JAPAN

Rice Policy Defended: Japan defended its widely criticized rice policy as Cabinet members approved a report that concludes the country must remain self-sufficient in its staple food. “Efforts should be made to establish highly productive paddy-field agriculture, pursuant to a policy of maintaining domestic self-sufficiency in rice,” the annual agriculture report said. Japan’s trading partners have been pushing it to offer greater access to foreign companies and open its rice market to imports in the current Uruguay round of trade talks under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.