A recent shortage of high-quality, low-cost rice in Japan has been pinned on the large number of tourists visiting the country, as well as hot weather exacerbated by climate change. But farmers and agricultural analysts say there’s something else at play — a decades-old government program that pays farmers not to plant their rice. Hannah Kirshner reports on some rice farms in Kaga, a town in the Hokuriku region along the Japan sea.
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