SHONAI, Japan — This broad coastal plain near the Sea of Japan, blessed with abundant water and rich soil and checkered with rice paddies hued golden yellow in the early spring, is one of the ...

AGO BAY, Japan — For generations, a string of perfectly round, classic white pearls — the kind worn by fashion icons like Audrey Hepburn and Jacqueline Kennedy — has been the epitome of understated ...

JOETSU, Japan (Reuters) -For more than half a century, the Japanese government has encouraged its rice farmers to grow less of the crop so that prices of the national staple grain remained relatively ...

Shinjiro Koizumi, agriculture minister of Japan, eats a rice ball during his visit to a rice farm in Sugito, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. Shinjiro Koizumi, agriculture ...

A farmer harvests rice in a paddy field in Tambasasayama, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, on Aug. 28, 2024. Credit - Buddhika Weerasinghe—Bloomberg/Getty Images In Japan, the ruling government is weighing ...

(CNN) — Japan’s population is the oldest in the world, with a third aged over 65, and one in 10 aged over 80, due to a combination of low fertility rates and high life expectancy. This has a direct ...

Shinjiro Koizumi, agriculture minister of Japan, eats a rice ball during his visit to a rice farm in Sugito, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. Credit - Soichiro Koriyama—Getty ...

Whether it’s posting pictures of him eating gyudon (beef bowl) between meetings or holding rice balls at campaign stops, Shinjiro Koizumi has worked hard to portray himself as a regular Tokyoite. The ...