No major Japan rice damage from quake - FAO

The severe earthquake and tsunami which hit Japan on March 11 are unlikely to cause major damage to rice and other grain crops in the country, a senior economist at United Nations' food agency said on Tuesday.Skip related content

"For the moment, given the information we have, we do not anticipate a major impact on rice production or rice trade (in Japan)," Concepcion Calpe, senior economist at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Japan is a major rice producer with 7.7 million tonnes of rice in milled terms produced in 2010, but imports and exports very little of the grain, said Calpe, who is also secretary of FAO's Intergovernmental Group on Rice.

About 40,000 hectares of land affected by the quake and tsunami account for less than 2 percent of total rice area normally planted in Japan and a very small amount of feed crops are usually grown there, Calpe said.

There was no rice in the fields when the earthquake and tsunami hit north eastern Japan earlier in March leaving tens of thousands dead or missing, because planting season starts closer to May, she said.

New plantings could be hindered in the area because the natural disasters have destroyed infrastructure and killed people but more rice could be planted in other areas in Japan offsetting any possible shortfall, Calpe said.

"I don't believe there will be much impact on traded commodities," she said.

Radiation impact on food crops after an accident at a nuclear plant has been contained so far, but some countries may want to tighten controls over food imports from Japan, she said.

"Should there be more serious problems with radioactivity, which I don't believe because so far it has been really contained... then of course we will have to reconsider that, because consumers will be very reluctant to consume the rice from that area at least," she said.

Workers continue to battle the world's worst nuclear crisis in a quarter of a century at the Fukushima nuclear plant on Japan's northeast Pacific coast, 250 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo following last week's natural disaster.

(Source: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20110322/twl-uk-japan-rice-fao-d9706c2.html)