May 22, 2025

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

Agriculture Minister Eto Taku, who made remarks which aroused the anger of people struggling to cope with rising rice prices, on May 21 announced his resignation. Eto in a recent speech reportedly said, “I have never bought rice myself. As my supporters give me rice, I have enough left over to sell.”

The Liberal Democratic-Komei government is unable to take effective measures to cope with the soaring rice prices. Nevertheless, Eto made such remarks that lack awareness of the impact of the government’s inability on people’s livelihoods and rub consumers and farmers the wrong way. It is obvious that he has no qualification to remain as the Agriculture Minister. His resignation is deserved.

He is the first minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru to step down.

In addition, if he receives rice from his supporters as a “donation” and fails to document this fact, he may be in violation of the Public Offices Election Law and the Political Funds Control Act.

The current rice shortage and the sharp rise in price stemmed from the successive LDP governments’ agricultural policy of reducing rice production. The government has ignored the responsibility for stabilizing rice prices and supply by forcing rice farmers to reduce their rice production based on the assumption that the annual domestic demand will decrease and leaving the rice price to the market demand. It is urgently necessary to bring about a change in government to one which will effectively deal with the changes in circumstance.