KUMAGAYA, Japan: Grappling with a rice shortage after extreme weather ravaged last year’s crop, Japan is hoping new heat-resistant varieties of its staple food can help stave off future supply shocks.
Last summer’s high temperatures and dry conditions led to lower rice yields in key growing regions and damaged the quality of grains, contributing to the lowest inventories seen in 25 years, according to official data.
Along with higher demand – partly attributed to record inbound tourism this year – supermarkets across the country have struggled to keep rice shelves stocked in recent months and some have imposed quotas on how much customers can buy.
The local government in Saitama, a prefecture north of Tokyo that is one of the hottest regions in the country, hopes science can avert future shortages and is pushing ahead with one of several nationwide projects to develop more resilient rice.
“It’s going to keep getting hotter, which makes me feel that without varieties that resist high temperatures, this is going to become a very tough job,” said Yoshitaka Funakawa, a 73-year-old farmer who is participating in the trial run for Saitama’s heat-resistant rice called emihokoro or ‘beaming smile’.
Japan sweltered in its warmest July on record in 2024.
High heat disrupts the accumulation of starch inside rice grains, causing them to appear more opaque, mottled with white flecks and less desirable for human consumption, impacting the crop’s market value.
“The more this cloudy, white phenomenon there is on rice, the grade of rice decreases, which leads to declines in farmers’ income,” said Naoto Ooka, who oversees rice breeding at Saitama’s Agricultural Technology Research Centre.
At the centre, researchers take seeds from across Japan, cultivate and cross-pollinate them in a drive to create more resistant varieties like emihokoro, which has been planted in 31 fields as a trial this year.
From: channelnewsasia
Business News
