The recent development of rice policies in Japan are summarized. The impact of the minimum access (MA) import on the supply and demand balance of rice, and the rice diversion areas in the future is also predicted.

Japan‘s food self-sufficiency ratio was 79% in 1960, and this ratio compares favorably with that of other advanced countries with similar farmland endowments. But it fell most rapidly of all major developed countries in the last 45 years, and became the lowest among countries with more than...