Japan, which sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is prone to mega-mass disasters such as earthquakes and typhoons, is also facing a shortage of rice as supermarket shelves are seen to be getting empty.
While a ministerial announcement this month – now retracted – alerted potential ‘super-quake’ concerns, and the sustained impact of weather, including storms, together with the annual festive week, helped create scarcity and long lines at Japanese grocery chains.
On the other hand, however, such a devastating harvest could also be attributed to the extreme heat patterns and lack of water supply coupled with growing desires owing to many incoming tourists.
“Only half of what we intend to buy this summer reached us in the form of rice and it seems as if every new supply of rice is out of bags within no time,” said an employee of a branch of the popular Fresco supermarket chain in the Japanese capital, Parami reports.
One food store in Tokyo had a notice saying – ”To enable many customers to buy, please let us ask you to buy one bag of rice per family per day.” One such location witnessed many customers searching for its rice but came across a proliferation of empty shelves. The current phase in the Japanese, in absolute terms, is a transitional one due to new rice coming into the market.
Following that, the Japanese agriculture, forestry and fisheries ministry moved in telling consumers it would be all right, that the scalpers would have their fun but there was nothing that can be done about the crops: at this time the stocks will recover. Whatever the tempers of the market physicists, this capability will be funny.
According to NHK, that comes as consumers have complained about an inability to find rice on store shelves due to a lack of supply. Mrs. Ando stated that, OSAKA Domestic demand for stocks surprises.
Sakamoto Tetsushi de posed to the reporters on Tuesday, “Slow and steady wins the race. The rice crops are on track and in several provinces farmers will begin harvesting roughly a week earlier than the average month. And gradually, people will run out of stocks and the shortages will be tackled.”
Sakamoto also urged people to refrain from over-purchasing and stocking up on other basic items.
