First it was European infant formula, then milk from New Zealand. Now Chinese consumers are adding Japanese rice to the list of everyday foods they import at luxury-good prices, because they fear the local alternatives are not safe.
The volume of rice imported from Japan remains small — 160 tonnes last year, according to Japan’s National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations.
However, that is more than triple the total in 2013, a trend that illustrates Chinese consumers’ dwindling confidence in the safety of the country’s own agricultural products.
Photo: Reuters
“Chinese rice farmers use pesticides,” said a seller identified as Ying Ying, who started offering Japanese rice on Taobao.com in August last year. “Japanese rice isn’t polluted by heavy metals.”
Pollution from industrialization has exacted a heavy toll on China’s soil and water. In May 2013, officials in Guangdong Province in southern China said 44 percent of rice samples contained excessive levels of the metal cadmium.
A study by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection in April last year estimated that 16.1 percent of China’s soil was contaminated. In parts of the nation, soil pollution is so bad that some rice farmers refuse to eat what they grow.
After the cadmium revelations, some Chinese consumers began to see rice from Thailand as an affordable and safe substitute.
In contrast, Japanese rice is neither cheap nor easy to find in China. Japanese rice imported by Chinese grain trader COFCO sells for 74 yuan (US$12) per kilogram on PinStore.com, an online supermarket run by Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp. Domestically produced rice sells on the Web site for as little as 7.5 yuan per kilogram.
As demand grows, Chinese consumers are increasingly turning to online platforms such as Taobao.com, run by Alibaba, to buy rice directly from individuals in Japan.
One person seems to have paid as much as 1,499 yuan for 5kg, according to Taobao.
However, steep prices are no deterrent for some.
“Much tastier than Chinese rice. Worth every cent — great texture and taste,” one delighted buyer wrote on Taobao.com.
To meet demand, some Chinese producers now say they use Japanese seeds and promote their rice as a safer alternative to purely domestic strains.
Zhejiang Xinxie Yueguang Agricultural Science and Technology Co says its Echizen brand rice is safe and grown with “water from pure sources and strict quality control.” The packaging says the rice is a Japanese variety.
However, Echizen rice is grown in Changxing County, a hub of lead-acid battery production in eastern Zhejiang Province.
Zhejiang Xinxie Yueguang general manager Li Jun, said the company’s rice has passed tests by state inspectors for lead, cadmium, mercury, pesticides and other chemicals. The company had also found other areas to grow rice where there was less concern about pollution, Li said.
The Chinese eat about 120 million tonnes of rice per year and the country imported more than 2.2 million tonnes in the first 11 months of last year, including 1.2 million tonnes from Vietnam and 626,000 tonnes from Thailand, customs data show.
Japan is a small rice exporter — just 3,777 tonnes in January to November last year, according to agriculture ministry data — but it is looking to boost shipments to Asian countries as part of a wider push to export more agricultural products.
However, if the trend to China looks encouraging, any further increase through normal export channels might be slow: the Chinese authorities have given only one Japanese rice mill clearance to send polished rice.
Others have begun the application process, but that has stalled. Some would-be suppliers have been waiting for three years, a Japanese government official said.
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