanese side.
On July 25, the Japanese government partially disclosed the contents of the U.S.-Japan tariff negotiations. While many points remain unclear, reports have highlighted agreements primarily centered on the following four key areas. Below is a concise summary based on the Japanese Cabinet Secretariat’s Tariff Bureau announcement:
- Review of Tariff Measures
・Mutual tariffs: 15%.
・Automobiles and auto parts tariffs: 15%.
・Semiconductors and pharmaceuticals tariffs: Details unspecified.
- Cooperation in Economic Security
・Expanded investment by Japanese companies in nine critical economic security sectors in the United States.
(Semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, steel, shipbuilding, critical minerals, aviation, energy, automobiles, AI, etc.)
・Government-affiliated financial institutions to set an investment ceiling of up to $550 billion for investments in the United States.
- Trade Expansion
・Increased purchases of U.S. agricultural products, including bioethanol, soybeans, corn, fertilizers, as well as semiconductors and aircraft.
・Expansion of imports of U.S.-grown rice.
・Stable and long-term procurement of U.S.-produced energy.
- Review of Non-Tariff Measures
・Allowing U.S.-manufactured automobiles to be imported without additional testing.
・Revision of subsidies to promote Clean Energy Vehicles (CEVs).
From these points, investment emerges as a more significant aspect than tariffs. However, here I will not focus on economic implications but rather examine the situation of rice from my own perspective.
Firstly, Japan has traditionally imposed strict limits on rice imports, given its significant domestic rice production. Additionally, there is a deeply-rooted perception among Japanese people that non-Japanese rice is inferior in quality, limiting the spread of imported rice. Indeed, Japan does not inherently require imported rice, yet continues mandatory imports in compliance with international trade rules under the framework known as “Minimum Access (MA) Rice” (MA Rice). Due to the fact that domestically-produced rice has consistently met consumption needs, it’s reasonable to assume that imported rice largely ends up in processed or commercial uses. Personally, I have never once purchased imported rice in my entire life.
In fact, the import quota for rice has generally been maintained at around 700,000 tons annually, with a maximum of 100,000 tons designated as rice for direct consumption. Given that importing rice for direct consumption involves highly complex screening procedures, effectively, imports beyond this limit are not practically conducted. The primary origins of imported rice historically include Thailand, the United States, Vietnam, and Australia, with Thailand being the predominant source. In the context of the recent U.S.-Japan agreement, while the MA quota itself remains unchanged, there is a potential increase in the proportion of U.S. rice within the annual import allocation of approximately 700,000 tons. Notably, there have been no announcements regarding any discussions to raise the overall MA quota.
In reality, Japan has rarely had to rely on imported rice. However, there was one significant occasion in the 1990s when imported rice dramatically increased to the level of staple food: this was in 1993. At that time, I was only two years old, but according to my mother, the only rice available was imported from Thailand, which tasted so bad that children spat it out. Despite the high price, she recalls desperately trying to buy domestically-produced rice instead.
In 1993, an extremely cold summer resulted in catastrophic rice harvest failures. The excessive media coverage of the issue triggered panic-buying throughout the country, leading to imported rice becoming a daily staple for the first time since Japan’s era of high economic growth. The primary cause of this cold summer was the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991, which caused temperatures to drop 2-3 degrees Celsius below average during summer, severely impacting rice production nationwide. In September 1993, the Japanese government announced emergency imports totaling 2.59 million tons of rice from Thailand, China, and the United States. Before this event, Japan had steadfastly maintained an implicit import ban, strictly adhering to the stance that “not even a single grain of rice” would be imported from foreign countries. This policy was decisively broken by the cold summer caused by the volcanic eruption. The expedient measure taken at that time has had lingering effects on Japan’s current rice policies.
Furthermore, during this crisis, the Japanese government initially anticipated using imported Thai indica rice primarily as raw materials for processed goods such as sake, shochu, mirin, and confectioneries. However, due to shortages in rice imports from the U.S. and China, Thai rice had to be distributed domestically as staple food. This triggered a massive backlash from the Japanese public, mainly because Thai rice did not match Japanese tastes and was incompatible with the common preparation methods using Japanese rice cookers. Consequently, incidents widely reported by some members of parliament and mass media—such as “the discovery of dead rats in bags of imported Thai rice” and “rusty nails found in Thai rice bags”—cemented the unpopularity of Thai rice in Japan.
This era’s cold summer exposed significant flaws in the rice varieties predominantly cultivated domestically at the time, ushering in a new age where varieties highly resistant to cold began actively spreading as countermeasures against cold-weather damage. Since then, the development of climate-resilient rice varieties has advanced actively, giving rise to numerous local brands, leading up to the present. However, beginning again around mid-2024, rice shortages have once more shaken Japanese society, triggering major problems due to delayed governmental responses. Yet, we must recognize this as clear media bias, with exaggerated reporting by the mass media once again playing a key role—much as it did in 1993.
In fact, late last summer, when the rice shortage became a social issue, I was conducting research travels throughout the northern Tohoku region. There, I witnessed expansive paddy fields extending far into the horizon, heavy with abundant harvests of rice. I saw similar sights during my recent trip to Wakasa last weekend. Thus, personally, I have doubts about whether Japan is genuinely experiencing a rice shortage. Rather, I believe the real issue lies within Japan’s exceedingly opaque rice distribution channels from production to consumers, involving countless intermediaries. The fundamental problem likely exists here; in other words, the rice is present—it is simply not reaching the market. This opacity might explain why the Japanese government had no choice but to accept U.S. demands on tariff issues, perhaps to obscure this very problem.
Conversely, I strongly feel this moment presents an opportunity for Japan to break free from the fixed notion that “Japan = Rice.” Put differently, it is a chance to escape from the single-track logic of “Japan = wet-rice agricultural culture,” which has been assembled across various academic disciplines since before World War II. In my view, this picture hides the diversity of places, yet considering the historical backdrop in which an image of a unified nation was needed under pre-war nationalism, it is understandable that the logic became convenient and spread rapidly. The figure who did the most to establish this picture as scholarship, leaving an enormous influence that reaches to the present, was Kunio Yanagita (1875-1962), the founder of Japanese folklore studies.
Yanagita consistently placed at the center of his research the notion that the people of Japan were uniformly agriculturalists, specifically rice cultivators. From this angle, he conducted extensive folklore studies, resulting in the structure: “wet-rice agriculture = rice worship = rice as staple food = Emperor worship = Japanese identity.” This perspective, aligned with the theory of the Emperor’s unbroken lineage, promoted the narrative that the Japanese had historically been rice-eating, rice-worshipping people from a wet-rice agricultural culture. Indeed, many regions historically valued rice within their local religious practices. However, it is crucial to recognize that the framework for studying Japanese folklore at the foundation of this discipline was shaped within the structures of pre-war nationalism. As I have emphasized numerous times, no singular, unified definition of Japan or Japanese identity actually exists.
Frankly, considering the extensive, on-the-ground research Yanagita conducted throughout pre-war and post-war Japan, it is hardly believable that he overlooked non-rice-based lifestyles.Within a unifying picture, it seems those lives were simply never brought into the light. In reality, even today in the 2020s, Japan is not exclusively reliant on wet-rice agriculture, and certainly during Yanagita’s time, a much broader spectrum of lifestyles existed. Non-rice cultivation methods (teihata, 定畑, or permanent fields), slash-and-burn agriculture (yakihata, 焼畑), and fishing livelihoods all coexisted, indicating a multifaceted reality. While rice-dependent regions certainly existed, they never represented the entirety of Japan or Japanese culture.
Moreover, this issue is not confined to folklore studies alone. Its origins trace back even further, to Japan’s mythical past. Next time, we will explore this ancient Japanese reality from the critical perspective of mythology.