Rice is a social and political force. There is nothing quite like it in the U.S. The Japanese are protecting a dinosaur, but it’s a dinosaur with a lot of clout.

When you've conditioned generation upon generation to pay exorbitant prices for rice, change doesn't come without A LOT of friction.

Rice is a social and political force. There is nothing quite like it in the U.S.

Is this guy claiming that big corporate agriculture in the USA is not a social and political force?

A classic propaganda technique that, accuse the other side of doing exactly what you are doing in order to put them on the defensive and distract from your own actions.

If rice imports are allowed it will mean the end of traditional Japanese rural scenery, so even for that reason alone, they should not be allowed.

If rice imports are allowed it will mean the end of traditional Japanese rural scenery, so even for that reason alone, they should not be allowed.

I've seen a lot of traditional Japanese rural scenery, and very little of it consisted of rice fields.

It's such a force that some Japanese believe that their rice has made Japanese people evolve longer intestinal tracts.

@helokitty123 - where I live in the provinces, traditional Japanese rural scenery has been taken over by solar farms.

Rice is the most important thing in Japan. It's related to Japan's shintoism, tradition and culture that Japan has to protect at all cost.

Rice farming would be gone now were it not LDP pork barrel politics--that keep the LDP in power. It may die out anyway. Young people are leaving the countryside for the cities. The average age of Japanese farmers is 65.

Yes, there is that aesthetic quality to rice fields the invariably moves to tears anyone who has never worked in a rice field. Try it some time.

Is this guy claiming that big corporate agriculture in the USA is not a social and political force?

No, he's claiming that there's no single commodity in the U.S. that is as entrenched in our society like rice is in Japan. The closest thing we would probably have is our sugar industry which receives all sorts of protectionism by Congress. But even that industry pales in comparison to Japan's rice industry.

Look at where the LDP gets its critical voting block and you can see there is much to be said for the argument that Japan's rice protectionism is much more about pork than rice.

So sell it at $100 a bag at fancy grocery stores. It should be obvious from the amount of arable land in Japan (not much per capita), that growing rice is not an occupation for the future.