Japan can export long-grain rice and cut surplus of its staple food by making better use of idle rice paddies and converting some fields to grow the type of grains popular to global markets, a leading trader said on Friday. Nobuyuki Chino, president of Tokyo-based trading company Unipac Grain, said he will set up a new firm on April 1 called Continental Rice Ltd (Conti Rice), targeting harvest of long-grain rice from as early as 2012.
Unipac Grain, a corn importing firm, will gradually immerse into the new company which will handle rice exports, he told Reuters, but added the plan to ship out long-grain rice must first overcome a few obstacles. "By growing the type of rice where there is huge demand outside, Japan can make effective use of its idle rice paddy fields while helping to boost competitiveness of the Japanese rice type consumed domestically," Chino said in an interview. "Japan can meet the demand from importers such as Indonesia and the Philippines," said Chino, who has traded grains for more than 30 years. He traded rice when he worked in Hong Kong for Continental Grain Company in the 1970s.
The Philippines imported a record 2.45 million tonnes of rice this year, while Indonesia has secured a total 1.33 million tonnes of the grain from Thailand and Vietnam for delivery until February 2011. He said areas in Kyushu, southern Japan, are suitable for growing long-grain rice and can be harvested twice a year. Most areas in Japan do not have the suitable climate for planting long-grain rice.
Total planted acreage of rice in the Kyushu island in 2010 was 190,000 hectares, or about 11.6 percent of nationally planted acreage of rice, farm ministry data showed. Chino estimates there is about 50,000 hectares of idle land in Kyushu. Around 10 tonnes of long-grain rice can be harvested per hectare each season, twice the amount of Japanese rice, he said. He hopes to grow an annual 10-20 tonnes initially, and increase the harvest to 100 tonnes in two to three years, eventually targeting 500 tonnes in five years.
Chino said efforts to develop a rice-export business face obstacles such as convincing local farmers to grow long-grain rice on an experimental basis, securing seeds for the 2012 harvest and farmers who are ageing. "Japanese farmers are known to not take risks, so the obvious challenge is to overcome that. But once a few farmers agree to my business, then it will get easier to find interests from others," he said, adding that he is making contacts with local farmers. Chino said he wants to change the perception that the only type of rice Japan can grow and export is the short-grain type eaten by the Japanese, or that the primary markets are China and Hong Kong.