Kazuo Yana stopped short of specifying when the government will conduct additional buybacks of rice released from its stockpiles last year.
New agriculture minister Kazuo Yana said in a recent interview that the top focus of his agricultural policy would be ensuring appropriate prices for agricultural products. Regarding the current supply-demand balance for rice, Yana said high private-sector inventories are affecting rice prices. He said he instructed his ministry to carefully examine how negotiations were carried out to determine the amount of advance payments to farmers for new rice, after the payments fell below an indicator of production costs.
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