It sounds like an XY problem. They don't want the price to fall because then farming wouldn't be profitable, but they're paying farmers to not profit off sales anyway. Instead of subsidizing half the farmers to do nothing, they should subsidize all the farmers, half as much, and allow the price to drop by half.
Anything is small if you choose a big enough denominator (eg. GDP). What's the total value rice production in japan? This source[1] values all agricultural output at $29B, which means rice subsidy alone is 6.9% of agricultural production.
> The amount of annual subsidies is around $2 billion. It's a tiny number for a country as large as Japan. Their GDB is $4 trillion per year.
Their Debt-to-GDP ratio is 263% (so around $9 trillion in debt), and the government's budget is only $1.2 trillion per year, so it becomes very difficult to maneuver, especially due to the increased Yen volatility.
The current status quo keeps farmers happy and voting for the LDP, while continuing to fund Japan's very generous and very expensive welfare system that everyone loves.
Mainichi is also the opposition newspaper and election season is approaching in Japan due to Kishida's scandals leading to his resignation.
it is not a simple number.. people who operate business on the commodity scale, often have very low profits and therefore, have lower spending power economically.. in other words, lots of farmers tend to live close to a kind of poverty. Meanwhile, in the center of some kind of fast and loose economics, like entertainment for example.. lots of economic spending power is traded very quickly.. plenty of people in the entertainment industries do not live close to poverty at all..
Large economic systems in real life have economic niches. Government policy levers change the basic flow patterns.. it is often a matter of life and death
