Changes in the monthly average negotiated price for all table rice brands

Source: MAFF surveys

Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug.

Production year Following year

To effectively use rice paddies as an excellent production tool to maintain and improve Japan’s food self-sufficiency potential and ratio, the government is leading farmers to promote rice for feed and many other non-table uses, or to wheat and soybeans, for which demand is higher.

To further promote the production of rice for feed, the government promotes efforts to secure matching between producers and users, and to reduce production and distribution costs. For production cost cuts, MAFF has published a manual for reducing feed rice production costs.

Initiatives to use feed rice for increasing the added value of livestock products have made progress. The government is promoting the further expansion of feed rice consumption.

## Outline of the manual for reducing feed rice production costs

Realizing

higher yield

Achieving higher yield

with high-yield varieties

and more fertilizers

## I ntroducing advanced know-how to

Cost

reduction

know-how

rationalize operations

Introducing direct seeding,

manuring, streamlining fertilization

Farmland expansion

Production cost cuts through farmland concentration and intensification, production season distribution to expand production scales

Source: MAFF

content at high levels. They also try to reduce agricultural chemical consumption and use compost and liquid fertilizers to cut costs.

## Using feed rice to raise added value of pork

Daito Farm uses feed rice for 15% of feed to increase oleic acid and reduce linoleic acid in pork. And the pork's flavor is improved.

Frieden Daito Farm, which undertakes integrated swine production including breeding and fattening in Ichinoseki City, Iwate Prefecture, launched a Frieden group council to promote the use of feed rice along with local farming and other organizations in 2006, aiming to use idle and unfavorable rice paddies and farm compost for a resource-recycling feed rice cultivation program. Its feed rice planting area expanded from 11 hectares in 2007 to 119 hectares in 2015. Crop production families cultivate high-yield varieties to raise the yield and stabilize the protein

Using feed rice to brand pork

demonstration tests on low-cost production know-how including direct seeding on dry paddies and the use of poultry manure, considering varieties and cultivation know-how suitable for the region. It has developed the initiative to use feed rice production for stabilizing regional rice farming.

## An initiative to improve feed rice yield and cut costs

The council conducts

An agriculture revitalization council in Aira City, Kagoshima Prefecture, has promoted feed rice production since 2009. The council uses the high-yield variety of Mizuhochikara to improve yield and holds seminars at rice paddies for discussions on cultivation know-how. In 2015, 96 farmers produced feed rice.

A seminar scene

## Using feed rice to increase added value for eggs and processed egg products

Ogawa Chicken Farm in Daisen Town, Tottori Prefecture, began to use feed rice in cooperation with a nearby agricultural producers' cooperative corporation in 2010 after international prices of feed corn prices rose sharply. It now purchases 100 tons of feed rice from a cooperation partner, using feed rice for 8% of feed for ordinary eggs and for 100% of feed instead of corn for eggs with white yolks.

Given that eggs with white yolks can be used for roll cakes and other sweets sold at a farm stand to improve their colors, such eggs are increasingly being used for processed products.

Processed products using eggs from chickens raised with feed rice