Tokyo
CNN
—
It’s eaten with almost every meal, used to make sushi, made into sweets, fermented into alcohol and offered to the spirits at religious ceremonies.
Rice is everywhere in the diet of Japan – there are at least six ways in Japanese to describe the grain, from unhusked to ready to eat. It’s so popular that McDonald’s there added a burger bun made of rice to its menu.
But being so reliant on the staple leaves the country – the world’s fourth-biggest economy – vulnerable to the slightest supply glitch.
In recent years, a combination of bad weather, heatwaves and the threats of typhoons and earthquakes have sparked bouts of…
