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April 15, 2025
 

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AGRICULTURE

Ryuji Matsumoto pats one of the sheep at his farm in the town of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Apr 14, 2025
The man behind Fukushima town's 'Strawberry Sheep'
Ryuji Matsumoto, 54, incorporates dried strawberries into the feed for his sheep, which gives their meat a certain sweetness.
Stockpiled rice at a rice-polishing factory in Saitama Prefecture in March
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2025
Japan to release stockpiled rice monthly amid record high prices
The move comes after two previous releases appeared to have had little effect in stabilizing prices.
Japan is facing challenges with Donald Trump's new tariffs and is considering increased purchases of U.S. goods, negotiating tariff reductions and expanding auto production in the U.S. to reduce the trade deficit and avoid further economic tension.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 8, 2025
What is Japan's play on Trump's tariffs?
Japan had expected some consideration for being the largest source of foreign direct investment in the U.S. from 2019 to 2024, with total investment of around $860 billion.
An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Longform
Apr 7, 2025
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it
Outdated government policy, changing diets and even an earthquake scare have had an impact on the national food staple.
Soybeans are harvested near Stuttgart, Arkansas in October 2023.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Apr 6, 2025
'Anxious' U.S. farmers see tariffs as threatening earnings
U.S. farmers hoping for a profit this year instead find themselves facing lower crop prices — and the prospect of ceding more ground in foreign markets.
A drone view shows a coffee plantation in Guaxupe, Brazil, on Feb. 17.
BUSINESS / Markets
Apr 1, 2025
Brazil's coffee farmers turn to costly irrigation to quench global demand for the brew
Most farms in the western part of Bahia — a new frontier for coffee growing in Brazil — are now irrigated.
Increasing rice production for exports would help enhance supply flexibility as rice could be diverted for domestic consumption in case of a shortage.
BUSINESS
Mar 28, 2025
Japan advised to boost rice exports to 353,000 tons in 2030
Increasing rice production for exports would help expand supply flexibility as rice could be diverted for domestic consumption in case of a shortage.
Saul Luciano Lliuya in his home in Huaraz, Peru, on March 2. Lliuya is pursuing a lawsuit against German energy utility RWE, whose emissions he says have contributed to the melting of Andean glaciers, swelling a lake above his hometown to dangerous levels.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 18, 2025
Facing glacial melt-water flood risk, Peruvian farmer tests global climate law
Lawyers in the case say German energy firm RWE is responsible for 0.5% of global emissions, so should pay 0.5% of the costs for a local $3.5 million flood defense project.
Horses attempt to graze on a hill covered with snow in Argalant, in central Mongolia's Tov province. The vast country is one of the most affected by climate change, by some counts warming three times faster than the global average.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 13, 2025
On the Mongolian steppe, climate change pushes herders to the brink
The vast country is one of the most affected by climate change, by some counts warming three times faster than the global average.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds up a piece of paper with information about tariff rates at the White House on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2025
The U.S. says Japan has a 700% tariff on American rice. Is that the case?
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's accusation describes only a small portion of U.S. rice imported by Japan.
Boxes of imported pork from the U.S. at a cold storage warehouse in Shanghai
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 10, 2025
China deploys food as a high-impact, low-cost weapon in tariff fight
China’s willingness to use food as a countermeasure against the U.S. underscores the impact of a slowing economy on demand.
Trade tensions between the U.S. and China are set to escalate Monday as Beijing imposes tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods in response to President Trump's latest tariff hike.
WORLD
Mar 9, 2025
China-U.S. trade war heats up with Beijing's tariffs to take effect
Analysts say Beijing's retaliatory tariffs are designed to hurt Trump's voter base while remaining restrained enough to allow room to hash out a trade deal.
Ukraine has become a leader in drone warfare, particularly with its innovative use of first-person view drones. These drones have proven highly effective in targeting Russian military equipment and ammunition depots.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2025
Breaking down Ukraine’s true value
With the U.S. now increasingly acting in Russia’s interests, supporting Ukraine is not just a moral imperative for Europe, it is an existential one.
A herd of sheep move across a solar farm in Haskell, Texas, on Dec. 2, 2024.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 4, 2025
Sheep grazing under solar panels help U.S. farmers to survive crop-price slump
Instead of plowing fields, Raines spent the year ferrying his flock of sheep to solar farms, to munch on the grass that grows around the gleaming panels.
Government stockpiled rice stored in a warehouse on Feb. 18 in Saitama Prefecture
JAPAN
Mar 3, 2025
Japanese government to auction stockpiled rice on March 10
It is the first time stockpiled rice will be released to ensure smooth distribution. This was previously limited to cases of seriously poor harvests and large-scale disasters.
Coffee beans are harvested in Corquin, Honduras, on Feb. 6. Climate change has diminished the supply of coffee around the globe via rising temperatures, droughts and excessive rains.
BUSINESS / Markets
Feb 23, 2025
Coffee prices are at a 50-year high. Producers aren’t celebrating.
Around the world, coffee traders, farmers and roasters fear how climate change and economic factors will affect their livelihoods.
Once a boon to tea farmers' bottom lines, the global matcha craze is now pushing producers and distributors to their limits with few options to adequately meet demand.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 23, 2025
Japan struggles to fend off a world without enough matcha
Production methods and economic risks keep the domestic tea industry from ramping up supply.
Behind a record-breaking rise in Japan's rice prices are intensifying competition among buyers since the serious shortage of the country's staple food in stores in summer 2024 and hoarding by those bullish about rice prices.
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2025
Price of rice sold to wholesalers surges to another high in Japan
The January average rose 69% from a year earlier to ¥25,927 per 60 kilograms of brown rice amid intensifying demand.
A worker rides a tractor while spraying organic pesticide on crops at a farm in Hudson, New York, in 2020.
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2025
EU plans stricter food import restrictions over pesticide use
EU farmers have been protesting across Europe over the past year about the increasing burdens of the bloc’s climate and environmental rules.
Excess sugar intake — especially of sucrose, or table sugar — can lead to ailments such as obesity and diabetes.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 17, 2025
Researchers discover bacteria that can limit body’s sugar absorption
Researchers hope the findings will contribute to developing a new treatment method for obesity and diabetes.
A new tour of Tokyo’s most underground attraction
When you stare into the abyss at the bottom of the No. 3 shaft of the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel, the abyss stares back.
China halts critical rare earth exports as trade war intensifies
Workers transport soil containing rare earth elements for export at a port in Lianyungang, in China's Jiangsu province, in October 2010.
'Chikan' incidents rise as Japan grapples with mental health and cultural challenges
Overcrowded trains and a lack of legal consequences for groping in Japan have led to a rise in "chikan," or groping, which has been linked to a mental condition and compounded by cultural stigmas.
Japan doesn’t plan to use U.S. Treasurys as tariff talk leverage
Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Itsunori Onodera speaks at LDP headquarters in Tokyo last October.
Osaka Expo throws open its doors as mega-event kicks off
People visit the Osaka Expo on the first day it opened to the public, in the city of Osaka on Sunday.
A new tour of Tokyo’s most underground attraction
When you stare into the abyss at the bottom of the No. 3 shaft of the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel, the abyss stares back.
Osaka Expo-bound? Take your pick of the city’s new luxury hotels.
The Four Seasons Hotel Osaka opened in 2024, just one of many new luxury accommodations the city boasts ahead of the 2025 World Expo.
Heaven from hells: The sulfuric pleasure of Unzen Onsen
While Unzen Onsen's "hells" can be visually striking, locals describe them and their effects as "a source of emotional healing."
Osaka Expo throws open its doors as mega-event kicks off
People visit the Osaka Expo on the first day it opened to the public, in the city of Osaka on Sunday.
Japan’s NATO envoy targets industrial tie-ups to boost defense supply chains
Japanese Ambassador to NATO Osamu Izawa (left) meets with the alliance's secretary-general, Mark Rutte, at NATO headquarters in Brussels recently.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)
BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

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