Climate Change Prompting New Rice Development Race

January 2, 2019

Tokyo--Climate change is a major factor prompting competition to develop new rice brands in Japan in recent years.

With the quality of rice grown in years with very hot summers tending to be inferior, efforts are focused on developing new varieties that are both resistant to high temperatures and tasty.

In 2017, the Niigata prefectural government launched newly developed rice, "Shinnosuke," hoping that it will become a more popular brand than "Koshihikari," a famed brand from the central Japan prefecture.

Koshihikari is currently the most grown rice variety in the country and widely popular among consumers, but is vulnerable to high temperatures when it starts to fully grow. In 2010, the summer was very hot, damaging rice crops in not only Niigata, but also other major rice-producing prefectures.

Niigata Prefecture started work to develop Shinnosuke about 10 years ago, in anticipation of progress in global warming in the future. While being resistant to hot weather, it tastes sweet and has a deep flavor, according to officials of the Niigata prefectural government.

"No matter how hot the summer becomes, we'll deliver tasty rice, from Niigata," one official stresses.

More than half of the rice paddies in each of Toyama and Fukui prefectures, also in central Japan, are used to grow Koshihikari.

New varieties from the prefectures--"Fufufu" of Toyama and "Ichihomare" of Fukui--debuted in 2018, after local societies worked to create new rice brands capable of withstanding high temperatures.

Ichihomare is sticky and has a new texture, according to Fukui officials.

Fufufu has a Koshihikari-like taste. "We thought it's best to develop a variety with a taste similar to Koshihikari, which is the most popular rice brand in Japan," a Toyama prefectural government official says.

In Kochi Prefecture, southwestern Japan, challenges include a drop in the amount of sunlight, as well as hot summer weather.

"Yosakoi Bijin," developed by the prefecture, is harvested in late July, earlier than for other rice varieties.

The prefecture aims to expand the sales channel for Yosakoi Bijin by promoting it as the season's first rice brand going on sale in Japan.

A Kochi prefectural official is braced up for growing competition, however, saying, "New tasty rice brands are coming from other prefectures as well."

Yasushi Ishigooka, a senior researcher at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, said, "Previously, efforts to improve rice varieties had centered on combating damage from cool weather, but the focus has shifted to creating resistance to hot weather."

Still, he said that rice needs to have resistance to both hot and cool temperatures, noting, "We have a cool year once in several years." Jiji Press