[herdrick]

There is no rice shortage in Japan currently, at least not in the sense of the word 'shortage' in economics. Prices are not held artificially low (they are influenced by the state in a market-friendly way through restrictions in supply), and so we see that rice is as available as ever, just at a higher price than last year.

[eriri]

Available as ever? Here at Tokyo, rice aisles are literally empty right now in stores everywhere.

[herdrick]

Oh wow! Sorry about that. Empty aisles, i.e. a true shortage, only happens due to an artificially low price -- do you know what is holding the price down in this case? Perhaps price gouging laws? Or (misguided) big chain stores' policies against big price increases?

I recommend little mom-and-pop stores. Typically they feel free to quietly charge a market-clearing price.

[bsder]

> Empty aisles, i.e. a true shortage, only happens due to an artificially low price

That's not true due to Always Late Inventory(tm). See: Covid and toilet paper in the US.

Because inventory is optimized to almost nothing, a demand shock can strip the shelves (the last remaining point of inventory) before pricing can adjust. Super-optimization means that supply has very little ability to increase and it would take many months to backfill the drained edge inventory. Prices shoot up, but don't actually make a dent as there is enough inelastic demand to always drain the incremental inventory resupply.

Add in the fact that a harvest is a specific point in time while consumption is continuous and it's really easy to wind up in a shortage situation that takes a remarkably long time to correct.