>I'm not saying Japan has the best system, but it's probably nowhere near as bad as you think.
I merely answered the Why? in the clickbaity article title.
As far as my thoughts on the policy, I think it's quite more reasonable than the far more popular western policy of letting the free market kill itself in a race to the bottom only to then be bought out by China.
The current rice shortage isn't a problem to do with the policy, it's how it's being handled.
And all western countries all doing same type of or similar enough subsidy. EU is built on it. Free market on food is only something pushed on lesser nations...
With the current high food prices, US taxpayers will be pleased to know that they will spend about 4 billion this year on ensuring the farmers don't grow too much food (this total is up from last year due to the inflation reduction act)
High prices? 2022 is but a distant memory now. As a farmer, I haven't seen food prices this low, nominally, since the bottom of the mid-2010s crash, and if you account for inflation it doesn't look like food has ever been as cheap as it is right now!
Perhaps you mean the current high price of convenience? It does seem the grocery stores keep pushing prices higher even as the price of food keeps going down, down, down.
Partially true. Rising grocery prices and falling food commodity food prices. Where is all that money going? Look no further than corporate land ownership.
They don't care about votes outside of the swing states.
They care about the people who have been getting those billions for decades spending a small portion of it against them. Also they are concerned for their family members who happen to be upstanding people who landed in great jobs at charities owned by the people who get the billions to not feed people.
I merely answered the Why? in the clickbaity article title.
As far as my thoughts on the policy, I think it's quite more reasonable than the far more popular western policy of letting the free market kill itself in a race to the bottom only to then be bought out by China.
The current rice shortage isn't a problem to do with the policy, it's how it's being handled.