Twenty years ago in Japan there was plenty of bread. And there were already quite a number of bakeries with exotic titles like boulangerie, konditore, and patisseries. I remember walking into one of the older bread chain stores, Pompadour, and being so happy and relieved to see food that was recognizable to me, not to mention amazed at all the varieties arrayed there. And unlike American bakeries, where everything was enclosed behind a glass counter, in Japanese bakeries the fair was available for close-up inspection and self-service. Another big surprise was the way that many breads blurred the line between bread, pastry and sandwich. This, I came to realize, was because of the Japanese propensity to use bread as a wrapping for anything from curry to strawberries and cream. It was only later that I felt some measure of disappointment when I realized that the enormous variety of shapes and fillings was not necessarily matched by any distinction in the taste of the bread itself. This may in part be due to the tendency to place emphasis on the appearance of food (as well as things in general), and a tendency to create varieties of bread by deep-frying, steaming and stuffing rather than significantly altering the ingredients. Such Western staples as Kaiser rolls, bagels, and pumpernickel, were virtually unheard of in 1983.

In spite of my initial surprise over the bread consumption of the average citizen, there was never any question that rice was king. Rice shops called kome-ya are authorized rice sellers that buy the rice from the government in bulk, pass it through a noisy machine to remove the husk and give it a final polishing, and package it in bags from 1 to 10 kilogram. There are a number of different varieties grown in different parts of the country, having different prices, presumably based on how delicious and therefore how in demand they are. The most famous and most expensive being a strain called Koshihikari. There are also several different types of rice for more specific uses such as making mochi rice cakes, which are also sold by the local kome-ya. Considering that, ultimately, the only thing these stores sold was rice the sheer number of such shops was ample testament to rice's primary position in the society.

These shops also served as a reminder that in recently industrialized and urbanized Japan (the population of Tokyo, for example, doubled from 6 to 12 million between 1950 and 1970), rice was both a symbol of the country's agrarian roots and an integral part of its economic, cultural, and political identity. Moreover, in post war Japan, rice had always been one point on which the government could count on both consumer and farmer support for its otherwise excessive control and unjustifiable protectionist policies. For in the year of my Japanese birth, 1983, and nearly sixty years after the end of the war, the government firmly controlled not only rice, but the growing, buying, importing, processing, and selling of a number of key commodities. The government set the price, designated the channels of distribution, licensed authorized buyers and sellers, and banned imports, all under the rubric of something called "food security." Somehow, cigarettes were also a part of food security but bread was not. Furthermore, the Liberal Democratic Party that had controlled the government since the end of World War II, was solidly supported by the agrarian vote. What has happened since that time is telling not only of the radically altered eating habits of the Japanese, but also of the new economic and political dynamics racking the foundations of the society.

It is believed that the first raised, wooden construction buildings built in ancient Japan were rice storehouses. These were needed to protect the rice seed for the next harvest and reflected the communal nature of rice farming that is credited with the formation of the society and its customs. Thanks given to the Gods of the rice harvest, for example, and the very meaning of worship itself became so integrally bound that, it is believed, the design of temple architecture for the native Shinto religion is directly derived from the architecture of the storehouse. Rice, in other words, has always been an integral part of the culture and as good as gold. Indeed, taxes were levied in quantities of rice from ancient times up to the nineteenth century.

As time moved on, every aspect of rice-as-business was controlled and regulated by the central government in Tokyo. As Japan's postwar prosperity took hold and external pressure to open domestic markets to imports grew, the country's food security laws came under direct attack. Absolute barriers to imports were reluctantly replaced by initially high, but steadily decreasing tariffs, with the aim of gradually opening markets while giving domestic producers enough time to adjust to the changes. Of these, beef was the most important, followed by cigarettes, salt and finally rice. But while imports of the first three quickly made inroads on the basis of both price and taste, rice has proved to be a very different case. Except for 1993, a year in which the rice crop failed badly, imported rice has never been a major factor in the market. In that year, American, Chinese and Thai rice flooded the market at unbelievably low prices by Japanese standards. But by the following year, when Japanese rice production was back to normal levels, the stocks of imported rice began to swell as consumers rejected these products on the basis of taste, texture and appearance. And, one suspects, on the basis of not being Japanese. But the die was cast and a widening revolt among suppliers and consumers alike erupted, The graphic comparison of how expensive the domestic product really was, plus the obvious danger of relying solely on domestic production, spooked the government into lowering the price it set for domestic rice and allowing for more parallel distribution in the system. The age of the neighborhood kome-ya was coming to an end.

Since that time problems greater than poor crop yields have multiplied. Paddy acreage, for example, has fallen by nearly one million hectares and farm population has halved since 1980. This is due not to imports but to government policies putting downward pressure on prices that has seen the average price of rice fall drastically since the mid '90s. Both decreasing price and, perhaps more importantly, decreasing rice consumption, make for a bleak outlook for domestic rice production. The research company INTAGE reports that outlay for rice in average households has halved between 1993 and 2002. On the other hand, bread consumption has steadily increased as a percentage of food expenditure without, inexplicably, any comparable increase in domestic production of wheat or any outcry against its import. The reasons for this gap in what is or is not worthy of protection are complex and difficult to assess on the basis of economics alone.

It may be said generally, that modern Japanese have little consciousness of their own history before the Edo (1600-1868) or even Meji (1868-1912) period. Imported Chinese customs, including rice farming and tea drinking, extend so far back in time as to be considered Japanese. On the other hand, customs such as eating bread and drinking beer are clearly of the modern era and clearly associated with things foreign. Here we see some of that ambiguity or "fuzzy" thinking for which the Japanese are justifiably famous. For example, tea drinking was imported from China but the practice of drinking unroasted, green tea, seems to have begun in Japan and is considered Japanese. Therefore even to this day, when it comes to "brown" tea (kocha), the Chinese types are prized. But when it comes to green tea (ocha), only Japanese tea will do. These days there has been a boom in bottled tea of both types. A myriad of brands of Chinese tea released over the past few years are promoted with ads featuring wispy maidens in idyllic landscapes, dancing to the strains of Chinese string instruments. A nostalgic image of an imagined lost purity, regained for the small price of a PET bottle full of tea. The image preferred for green tea however is modern, young and vibrant. Aside from the demographics, this is an often seen self-image which equates small Japan with the image of a child, (young, vital, looking to the future), and contrasts it with big America or China (old, spent, looking to the past).

Ever since it was introduced in the sixteenth century bread has been known by its Portuguese name pan. Unlike that other custom introduced by the Portuguese, Christianity, bread has never been seen as a threat to the powers that be and therefore never suppressed. At no time in history has either bread or komugi, as wheat is called, figured strongly in the politics or cultural identity of Japan, Yet today it has emerged a firm part of the lives of every man woman and child in the country. Oddly enough, this too may have been due to government policy. Simply, since the end of the war, bread and not rice has been a part of elementary school lunch designated and subsidized by the Ministry of Education. Be that as it may, bread and wheat have never been seen on a par with rice, nor viewed with either undue concern or unbridled nostalgia (except perhaps for anpan, that ubiquitous bread stuffed with sweet bean-paste, so near and dear to the heart of every Japanese).

One other plausible factor, other than its lack of Japanese identity, for the benign attitude toward wheat's import and sale may be that it is consumed invisibly, so to speak, disguised in the form of bread, beer and as a main ingredient in soy sauce and any number of other products. Some argument can be made for this idea when one examines the single area where foreign rice is making some inroads.

The precooked rice product category that includes all manner of freeze-dried, frozen and retort products has experienced exponential growth, in lock step with the growth of Japan's microwave and convenience store culture. While a strong stigma is still attached to foreign rice when it is served up naked and steaming in the typically unadorned style, tucked into a mix of sauces and seasonings the strong negative feelings engendered by anything that presumes to usurp Japanese culture, no longer applies.

Concern for protecting the domestic cultivation of rice more than any other product is all the more incongruous when one considers that so many other foods of great importance to the Japanese economy and cuisine are imported at far less than the 300 to 500 percent tariff imposed on rice, and easily accepted on the basis of quality and taste. The soybean from which both soy sauce and tofu bean curd are produced, is every bit as much a mainstay of the Japanese diet as rice itself. Yet the lion's share of soy is imported from the USA without a hint of stigma or a whiff of protectionist trade policy. Similarly tea, barely, corn and tobacco leaf. In fact, in terms of the government's index of food self-sufficiency only rice has been maintained at its' 100 or near 100 percent level, while wheat has maintained a level of around 10 percent self-sufficiency over the past twenty years, with soy never attaining more than a level of 5 percent. In addition, since import restrictions on beef have been reduced, beef self-sufficiency has halved from 72 percent in 1980, to 36 percent in 2001. Clearly, the argument against the import of rice has nothing to do with self-sufficiency and everything to do with culture and politics. However it is clear that the present course will lead to less, not more, self-sufficiency.

The best option may be to disconnect culture, which lives in the hearts and practices of the people, from the economics and politics that need to be tailored to support the people in their individually chosen way of life. What I am talking about here is simply that wheat and soy and other types of farming can replace a larger percentage of rice cultivation without greatly disrupting the way life of farmers and without altering the culture. After all, the objective is to provide food that people want at a reasonable price, without destroying domestic agriculture and country life. If this means changing crops, with government help, it is a far less painful alternative than higher prices or the present situation of failing farms and shrinking populations. Tariffs on rice can and should be lowered while simultaneously raising those on crops where self-sufficiency is particularly low or potential growth is greater. Rice can also become a part of school lunch and other programs like aid to the elderly and single parent families. Ultimately, no one can be forced to eat one product or another but they can be encouraged, through the introduction of new products and lower prices. Rice farmers could be given the exclusive right to buy inexpensive imported rice to blend and sell with their own product, provided they match each imported ton with 2 or 3 tons of homegrown product. This would help protect their livelihood and way of life plus give consumers a better price. There is no reason that the heritage of rice cultivation and the society it has fostered cannot be preserved in festivals, customs, and religious practices while other products are produced for a living. People living in the cities have been doing so for generations. Americans as well, for example, sing about "...amber waves of grain", but how many of us have actually seen a wheat field? In the end, bread will never replace rice in the hearts of the Japanese people, even if it does replace it in their stomachs.