I don't understand why high-priced rice has lasted almost two years in Japan. In China, if such a situation occurs, it will be resolved within one month!
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Chinese Soft Power and Media Discussion and Updates
- Thread starter tankphobia
- Start date
As far as I can recall, China has never experienced a rice shortage since the launch of its reform and opening-up policy.
Yes. China will take measures to prevent such situations from occurring, and even if they do happen, they will be resolved promptly.
Before I explain why consider this news:
Current government solution is... to decrease rice production next year to prop up price.
Now as to why it's so messed up, this is entirely a man made problem. Japanese rice farms tend to be small with tiny plots and family run. Their small size prevents deployment of investment that would increase farming efficiency like large combine harvesters or large agricultural drones. Look at some of their combines:
So why don't some farmers sell their farm so that the farm land gets aggregated into a smaller number of larger farms that better suit industrialized farming? Because they have an organisation called that is a powerful lobby that explicitly aims to prevent this. Why? Because farmers are voting base for LDP and they don't want this voter base to decrease in size.
So this inefficiency is entirely politically motivated. You know how high tariff is often a sign of protection for inefficient domestic production? You look at rice import tariff for Japan and that gives you a clue as to just how much inefficiency is in the system:
