Extreme heat, scant rainfall bode ill for this year’s rice crop

The prospect of another round of surging rice prices now seems all but inevitable.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency on Aug. 1, it was the hottest July on record. Average temperatures around Japan were 2.89 degrees higher than normal.

In the Tohoku region, a leading producer of rice, July also saw record low rainfall.

While rainfall across much of the nation was about half or less than in an average year, Yamagata city in the Tohoku region had only 8 millimeters of rain in July, which is 4 percent of an average year. Niigata city, in the center of another rice-growing region, only had 3.5 mm of rain, which was just 2 percent of an average year’s rainfall.

Farmers welcome rain in July because that is when the rice ears start to appear. Without rain, the plants cannot thrive.

The Tohoku region’s water situation is also dire in Miyagi Prefecture, where the Naruko dam is now officially dry. A dam for farmers in Hanamaki, in neighboring Iwate Prefecture, is operating at only 20 percent of capacity. In late July, water from the Hanamaki dam was cut off to rice fields for five days.

High temperatures and scant rainfall create ideal conditions for an outbreak of shield bugs that can devastate rice crops.

As of July 30, the farm ministry had issued 33 cautions to 27 prefectures about the increased prevalence of the bugs. That pace is similar to last year, when the largest number of cautions were issued over the past decade.