Episode Details

Rice is in short supply at supermarkets in Japan. During late August, an NHK crew visited a store in Tokyo that usually sells about 10 varieties. But all it had in stock were 16 bags of a single type, with a purchase limit of one bag per customer. As of the end of July, rice stocks were down 32 percent from the same month of last year. Not just extreme weather, but some unexpected factors have impacted both supply and demand of the nation's staple grain.