Comment on Japan to sell more rice reserves as prices soar
zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 5 days agoDomestic policy. The article says tourist and quakes but really Japan limits production to prevent prices from falling to the point of bankrupting farmers.
benjhm@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
So do they also tariff imports (e.g. american rice) that much ?
I haven’t been in Japan since 1997 (COP3) but was impressed by cycling past many little rice fields sandwiched between city buildings - it’s human-scale which is worth defending (similarly to some european agriculture - idea of CAP), the opposite of US prairies.
Chip_Rat@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Just read up on it because your question made me curious. They have zero tariffs on rice up to a certain number, recently around 770,000 tons annually. After that amount they charge a tarriff that is quite high, 400-700+%, and import another few hundred tons at that rate.
Got my numbers from this article if you are curious:
www.japantimes.co.jp/news/…/japan-rice-tariffs/
benjhm@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
Hmm, so how does the government distribute that potentially lucrative tariff-free quota between importers ? Or if the government imports rice directly, stores it, then resells at a much high price, that’s effectively a tariff.
Seems complicated, but then most countries do something similar, consider price-fixing of food by the EU CAP …